Archive for the ‘Homeschooling’ Category

Autumn Stained Glass Leaves

Friday, November 9th, 2012

 

 

 

 

 

My daughter and I created these fun autumn stained glass leaves! Here is the tutorial for how to make this simple yet beautiful craft:

Materials you will need:

  • black card stock paper
  • colorful tissue paper
  • scissors
  • tape
  • white school glue
  • gold glitter

How to Make Autumn Stained Glass Leaves

To make these autumn stained glass leaves, start with black card stock paper. Draw a maple leaf in pencil. (It is easier if you fold the paper in half so that the sides are symmetrical.) Poke your scissors through the center of the leaf, cutting out the inside.

On the back of the black card stock paper, tape a piece of tissue paper on all four sides. You can choose orange, red, yellow, brown, or green.

Turn the paper right-side up. With white school glue, draw the veins of the leaf. Then outline the leaf on the black edge of the card stock paper.

Shake gold glitter all over the leaf. it should completely cover the glue.

Pick up the paper and allow all the excess glitter to fall off. Your autumn stained glass leaves are finished. Allow them to dry before taping them to a window.

 

Grain Art

Tuesday, November 6th, 2012

grain-art

Grain art is a fun activity to do in the autumn. It has an interesting texture and reminds us of harvest time. I bought dry grains in as many colors as I could find at the grocery store in cheap sealed bags:

  • green dried peas
  • black beans
  • red kidney beans
  • white beans
  • yellow lentils

We started with black card stock paper as the backdrop. If you want, you can sketch a design in pencil first, filling in one area at a time with glue. Then you glue down each grain. It goes faster if you dump the grain on top of the paper, then lift the paper up. It looks neater and more orderly if you place each grain one by one, but this might be tedious for younger children. It depends what kind of look you want.

grain-art-3

You can do symmetrical patterns or a design representing an actual object. My daughter made a star in the center of her paper, spiraling outwards with alternate grains. One of my children chose to make a tree. Another son titled his grain art, “Green Blob with Asteroids.” My oldest son made a spiral ladder leading to nowhere. As you can see, everyone has freedom for their personalities to shine through this art activity!

grain-art-2

grain-art-4

Decorating Walking Sticks

Thursday, November 1st, 2012

decorating-walking-sticksDecorating walking sticks is a fun art activity, especially if your children enjoy nature hikes. Find some walking sticks in a forested area. You can paint the sticks whatever color you want and add embellishments like leather, feathers, twine, ribbon, leaves, and other fun items.

One of my sons painted his stick like a poisonous snake, with red, black, and gold, following the adage “red on yellow, kill a fellow.” He added gold ribbon to jazz up his walking stick.

Another son wanted camouflage, so he painted with two different shades of green, making blobs on the stick. This is easier to do if you paint the stick completely in one color of green, then let it dry. At that point, you can add blobs of another shade of green. This son tied some silk autumn leaves to the top of his walking stick.

My oldest son likes blues and grays, and he did a striped pattern, using leather embellishments along the way. He tied black feathers to the top of his stick.

My daughter loves pink, so she decorated her stick in a girly way. She tied pink and yellow feathers to the top, after having used these colors in her paint and ribbon. We attached most of the items with hot glue.

Watch the video demonstration to get more ideas for decorating walking sticks:

Pottery Wheel Video Controversial?

Monday, October 29th, 2012

With my Kid’s Pottery Wheel video getting over 16,000 views, you would think that people liked it. After all, I stated lots of helpful tips on how to successfully make pottery on a toy pottery wheel. But I’ve had lots of people hit “dislike”on the video because they hate toy pottery wheels in general. Hello, people. You are rating the video, not rating the topic in general. Who would have thought that I would get so many vicious remarks, some of which I had to delete? Who on earth would “dislike” some sweet children making pottery? And why cuss at me about it?

I’ve gotten pretty much an equal amount of likes and dislikes on my video, indicating that it’s a controversial issue. I agree with the people that say that toy pottery wheels are lousy. A lady e-mailed me a few days ago about what brand I recommended. I told her, “Since I recorded the pottery wheel video 2 years ago, I don’t own the pottery wheel any more, and I don’t know the brand. Sorry about that. In my opinion, all toy pottery wheels are the same.”

She e-mailed me back again, insisting that I tell her the brand. She said that all the reviews on toy pottery wheels were bad. I almost just copied and pasted my previous e-mail, since I had already told her that I didn’t know the brand. Instead, I just took a deep breath and wrote: “I agree that all toy pottery wheels are lousy. If the person using it is angry or impatient, they will not have success. You need to be gentle with it, and using the tips in the video, you can have success, even when you use a lousy toy pottery wheel. Like I said, in my opinion they are all the same. Most people can’t afford an extremely expensive real pottery wheel, so I show people how to use a lousy toy pottery wheel effectively.”

I’ve gotten a similar reaction to my YouTube video “A Typical Homeschool Day,” with people hitting “dislike” because they dislike homeschooling. At least the “likes” far outweigh the “dislikes”–32 “likes” and 4 “dislikes” out of almost 10,000 hits. I’ve gotten 51 comments, including an atheist who was angry with me that I teach my children the Bible. I answered him, and then he was just picking a fight and I was tired, so I asked my husband to deal with him.

At least in “Bible Costume in Five Minutes” (over 15,000 hits), only two people hated my Bible costume demonstration, while 41 people said they “liked” it. And nobody has said anything vicious about my Bible costume. Nobody is cussing at me over it. So that’s good.