Some of Our Work - Practical Life and Art Activities

This week, Big Bro has mostly been working on his science project for his co-op class but today, both boys decided that they felt like doing some practical life work, as well as some art work.

Big Bro was very excited that the art pencils his grandmother, G, let him borrow are actually watercolor ink pencils...

So, he decided to try to make the design on the tin box that showed a pagoda and a cherry blossom tree. He drew the design with the ink pencil in one hand and then, went over it with a Q-Tip to make it look like a watercolor painting.

Big Bro added mountains in the background, and then, decided to add people and some animals to the picture as well. He was uncertain if he wanted to change the pencil drawings of the people and animals by adding water to the drawing on those areas. He decided that he wanted to think about it and so he put his art project aside and decided to "dig" into something else...

Little Bro decided to do some art work.
First, he took G's watercolor ink pencils and painted some lines.

Then, he decided to take some scissors and he cut up his design into pieces. Then, he took a hole puncher and punched out little holes to make "confetti".

Little Bro  then glued the confetti on his paper, along with the hole punched pieces of paper.
He loved doing this work and was very immersed in it for much of the morning.

Since Big Bro decided to hold off on finishing changing his drawing into a watercolor, he decided that it was a good time to go water his butterfly container garden.
We had planted the seeds a few weeks ago and they have started to sprout so the boys are now enjoying taking care of their little container gardens.

Big Bro watered his garden and then, Little Bro came out and tended his garden.

Then, the boys decided that it was so much fun to be outside that they decided to use their kitchen area.
The boys got water from our kitchen sink and filled up the sink in their play kitchen sink.
They decided that the play kitchen sink should be for washing, as it has the smaller space to wash. Then, they got out a plastic mixing bowl that happens to double as their rinsing sink. They then washed, rinsed and towel dried the dishes.

Big Bro then decided to get creative and stacked the dishes into a design.

He said that he thought they would continue to air dry if they were stacked this way...perhaps I should buy them a mini dish drying rack?

Saw a neat one on the Montessori Services website and am thinking of getting it for the boys.

If anyone reads this and they have one like this one, or something similar, would love to hear from you about if your children really use it much, etc.

Also, if anyone else has their children's kitchen area set outside or even just out of the classroom area...how is that working for you?

Our kitchen area is working well, except that since it gets damp out there when we have rain, some of the metal items tend to rust.

When we have big storms, I have to go out there and remove the metal and glass items, as the winds can be strong enough to blow these down from the storage shelf.

I have actually started having them use more plastic items out on our lanai in their kitchen area and as it just seems a little more practical.when the weather is beautiful like today, they had a blast having the metal and glass items outside, as well as the plastic ones.

One other exciting bit of news...I won a contest over at Tuckers Take Tennessee for some free penguin downloads made by Honey at Sunflower Schoolhouse! Yippie! Was fun to feel lucky!

Our printer isn't connected right at the moment, but when it is again soon, I will have to print out the pages and share some photos of Little Bro working with these, as he loves penguins and I am sure that he will want to do these activities for his work.