Amazing Geography & Art Project to Discuss Landforms! Perfect for Families or Classrooms!

Do you and your children like learning about world geography and art? 

Are you looking for a neat long term project related to landforms for either your home or classroom?

Well, today's post has some great ideas for you if you are doing just that!

Our family has been exploring landforms in the scope of homeschooling.
We are always adding to our learning by integrating additional projects into our geography studies.
Since the boys love art projects, we have been adding more art into our day-to-day, based on the boys' interests as well as current topics we are studying.

For any of you discussing landforms with your children, here is an awesome art & geography project courtesy of Crayola that highlights landforms:

Source: crayola.com via Colleen on Pinterest

What is fun is that Crayola has a lesson plan that is all mapped out so if you are a parent and want to do this as a family weekend project, or if you are a homeschool family who would like to do this as part of the homeschool week, or if you are in the classroom as a teacher or guide, you can take the lesson plan that they give and tweak it for your needs while your children make a fabulous display that could work well as a wall hanging or bulletin board. The lesson lays out all of the supplies you would need to make this project happen, although you could easily switch up the art supplies depending on what you have in your home or classroom...

Disney FamilyFun also has a great felt landscape banner project that would work very well with little ones. What is nice about the Disney FamilyFun project is that it has printable pages of the felt pieces that you would need to make, so that a child can use these as templates to cut out their felt pieces.
 Also neat is that in addition to just having the landscape, the banner also features some of the animals and plants from that biome:

Source: familyfun.go.com via Colleen on Pinterest

The shapes and the concept of the Disney FamilyFun banner look a little more simplistic than the one from Crayola. Might even be neat to integrate the two projects from both Crayola and Disney FamilyFun into one big project!


Our family plan is to make this and tweak the materials a bit, instead of paper, we intend to use felt.
We are big fans of felt here! Think that most of the paper pieces for this project could easily be made with felt instead of paper.

As far as background materials to cover the concepts of landforms, we have some wonderful materials from Laughing Star Montessori that have helped to lay a solid foundation for the boys.
From handwriting materials to three and four part card sets, we have been so happy with their materials. We are very blessed to have a wonderful relationship with Laughing Star Montessori.
Every Laughing Star Montessori material we have either been given to review or we have purchased has been an instant favorite with the boys!
Susan, owner of Laughing Star Montessori,  has made such wonderful materials for children in early elementary, ages 3-6, as well as children in elementary, ages 6-9.

If you are a new Montessori guide, you should consider building all of your card materials around what Susan has to offer and purchasing the lovely materials from her for your classroom needs.
The laminated cards Susan has are simply amazing! They are unmatched in the Montessori materials industry! They would last you and your students a lifetime, as they are so durable.

What makes Susan's materials stand out from the rest is that she gets it that non-Montessori trained folks also might want to incorporate Montessori-inspired learning into their day-to-day, whether they are homeschool parents, parents of a child attending a traditional school, or a classroom teachers in a traditional school.
Laughing Star Montessori card materials come with a wonderful sheet that explains how to present these cards, as well as the actual idea for the lesson and for lesson extensions.
If you are thinking that you would like to explore how to integrate a Montessori approach into your home or traditional classroom but are not sure of where to start, using her lovely materials will be an excellent introduction to what can be possible with Montessori-inspired learning.
Her cards give such wonderful background information, along with fabulous photos of the images for each card.

My sons simply love using materials made by Laughing Star Montessori!

For those of you, who like our family, might be studying landforms, here are some terrific sets from Laughing Star Montessori to get you started:

World Land & Water Set - Elementary*
(*There is also an Early Elementary version of this work for little ones):

Source: laughingstarmontessori.com via Colleen on Pinterest

Here is a super set for Cave Formations for Elementary:

Source: laughingstarmontessori.com via Colleen on Pinterest

We have the Cave Formations Set and just love it!
It is one of Big Bro's favorite works!

Here is Big Bro enjoying exploring Cave Formations!  So cool to learn about caves and caverns!!!

Laughing Star Montessori also has a great handwriting series. The Beautiful Handwriting Series: World Geography Masters is perfect for the study of landforms! We have this book and it is great!
You can get it in cursive, print, or d'Nealian. Here is a photo of our cover of this book:

The Laughing Star Montessori Beautiful Handwriting Geography Masters helps to give a young child a solid grasp of geography vocabulary. We have this book and use it pretty regularly.

Having excellent card materials and handwriting materials will be a solid way to get your children the background information that they need to get landforms, although it could work to do the art project and then, drive home what has been created with Montessori-inspired shelf work based on the card and handwriting materials.

You could either make the landforms art project first and then, explore the Montessori-inspired cards or you could do what our family is doing: use the Montessori card sets first and then, make the landforms banner...

Either way would work...just have to do what works best for you and your children...

Well, hope that this will inspire you and your children to want to do a cool long term project to drive home the concept of landforms.

We will probably do bits and pieces of our felt landforms project over the course of the year, but from time to time, will upload some photos of our work in progress.Will probably add the photos to my Pinterest Felt Projects Pinboard.

If you have not joined Pinterest yet, you should! It is awesome!!!

Do your children enjoy integrating art into their daily learning?

How has it worked for you to integrate geography and art? 

If you have done any neat projects related to landforms or geography in general and you would like to share, please leave a link in the comments section of this post!

Speaking of hands-on learning and family fun, have you checked out our family's entry in the DIY Crash Me Please contest???

Hope that you will take a few minutes to see our entry and to please leave a comment. We are hoping that DIY will select us to make over our back yard and lanai into an amazing outdoor classroom and play area...we want to go from Snake Pit to Sanctuary!!! Please pop by and tell us what you think of the boys' ideas for an outdoor classroom and play area!

Full Disclosure: 
As a family, we review materials for Laughing Star Montessori, in addition to being a paying customer of the business. Opinions expressed in this post are my own honest opinion of the materials and the projects mentioned in the post. Was not expressly asked to highlight Laughing Star Montessori, Crayola, Disney FamilyFun, Pinterest, or DIY but am happy to do so!

Awesome, Artsy, & Active Fun: Structures Project!

When you read my post, you are not going to see a nice art project that you can knock out in a few hours, a day, or even a weekend...this most likely will be an ongoing project that you start and that morphs into something new every few days, once you have the essential project components ready to go...
This is an awesome art project about structures. It involves practical life - sewing, painting, dying fabric, woodworking, and construction. Hopefully, you and your family will enjoy the process of creating as much as they do making the product, but even that can change as your children see fit...
The coolest thing is that the end product is very open ended so the boys can use it and rebuild it again and again into really any sort of structure they wish to create.

Our family structure project started after Thanksgiving of this year and has pretty much carried on in one way or another since then...
We had seen an awesome exhibit all about structure called Skyline at
The Chicago Children's Museum.

What a wonderful museum!

You can find the Chicago Children's Museum on Twitter too!
We were so inspired!
The boys had an absolute blast and did not want to leave!!!

Here are some photos of the boys playing at The Chicago Children's Museum Skyline exhibit:

The boys just loved this exhibit so much, so we set out to make our own version of it at our home.
Dear Hubby and the boys selected the wood, the fabric, and the tools...

Tip: You can usually find child sized tools at local hardware stores. 

We found and purchased our tools at Lowes.  
Before your child uses the tool, check to see that it fits properly in their hands and is safe and in good working order.

Dear Hubby and the boys worked on creating the wooden building pieces...with Dear Hubby doing most of the labor intensive drilling of the holes and the sanding.
Tip: Always have your child wear goggles when doing woodworking projects. Both boys and Dear Hubby wore them while doing the woodworking, cutting, drilling, and sanding for this project.
Now originally, we thought it would be a nice present for Christmas but it has morphed into an ongoing project and now, the boys help with doing some drilling, sanding, and constructing of the structures.
We all painted the muslin panels to be the "walls for this project".
We did the painting outside on our driveway and used Kool-Aid as the dye.
Tip: Kool-Aid works great as fabric dye!
If you are doing a project that requires dye and you wish to give your children a multi-sensory experience, powdered Kool-Aid packets added to plain water work great!!! Plus, it makes your fabric smell nice as you work! 


After working on the wall panels and the beams, the boys were then able to make all kinds of structures, but their favorite seems to be a Vet Clinic and Grooming Station:
Here is the Vet Clinic without the boys inside, so that you can see a bit more of the structure, plus then, a photo of the boys working with one of their friends to build a wall...the structure changes each time they put it together...so it is a very open ended play space...

 

 Well, we put also put a little slide show together showing the boys using the structure as a Vet Clinic and Grooming Station.
Tip: You can do add-ons to the structures, such as pulleys, gears, etc. We added a simple pulley system to ours. You can see it in the slide show clip...
So without further ado...

 The stuffed animals were presents from our friends at Melissa & Doug!
Here is a link in case you would like a precious pup for one of your little ones.
They have several breeds of doggies, plus a neat Vet Role play outfit like the one Little Bro is wearing. The boys adore their pups!
Little Bro named his doggie New York (it is a Yorkie).
Big Bro named his doggie Jack, as it is a Jack Russell Terrier.
Their poor little pups always seem to be in need of casts and surgeries, as well as grooming and check ups. The boys are very happy to provide veterinary and grooming care to their canine pals.

Here is a little tip, for those with children who like to put pretend casts on stuffed animals, dolls, or each other:

Mesh shelf liner works great as a cast for role play!
But a pack of the white and cut into strips. Then, show your child how to wrap and then tuck the liner around the patient. It is breathable, so you don't have to worry if they put it on each other...it is easy, as it kind of clings onto itself when you wrap and fold it. You can see the boys using this liner as casts in the slide show...

Well, hope that you will enjoy this post...has lots of arts and crafts elements to it, just not a do-in-a-day project...but if you have little ones who love to do woodworking, painting, and building, plus creative playing, this might be a fun one for your family to try too!

We have had a blast!

Thanks to Bern at Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas and her friends for setting up the neat Sunday Showcase Link-ups. I have included a little write up and links to these lovely blogs in my right side bar under the Sunday Showcase Button...I look forward to getting to know some new bloggers and to see their cool ideas for arts and crafts. How fun!
Plus, if you like this post, please feel free to RT on Twitter or to link to Facebook.

Disclaimer: I was not asked to do any marketing or review of any of the above mentioned places or companies. All opinions are my own. I did choose to provide links though, along with tips, in case anyone else wants to try to do a structures project with their family. 

Reggio Emilia Wednesday: Glitter Glue Fun!

We have been busy getting back into the swing of things here in the Sunshine State.
The boys have been working on a variety of new Montessori inspired works, as well as a neat, long term, Reggio Emilia inspired project on indigenous peoples of North and Central America.
But things are still a work in progress so there is not much to show in the way of photos just yet.

Tonight, after dinner, we needed a fun little sort of art project to get them to settle down and unwind a bit. They had been having a blast chasing each other around with flashlights but in the process, they both started to wheeze and cough...so I quickly tried to get them to come up with something that would require sitting and taking it easy at the kitchen table. They are still not 100% better and as soon as they get wound up and start chasing each other, you can really hear both of them wheezing.

So, when given a choice of something to do at the table to wind down, the boys ended up opting to do an art project.

This one was very easy to set up and to have fun in a short amount of time...
Here is an overview of the Glittery Fun Project:

Materials needed:
Paper
A variety of glitter paint pens and glitter glues placed into a basket
Smocks
Wet paper towels or wipes, in case any of the glitter gets onto the table top or hands.
Optional: Additional items, such as self inking stamps, stickers, etc. 

Directions:
Children should put on their own smocks.
Each child should then take a paper or two for themselves and should then select the glitter paints and glitter glue pens they wish to use.
They should squirt their glittery designs onto the paper.
They can choose to either leave the designs as is or else, they can layer a second sheet on top of the first to do a resist.
If they choose, they may want to add other fun items to the paper.
The key if you wish to make this more of a Reggio Emilia project is to try to observe what they say and do as they are working...to take some notes and to record what they have to say about the process and the products that they create.
My sons both had fun mixing the colors and discussing how the glitter shined under the light of our kitchen chandelier.
They made several comments about their creations...
I just worked on being an observer tonight and sat back as they playfully designed their works.

Tonight, Little Bro decided to add some robot stamps to his glittery picture. It was refreshing to see that he was willing to add another element to his art without worrying about whether or not the robot stamps and the glitter glue should be mixed in an art project.

Big Bro chose to instead make two glittery pictures using the resist method and then, he made separate stamper pictures with the robot stamps after completing his glittery ones.
Big Bro has more of an idea that things should serve distinct purposes and is not as comfortable with mixing mediums for his art. If he is doing a drawing, then he does not want to add paints or glue to the work. If he is working with glitter pens and paints, adding robot stamps is not a logical thing to be added, so he did both, but kept them totally separate.
The key as an adult in this environment is to try to be neutral...to not make either child feel as if they have to choose to either mix mediums or else keep things separate.

No right ways or wrong ways, just different ways to have fun doing art.

The focus is on them understanding their own art, not for them to do what they perceive an adult wants them to do...key tenets for both Montessori and Malaguzzi / Reggio Emilia.

 All in all, a super fun, easy project to pull out anytime, but especially nice if you need something that is low maintenance and encourages them to sit and relax as they create.

What Reggio Emilia inspired projects have you been up to lately?

Please feel free to share your links to your posts in the comments section. Can't wait to read through your posts and see what others are doing!