Incredible Crafty Paper

How's this for a handicraft?  This entire video, sounds and all, was created with paper.  What incredible creations could your children dream up with paper today?  Inspire them!



The Human Body (stop-motion!) from kellianderson on Vimeo.

For those less interested in innards and guts, perhaps quilling would be more to their liking?




Don't think that simple paper and glue isn't enough to capture your child's imagination on a rainy winter afternoon.  Get crafting!

Odds and Ends Regarding The Book House

I have been collecting My Book House books for a long time. I have need of just ONE more to have the complete set!  If anyone has a spare Volume 1 with a light green cover laying around, please let me know.  I looked through my new-to-me Volume 2 last night, just randomly reading bits and enjoying the pictures.

I so love the colors of vintage books. You just don't get them with reproductions!  Speaking of reproductions, Dover is reprinting My Book House. I have seen that the first two volumes are published and ready for purchase. Volume One Volume Two If you can't get the originals, these seem to be a suitable substitute.  I haven't seen them in real life to compare the quality of the illustrations, though.  Do use Amazon's "Look Inside" feature in the links above. They have nice samples available.

The First Drawing

My daughter EmBlem received a large Derwent drawing set for Christmas. It had charcoals, among other mediums. She also got some new sketchbooks. Here's the picture she drew Christmas afternoon using the charcoals. Don't you just want to throw out a blanket and sun yourself on that beach?

She's excited about all the new things she can draw now that she has the proper tools. Drawspace, here she comes!

Author-Illustrator Lois Lenski

I have been asked to expound on why I collect Lois Lenski's books. How to express why I like her work? Well, who could resist art like this?

Her "Small Family" series is cute and the stories are short. They are just right to read to toddlers. Her illustrations capture a folksy simplicity that I adore.

I think her historical books are a great way to teach. I can set a child down with one of her books and not have to worry about anything inappropriate. They are very accurate in their details. "Puritan Adventure" was one of, if not the very first Lois Lenski books I purchased. I have read it to every one of my children when they were studying that time period. "Indian Captive" is another one that I have read several times. It also enthralled one of my daughters. She read it, then almost every other 'child-taken-captive-by-Indians" book I had on the shelves.

I so appreciate that for her American Regional and the Roundabout America series she traveled to the places she wrote about and actually lived with local families. Their real-life experiences, as a whole, are the books, with names changed. I had only a few until recently and had read only a couple. I am looking forward to becoming more familiar with this series during the upcoming winter. Here's a list of all of Lenski's books by series.



You can learn much more about Lois in her autobiography: "Journey Into Childhood". She wrote it at the request of librarians and teachers.

As an aside, I came across this neat story while reading up about Ms. Lenski: "Sometimes It Pays To Ask The Right Questions."



Here's another list of all the books she wrote and/or illustrated, with some cover images included: Lois Lenski's Books and another, easier to print version, is here.

Wee Gillis: A Mini Unit

We began this study after reading "Wee Gillis". I am so fond of Robert Lawson's illustrations! The Little Lambies: Troubles, Missy and Jack all listened and learned quite a bit about Scotland just from one reading.

We looked up the location of Scotland compared to our location in California and Israel. We always address geographical locations from these two points. We named the seven continents and they deduced which continents Scotland is located on. We spoke of what countries are to the north, south, east and west of Scotland.

We Google-traveled a road or two and looked around on street view. How green it is! Of course it's because it rains so much.



We looked at Loch Ness and discussed the Monster. I read to them a few appropriate pages of Jaws, Claws and Dinosaurs by William Gibbons and Kent Hovind.

We listened to bagpipe music. We listened to other traditional Scottish songs, too.

We learned about haggis. The children decided they did not want a sample of that!



We looked at pictures of long-haired cows and Scottish stags.

The Flag of Scotland was built out of Legos (thanks to Renee for the idea!).

We spoke about kilts and why men wear them. We discussed plaid and tartans and their meaning. This craft seemed appropriate.

I made a coloring page out of this image of Wee Gillis.



We practiced blowing balloons up in one breath to show how very strong Gillis' lungs must have been!

This was a fun little study. I think the Little Lambies learned a lot!

Dragonfly Mini Unit

My little Lambies are learning about dragonflies right now. It all started with a chapter we read in "Among the Pond People" by Clara Dillingham Pierson. I always bring up images of the animals we are reading about so the children can imagine the story better. The Snapping Turtle was illustrated with this picture:



The Dragonfly Children were illustrated thusly:



I printed these for the Littles to color: Dragonfly Lifecycle and Dragonfly and the older children (just those who wanted to participate) drew them using this tutorial: Draw a Dragonfly.

Eyewitness Insects has a beautifully photographed series of an emerging damselfly. A dragonfly's emergence is very similar. My copy of this book is older and has a different picture on the cover than the one I linked to. It seems that the insides are the same though.

I read "Sir Small and the Dragonfly" to Missy and Troubles. They got a laugh out of it.

Best of all, I found a perfectly undamaged deceased dragonfly while I was walking last week, so I had a wonderful specimen to show them. They got to see the compound eyes close up, see the intricate veining in the wings and observe the many jointed legs. We could not pry open the mandibles, but they did get a close look. We used magnifying glasses and also the microscope. It was a good day of science for the Littles.

The Black Widow

My friend Ginger over at Frugal Freeda mentioned this course. DrawSpace.com is a full art course for the beginning student through the advanced level. My eldest daughter is SO happy with this find! She loves to draw, and now Freeda just supplied an elective credit for her 9th grade year.

EmBlem looked over the course and assigned herself the Intermediate designation. She did read a few tips and hints in the beginners lessons that were helpful. She chose to begin with a Black Widow Drawing, since we have so many of the dears around here. Here's the Lesson. Here's a picture of her finished piece.

We'll be shopping for the more specialized pencils that are called for in the lessons this weekend. She did this with a plain old 2B Ticonderoga (the best writing pencils in the world, by the way) on basic copy paper bought from Costco. Didn't she do a marvelous job?