Preschool Activities in a Bag

This is just a teaser...we have lots of new activities since participating in another Activities Exhange. This one involves sorting beads. Which reminds me that we just acquired some new buttons for scooping.

We're off for a family camping trip to Lake Ontario- our favorite camping locale. I'll see all you blogging buddies when I return on Sunday- with more details on the Preschool Activities in a Bag and camping photos of course. Dan already complained about packing our nature box complete with field guides, hand lenses, and nature journals. But we'll return with something fascinating to share. I'm just sure of it!

More Sewing

I've been working on getting a sewing camp going for R9 and some other girls. The place in town we wanted to do lessons with has more than a "nominal" fee. SUCH a bummer. So, our first day was Monday and R9 was set to finish a project from last fall.

First she had to cuff her sleeves- I forgot the cord to my machine so she got to use a fun Husqevarna machine with some cool features like "fix" which means the needle stays in place and stitches so you don't have to back stitch. R9 really is a natural with her machine skills.

She learned to set in a sleeve using some basting stitches, gathering it, and easing it in to the sleeve hole. It was slow work for a 9 yr old, but I think the results for her first time are pretty good. Her teacher, who is a fellow homeschooling mom who goes to our church, was very patient and very talented at getting her to understand the steps involved.

Isn't this a fun fleece? I'm looking forward to finishing up with the other sleeve. Then she just needs to put in a casing at the bottom hem.

I have an adult pattern for this same fleece. I think R9 and I could make a little collection of these!

4-H Results are In!

Congratulations to everyone! Blue and red ribbons all around for our 4-Hers. They are already scheming for next year's fair and now that I have all the criteria for the sewing judging, R9 can make some improvements.

R9 made this skirt using only her measurements and how long she wanted the skirt to be.

Her Felicity gown just missed being sent on to State Fair- all garments must have finished seams. Oh my Grandma! (she and R9 worked on this one last summer- F9's first foray into the world of machine sewing- by all reports she was a natural from the start)

The drawstring bag could have use some additional design- I think she'll have fun with creative design over the next year.

R9 made this for co-op last fall and chose fabric according to her liking. Apparently for the fair, it needs to match. ha. What you don't see is that the backing is a white fabric with constellations on it! You know of course that R9 does not care!

Her handsewn strawberry got points for creativity. She needs to work on tightening up her stitches!

Yay! E10's one entry earned him a red ribbon.

I-7's Cloverbud submission. He did not submit anything last year so this was exciting.

Not to be disappointed, R9's artwork also earned a red. The judge did not like the "unfinished moons". Sometimes art work is misunderstood- like here the moon was created because there was tape there during the painting. I guess we'll have to be more mindful of this sort of thing if our art projects are fair bound.

Dot Painters

I know I've mentioned my love of Biocolor paint before and my fondness of the Colorations paints from Discount School Supply in general. However, I had to bring it up again because well they are just so much fun!

Featured here are the bingo bottles. You can buy them full of the washable tempera paints or the biocolor paints. You can buy them empty and fill them with either of those paints or the liquid watercolor paints. Love them all!

These were ones I had bought filled with washable tempera paints that were quite old at this point. I had been meaning to wash them and out and refill them and topping them with new tops which you can also purchase. I finally did it!

My dishpan full of Biocolor Paints and the newly filled bingo bottles- the bottles make for an easy, mess free painting experience.

I can't mention these paints without showing off the fun stuff. You can mix fabric medium, shimmer, glitter with the paint to give it those properties. How fun is THAT? The BioPutty means that you mix the paint with that medium and it turns to a putty substance. Paint additives...does it get any better?

At our house we have a full compliment of BioColor paints which I bought in the large kit. BioColor paints are unique because they swirl and marbelize, but they do not blend. That makes for some fun stuff. I'd like to add the florescent colors to our collection.

We also have red, blue, yellow, black, and white in washable temperas so we can mix colors and make new colors, shades and hues.

Nim's Island

We started a CurrClick Live Class on Nim's Island this week. We've been looking forward to this unit for a while. Somehow I thought it was starting later than last week and I had some trouble getting a copy of the book. I could hardly believe it. With a copy safely in my hands, we have begun the fun!

We read the book for the first time back in the spring and since then have watched the movie which really was very good. Wendy Orr is the author of Arabella as well which has been one of our favorite FIAR titles of all time. Our absolute favorite is Night of the Moonjellies which we row every year about this time. You can bet we'll do some moonjelly work during our visit with Nim and her island.

The live class is designed so that you can participate in a forum (if you choose) and work at your own pace by watching the videos of the teacher showing the activities and projects and how to put the notebook together. Here they are watching how to build a wind vane to determine wind direction. This ties in with our interest in learning more about weather and weather forecasting.

After we watched the video, we decorated the front cover of our Island Log. I chose a dot painting medium. Mine is at the bottom. Tip: whenever art is pulled out it's a good idea to make your own. Creative energy spent is never wasted friends!

The class assignments for each week only get posted one at a time on a weekly basis. While we wait, we'll take the map of Nim's Island found in the book to make our own island. Salt dough is always a favorite, but someone might want to make a diorama of the island. We'll see what moves us. We'll be taking a break twice during the unit for camping trips. This one might take a while. It is summer after all.

Field Trip: Cornell Lab of Ornithology

We've been talking about going for a while now, but the weather has just not been very cooperative. Every time you think you can go out, it starts to rain again! Thursday we finally made it after having the first part of the trip to have lunch with Dan on campus. The kids also got a bus ride to the Dairy Bar complete with a demo of the wheelchair lift.

Once inside the visitor's center, we had fun watching this great blue heron land. I've never been so close to one. The landing was quite something.

Of course we wanted to take a hike around Sapsucker Woods. We had several choices and they ultimately chose the one they took with my parents last fall.

I'm not sure this section of the trail is always so submerged. We've had a ton of rain this season.

Check out the tadpole. He's a giant! We enjoyed hearing the bullfrogs as we walked around the pond. J4 is particularly taken with them and we've been reading a lot in our Audubon Society field guide on amphibians.

lilypads with flowers...

This bird was fun to see and hear, but we aren't sure what he is.

ants on logs...J4 is all about what's under logs too.

The older kids were having fun reading the map to determine which way to go at every fork in the trail.

Red-winged blackbird...the sounds of spring and summer. This one was not happy with us. His nest must be nearby.

Look in the center at our turtle. This was a bonus find at the end of the walk.

If you are ever nearby, you need to stop in and see the Lab of O. Chances are if your family is into birds at all you have come across something from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. They are right up there with the Audubon Society in terms of birding resources. The kids want to go again soon and take another hike. I'm looking forward to it!

Heart of the Matter Online Magazine

Some of you may have noticed my new button under my profile that says Heart of the Matter Contributor...

Some time after my first article there, I was asked to be a regular contributor! I'm so excited to be a part of the team over there and today my first "regular" contribution is up.

This one you'll recognize if you are a regular reader here at Blog, She Wrote, but I won't always "double post".

This one is on Adventure Boxes.