Crafts from Asia

Peter is exploring Asia for his history lessons this month. While looking for some fun projects to go with the study I found these crafts. I just had to share them with you all. Enjoy!


See Chinese Paper Yo Yo and 1000's of others - or share your own on Cut Out + Keep

Madeline and A Fit of Temper

Today was a harrowing day!

Tink refused to study.

We were all tired.

It rained.

Kids tempers were short.

Mamas patience was short.

It was just not a good day.

After a morning that consisted of a huge meltdown for Tink I gave up at noon and decided we would just work on Abe Lincolns cabin the rest of the afternoon. Tink was dying to paint the thing so I let the kids have at it. They had a lesson in mixing colors since we didn't have any brown tempera paints. They were amazed to see brown appear after mixing red and yellow. Yesterday Tink colored a pic of Abe Lincoln online. She then cut it out and posted it by her desk. She told me she wants to do research on him on the internet so I'm going to let her. She knows how, having done lots of that stuff in the public school. So she wants to study Abe? I'll let her. Nevermind that she always calls him George Washington!!! Eh, Abe, George, who cares. She doesn't, that's for sure. At least she knows he's a president.
Heres the finished cabin. Tink about couldn't handle it that the entire cabin was being painted brown and green so she painted the top of the chimney yellow much to the aggravation of Peter.

Now do you see this lovely book on Madeline?! I was so excited when I found a book at Exodus with study pages to go with a bunch of different children's stories. I promptly went to the library and checked out the books needed for the worksheets. If you're not familiar with Madeline take note of the fact that there is hardly any reading to do on any given page. Well that didn't make Tink any difference. This story was what her meltdown was all about. She didn't want to read Madeline.

Madeline is a stupid little girl. Okay, fine I'll read it this time but then I never want to see her face again. I hate Madeline. Mama can I go push my head into a pillow. It makes it feel better. I never never want to see a picture of Madeline again. Take that awful book away from me. I hate, hate, hate Madeline. She's terrible. That's why they quit showing her on TV. She's ugly. I mean who knew? Did you? No, I didn't either.

I cannot tell you everything that naughty little girl said because she went on like this for well over an hour. I couldn't get her to sit still for nothing. I read her all her stories into cassette tapes. She then listens to them and tries to read it herself. When she set down to listen to the tape she plugged her ears and screamed. She stomped her feet. She cried that Peter was making too much noise and her ears rang. She cried that her head was pounding. She cried because Madeline was such a stupid girl. Stupid, stupid, stupid and Mrs Clavel has a stupid name.


I left her alone in the living room to listen to the tape and I have to say that some of the things she was saying almost had me chuckling. You guys I cant tell you how major the meltdown was!! Often she'd get up and go bang her head into a pillow or rock incessantly. I had no idea that she hated Madeline. I guess I'll never try that one again!! Her behavior was so bad that by the time I really figured out that she was far gone into a sensory world of her own I no longer felt that I could really back down without giving her the idea that she could throw fits and I'd change the subject matter.

After much temper she finally settled in and listened to the tape. She then threw another mini fit because she couldn't do the crossword puzzle without looking in the book to see how the words were spelled. She finally declared that she would look in the book but then this was the last time she ever wanted to see the book or Madelines face!

The papers you see here took her over an hour to do. The entire reading of the story and the sheet work took two solid hours. I dont understnd it. I thought this would be so fun. I dare not even imagine what I would have done if I could have worked on stuff like this when I was a kid. I mean, this is exciting. Look at these papers. It's just too cool.

This pic here she was suppose to draw the vines covering the house. Well you can see her version of vines. I'm pleased though that she added the smoke in the chimney.And do you see this pic of the Christmas wreath? Peter took this pic and blurred it but its the only one I have since I actually burned it in the baking. I got the bright idea to bake it in the little toaster oven. Not a good move. The rack is too close to the top of the oven and I burned the sculpey wreath I worked so hard on. Yes, you read that right. I made this wreath, not the kids but I!I had so much fun rolling the clay to make the candy canes. They turned out gorgeous; not that you can tell or anything. Poor hubby took one look at it and said, "Honey I really think you need to get out more. Why don't you go take a class at the craft store or something." Bwahahahahaha, bless his dear heart but he knows not what he asks because I will do just that!!

It's been a long day.

Things to do with playdough

Again today I'm taking part in Works For Me Wednesday. The kids have spent many hours playing with playdoh this week. Last week I checked a book out of the library entitled Art Projects. It's all about working with playdoh and has many neat ideas!

The Barbie below is dressed in playdoh. The book has hat ideas and accessory ideas for the doll too.

And this one is my all time favorite in the book. I have to admit that I made this one. But look! Doesn't it really look like a box of chocolates? Well it's not. It's playdoh candy!! I mean this one really gets my circuits buzzing. Would you just feast your eyes on that sweet candy people!

This is one of Peters car. It seems to have a bit of a problem but that's the cool thing about playdoh. You can wad it all up and start over again. It's still a cool idea though to accessorize toy cars with playdoh art.

This one is just a bunch of shapes the kids cut out using my cookie cutters. Play doh art is fun and oh so cheap. I made this playdoh myself.


Here is the recipe:
1 T oil
1 T cream of tartar
1/2 cup of salt
1 cup of flour
1 cup of water

Heat on low till it forms a ball. Stir constantly. Add coloring when its done.

Now go make some playdoh and have fun this afternoon!

Pearler Bead Art

Here's a recap of this past week. These first two pictures are of our Nature walk on Friday. We never did get a bug and Tink refused to use leaves or flowers for her nature notebook so the notebook remains blank while Tink goes in search of the perfect bug. There is no reasoning with her. She has this idea that she wants a bug and nothing less will do. The problem is that she's afraid of every bug she sees so we may never actually get a real live specimen to study. We may have to go with pictures of bugs we see. Anyway here are the kids on our walk. They loved this.




Here we are playing basketball at recess. Yes, I even shot a few baskets.



These are some sun catchers the kids painted in craft time.



And here is a creation Peter made out of Sculpey and mama forgot it on the oven so it baked about three hours. Naughty mama. Peters very proud of this nest and it's four eggs.



And these are made with Perler beads. It's easy to tell which ones Peter made. His are the ones that are made of all colors. Tinks have a little more thought put into them! Tink made a dolphin too but her mother didn't iron it quite right and we lost the tail. I think the kids need a more crafty mother. She really is no good at this stuff! Crafts are not her specialty to be sure.

Preserving Your Childrens Art

As a part of WFMW I will explain my preservation system. Uh, that would be preservation of papers not my sanity. Although come to think of it my sanity really is involved because I cannot stand papers and things lying all over and in a mess. To combat this dilemma I bought the two scrapbooks on the left for Tink and Peter. In them I am going to put all the cards they have received from their grandparents and which now reside in a shoebox. Along with that I'm putting all the homemade little cards and notes they've given me over the past years. Then when they're all grown up they can take this notebook with them and have a copy of all their little sayings and cards.

I noticed last year that tons of papers were going into our recycle and most of them consisted of the kids school papers. So this year I purchased these three ring binders and I'm putting the kids finished worksheets into them. I cannot tell you how motivating it is for them to finish their page so they can punch the holes in it and put it in their notebook. They love it. Then every evening they bring their notebooks to Dad and show him all their stuff. It's so cute.This system also helps me remember exactly what we've studied and it's an easy way to see the improvements made over the year in handwriting, working sums, etc.


This large notebook contains all of Peters artwork in preschool. The teacher charged a photo fee at the beginning of the year and then took photos of the kids with their art projects. She also tried to keep projects on a 12x12 page so the parents could scrapbook the art work. This system I cant recommend enough! When the art and pictures came home I just slipped them into a sleeve and then later when I had time I glued everything in place. Peter loves looking at his notebook. I just wish I would have done this with Tinks stuff. She had the same teacher but I didn't save all the art. I do have the pictures and I plan on scrapbooking them but it's not quite as exciting as having the artwork with it.

I've blogged for three years now. I started September of 2003. I have the first 2 years of my blog printed out on paper. I'm putting each page into a plastic sleeve and putting the blog into a three ring binders to save as a diary. I get the sleeves in bulk so they only cost about 4 cents each instead of the 50 cents piece at places like Walmart. Now I need to print out this past years entries.

I'm also putting all the stories that I print out from ambleside into notebooks. Many of the classics have been typed out by hand by homeschooling moms. So when the curriculum calls for a certain book there's a good chance you'll find it online. I print out the chapters I need and have a three ring binder for each book. I slip the papers in the sleeves and when we're done we'll have printed books of some very hard-to-find children's literature!

Having everything in albums helps keep things organized and neat. It's a good thing.