Think! Slippery Silverware

Think! challenge, Week 23: Slippery Silverware. Make a tower as tall as possible using 8 forks, 8 knives and 8 spoons.

My fine young second-grade gent had a blast with this one. He's starting to get into the rhythm of the Think! challenges. If at first you don't succeed, try....


Try....


Try again.

He got frustrated because his more ambitious attempts resulted in crashing silverware. It made a great clashing noise, but after a couple crashes it just wasn't as fun any more, so he went for a shorter but more stable log-cabin-style design. Once he happened on the idea, he persevered even when the rounded spoons refused to cooperate, and discovered that he could further stabilize his structure by adding diagonal supports. The final tower:

We've only got so much silverware, so while eldest fine young gent built, his brothers occupied themselves, doing math:

And making silly faces at Mom.
Later, the two of them created elaborate single-layer silverware sculptures like this one:

Today, we created floating fish out of trash, for Think!, Week 24. Pictures and more to come.

Adopt a word today!

starrify: v., to decorate with stars

blateration: n., blabber; chatter

frutescent: adj., having or approaching the habit or appearance of a shrub

http://www.savethewords.org/

Looking to the future

Imagine my confusion when the eldest fine young gent announced on the way to piano lesson, "When we grow up, we're going to be minors."

???

"We're going to get jewels and stuff out of the earth."

Aha. Miners.

They've got a plan. They'll live in a cabin on a mountain and mine. They'll sell all of their diamonds and jewels to get money, and the gold they'll sell for free to the poor people. Then when they run out of money, they'll just go back to their mine and get more jewels.

They won't give any money to the rich people, because the rich people are greedy and bad and only want more money. This is the point where I finally stepped in, a bit gingerly: "Are all rich people greedy, do you think? If it's not fair to think badly of someone who has no money, maybe it's not fair to think badly of someone with lots of money. What if we just judge if people are greedy and bad if they act greedy and bad?"

Silence. Well, crumb, I think. I killed the dream.

Then, "Oh. Well, maybe we could give the money to the good rich people so that they can share and help the poor people too, and then they can be good."

Which led to a discussion that filled the rest of the journey to piano and afterward too, about resources and charitable foundations and sharing, and how we're rich in comparison to most of the world, and our favorite gems.

I know they'll figure out soon enough that it's not that easy, that fabulous fairy-tale caves filled with jewels and heaps of gold don't really exist on this earth. For now I'm just charmed that the plan is to keep some and share some. That's a worthy plan for the future.

Wordless Wednesday

Catching up with Think!: Coins

Think! challenge, Week 22: Clever Coin Stacking. Using 100 coins, build the widest possible structure that stands at least 1 inch tall, with as few coins as possible touching the table.

"I have to use all of the coins?" In a dismayed voice. Yes, darling, that's the challenge.

For this fine young gent, part of the challenge is thinking-through. He's a bright guy. Answers to problems often just pop into his head. The value of the Think! challenges for this young man is just as much in learning persistence and the value of making mistakes, in not finding the right answer immediately. Creative thinking isn't only flashes of brilliance, it's experimenting to find out what doesn't work and why so that one can try, try again. At least that's what I tell him.

You can see the point in his structure where he gave up on the "as few coins as possible touching the table" part. He got frustrated when his widening structure kept on collapsing, so he built more pillars. And that's okay, it's his structure. I encouraged and made suggestions during the building, and we discussed following the guidelines for the challenge afterward. Here lies my ongoing Think! challenge: To encourage the fine young gents to persist and to follow the directions without killing the creativity or the fun. How do I help them to persist in the face of frustration, to look for solutions without leading them to my answers, help them to follow the rules without feeling constrained by them?

The final structure measured 9 1/2 inches wide. He was happy with his finished product:

The younger gents chose not to participate in the challenge. But they still enjoy the Think! challenges, because they're given materials for building or creating that they might not have thought of on their own. Kindergarten gent started by building a tall tower of pennies, then got sidetracked by sorting and counting the coins. While his brother built a coin bridge, I played a coin counting game with this fine young gent: Can you find three coins that add to thirty-six cents? How many different ways can you make forty cents?

The youngest gent just wanted to stack coins and knock them over. He played with the coins for quite a time after his brothers had returned to their regular schoolwork. For this fine young gentleman, one of my favorite things about the Think! challenges is that the unusual materials keep him happily occupied and challenge him to experiment with new materials.

This week's Think! challenge: Silverware
We can't wait to try this one!

In Stitches, Part II

Last night we went to Splash!. It's this really cool swim center with a play pool, a water slide, a lap pool, a warm kiddie pool, and a pool with rolling waves. We had a blast splashing and sliding and swimming and riding the inner tubes.

I turned from giving middle gent a five-minutes-until-we-leave warning to see loving husband waving and pointing, and eight-year-old gent walking toward me crying and dripping blood from his chin. He'd been falling off his inner tube on purpose, got pushed down by a wave and landed hard at the bottom of the pool, right on his chin. This after having dived too deep under a wave and landing on his nose at the beginning of the swim, then landing on his forehead mid-way through the session leaving him with a scrape and small cut. He's not a reckless guy, but he loves to swim and he plays hard.

Back to the cut on the chin. It figures: He fell right after both the urgent care and the after-hours clinic closed, on a weekend when our ER-doc neighbor is out of town. Just like his brother two years ago. Doctor Mom waffled. It's on his face, but not bleeding much. It's deeper than a scratch, but not very big. Didn't hurt much at all.

I called the on-call nurse. Like that's going to be any help. She can't see it. She recommended having it looked at because it's on his face. The deciding factor was the shape. If it had been a straight cut, I'd have slathered some Neosporin on it and used butterfly bandages. But it split in a crescent shape, like someone had jammed a thumbnail right into his chin. So to the brand-new ER we go.

Fine young gent suggested I bring our read-aloud, The Blue Fairy Book. Having a read-aloud in the emergency room for all of the waiting sure made the time pass quickly, but here's a tip: Stories like "Bluebeard" and "Trusty John", not good emergency room reading. There's blood practically dripping from the pages. And we're not faint-of-heart. Red-Riding Hood gets eaten. Sometimes the good guy dies of a broken heart or doesn't win. But "Trusty John" was so bloody that I summarized the end instead of reading it out loud. Bleah.

The stitches part was quick and easy. The doctor decided to put one stitch in, then added another once the actual stitching started. She and the nurse actually made the experience fun for our brave young gent. They admired his cowboy boots, laughed at his jokes, and voted him Bravest Patient of the Night. It was interesting: When youngest gent got his stitches, he had a male nurse and a male doctor. The process of getting stitches was very straightforward and business-like. This time, my fine young gent had a female nurse and female doctor. It was a very collaborative process, with suggestions and "What if we use the new....thingie, the squeeze one?" and "Do you think we could...?" Too small a sample to tell if it was a personality or a gender issue, but fun to see the contrast nonetheless.

And finally, a picture. Not too gruesome:

In Stitches, Part I (Levi's stitches) and Levi's stitches picture.

Art Study: Native American Art

Our fall history study: Native American history and culture. I wrote a review of our Native American study using History Pockets: Native Americans, and promised an overview of our art studies. Finally, as promised, here it is. In addition to the History Pockets, we read a few pages from Native American Art (Art in History), whichever section dovetailed the best with the art project we'd planned.

Buckskin Painting (Pictured above)
From Native American Art (Art in History), Petra Press.

You need:
A brown grocery or lunch bag
Crayons
Household wax (or an old candle, in a pinch)
Thin dishtowel or rag
An iron

Cut and flatten a brown paper bag. Using crayon draw a picture on the bag. Crumple and flatten and crumple the paper a few times to make it soft and wrinkled. Rub wax all over the paper, cover with the dishtowel and iron.

Read: The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush, Tomie DePaola and Storm Maker's Tipi, Paul Goble.

Coil Pots
Internet lesson plan here
You need:
Air-dry clay (You can find this at any craft store.)
A cup of water
Acrylic paints
Glaze, if desired

Coil pots are a fun and easy project. Many Native American peoples made pots and other useful items out of clay. Flatten your clay and cut circles for the base, roll snakes of clay, and coil them into pots. Dipping fingers into the water, then smoothing the water onto the coils allows the coils to hold together better. Let the pots dry according to the clay package directions, then paint with acrylic paints. If desired, paint with gloss once the paint has dried to make a shiny pot.

The fine young gents had a fine time with this project. So much so that I bought more clay when I went to the store-that-shall-not-be-named. (Shhhhh....I went to Walmart. It was next door to another stop, so I shopped there. Don't tell anyone who knows me.) The value of the coil pots was not necessarily in the end product. As you can see, despite our reading and looking at clay art online and in our art book, the pots don't necessarily look as though we're imitating Native American clay pots. The value of the clay pots was in the experiences with clay. What an adventure! The guys dutifully made their clay pots, but were most interested in finding out exactly what they could do with the clay. Make sure to include lots of time for experimentation.

Sand Painting
Lesson here

You need:
Posterboard, cardboard, or other fairly stiff paper
Pencils
Glue
Paintbrushes
Colored sand (buy it at the craft store, or color your own using play sand and tempera paint) in small dishes
Spoons
Lots of newspaper and a rimmed baking sheet

Easy idea. Really really messy. And I don't usually mind a mess. Definitely look at pictures of Native American sand painting beforehand. We got the desired result: An afternoon of color, a chance to experiment with new materials, an opportunity to look at a kind of art we'd not studied before and even better, to try it ourselves.

With older children, try this: Poetry and sand painting lesson

Dreamcatchers
Directions here at Enchanted Learning
You need:
A bendable twig
Thin wire
Twine or yarn
Beads and feathers

Dreamcatchers are fun and fairly simple to make. We used twigs from the back yard maple to make our hoops and fastened them with leftover wire from a beading craft kit. The fine young gents wanted to use our orange twine, but a yarn or a rougher string would probably work better, as the nylon twine was slippery against the slippery bark of the maple twig. The gents had a grand time decorating with the beads and feathers, and 3 months later, the dreamcatchers are still hanging on the fine young gents' bedposts.

Information, legends and directions for making dreamcatchers

More great directions for making Native American dreamcatchers

Dreamcatcher store, books and links

Clay bead necklaces
Lesson here
You need:
Air-dry clay
Clay tools or similar for carving lines and shapes into the wet clay
String or twine or leather laces
Glass beads (optional)
Blue paint

Make your beads out of clay-- flat, square, round. Experiment with different shapes and sizes. Once you've created a bead, etch designs and patterns into it using clay tools, bamboo skewers, or the wrong end of a cheap-o paintbrush. Let dry according to clay package directions. Paint blue. When dry, string them onto the string (with or without glass beads) using knots to hold the beads in place.

This project was our favorite. We got to play with clay again. The fine young gents were glowing over their beautiful necklaces and wore thema ll afternoon. Second-grade gent gave his away to the girl next door, and I noticed today that it's still hanging in her play space.





Foil Necklaces
From History Pockets: Native Americans

You need:
Paper and pencil
Scissors
Cardboard squares
Foil
Tape
Beads or macaroni beads
Glue
Yarn or string (about 18 inches)

Another favorite. Cut a 3x3 paper square. Draw a symmetrical design onto the square and set it aside. (The History Pockets unit provides a design for children to trace if they choose not to create their own.) Cut a 3x3-inch cardboard square and cover it with aluminum foil. Tape the foil at the back of the necklace. Using scissors or a pencil, punch two holes through the top of the square. Place your paper square with the design over the front of the foil-covered cardboard square and trace the design with your pencil, pressing hard. Gently lift away the design once you've finished tracing: The design will be etched into the foil. Decorate your foil square with tiny beads if desired. To make the necklace, put the ends of the string through the holes in your foil-covered square so that the ends hang out the back of the square. String beads (macaroni or otherwise) onto the string if desired. Tie the ends together at the top, leaving room to slip the necklace over your head.

Animal Masks
You need:
Animal stories or imagination activity (optional)
Mask-making materials such as paper mache or Rigid Wrap
Paint
Feathers, fur and other decorations

We made up our own mask study two years ago. (In two parts: Masking the Masks and Designing the Masks). This fall's History Pockets study included a mask project, but it involved coloring and cutting a paper drawing of a mask. We decided to make the real thing.

We'd been reading about Native American vision quests and totems and the kinds of animals living in proximity with Native American people, so to choose mask subjects, we used a guided imagination activity from Keepers of the Earth: Native American Stories and Environmental Activities for Children, by Joseph Bruchac. As I read out loud, the fine young gents imagined themselves running, leaping, flying through the forest, and when each gent opened his eyes he chose the animal he'd been imagining. We had a racoon, a deer and a black-capped chickadee. The deer changed his mind and decided he'd rather be a chickadee too, so that he could make a beak instead of antlers. The fine young chickadees were quite focused for this lengthy project, concerned with painting the bird colors just so, and begging for black feathers to glue onto the bird masks. The littlest racoon gent just loved the mess, and happily dabbed and globbed and painted and glued. The reulst was far more satisfying than a paper-and-marker project.

Native American masks as art at snowowl.com

Memory Poem Books

What is Pink?

by Christina Rossetti

What is pink? A rose is pink
By the fountain's brink.
What is red? A poppy's red
In its barley bed.
What is blue? The sky is blue
Where the clouds float through.
What is white? A swan is white
Sailing in the light.
What is yellow? Pears are yellow,
Rich and ripe and mellow.
What is green? The grass is green,
With small flowers between.
What is violet? Clouds are violet
In the summer twilight.
What is orange? Why, an orange,
Just an orange!

Make a memory poem book

You need:
A poem
Blank papers
Colored pencils or crayons

Fold your papers in half to create your book. Copy one line or stanza of your poem on each page. Illustrate that page. The next day, read what you've written in your book before you move on to write and illustrate the next line. By the end of the poem, you'll have it memorized! Once your book is finished, punch holes in the fold and tie your book together with yarn or string. Voila!

Kindergarten gent memorizes his poems quickly and easily, and he ends up with a beautiful book that he's proud to share with others. Try What is Pink? by Christina Rossetti, A Apple Pie by Kate Greenway, 1, 2 Buckle My Shoe or choose another poem that you love!

Classic Poems for Children

Poetry Foundation

Explorations 4 kids: Poetry

Happy Birthday!

Paint Prints

Cookie sheet paint prints

You need:
Newspaper
Paint
Paper
Paintbrushes
A large cookie sheet for each child

Spread newspaper over your work surface. Set out the paints and brushes, paper, and a cookie sheet for each person.

Paint a picture onto the cookie sheet. Use a moderate amount of paint. Too little and the picture doesn't quite come out clearly, too much and the paint smears and blurs as you make the print.


Press your paper gently onto the sheet without wiggling the paper. It works best if you lift your hands to press all over the paper rather than smoothing the paper over the paint. Peel away your paper carefully.


Bright colors and simple strokes make a vivid interesting print.


If there's enough paint left on the sheet, you can make a second print. Once you've finished printing, you can add more paint to your existing cookie sheet picture to create a series of similar prints, or wash and dry the sheet and start over.


Variations:
Use plenty of paint, and use your print from the cookie sheet to transfer your print painting to a canvas or another piece of paper--a print of a print.
Paint large blocks of color onto the cookie sheet. Fingerpaint shapes, lines, squiggles, or a picture into your paint and print.
Use a paintbrush to paint fine details into your print once it's dried.
Paint your brother instead of the cookie sheet. (Not recommended. But fun.)

Sometimes the best ideas are the simplest. I forgot I'd promised an art project this afternoon. Making cookie sheet prints took five minutes to set up. The fine young gents spent nearly an hour painting and printing this afternoon, experimenting with shapes and colors, ways to paint and the process of making prints. We used an entire sketch pad and more.