Weekly Recap: The Week We Had Art Every Day

We had a fun week!  We stayed home most days but we sure kept busy.  We did lots of art projects this week.  I had spent the end of the week last week brainstorming ideas and shopped over the weekend so I knew we'd have all the supplies I needed on hand.  The boys enjoyed all of our projects tremendously and even with a wrist brace in place Ian was able to participate without any problems.  We had some friends over to play and spent some time researching cars and vehicles; looking to replace ours.  The days just flew by and everywhere we looked were reminders that the summer is quickly coming to an end.

Art:  We made splatter painted pots.  We put some plants inside them and used them for a super cute gift idea. 

We put together some Washi tape votive holders.

Then we made Sun bleached pictures

Finally we had fun exploring tissue transfer pictures.

Alec came home with his completed stained glass dragonfly; he's been taking classes with one of our neighbors and he just LOVES it!

We went to check out the local art work on display at our library; we just loved this month's featured work! The colors were so bold and we decided to try and make a painting in the same style.  Here's a sampling of some of his work; we each took a quick pic of our favorite!

My favorite; I just blues & greens 

This one reminded Alec of his terrarium 

Ian's favorite 

Evan's favorite 

Science:  We read Prairie Dog Song, Trapped! A Whale's Rescue, and Otters Love to Play. Evan and I read In the Rainforest; talking all about the plants and animals found in the rainforest. Ian and Alec read Neighborhood Sharks learning about hunting with great white sharks off the coast of California.  Ian also started putting together his next EEME kit.

Reading:  We finished up The Viper's Nest.  Ian read The Absent Author.  Alec finished The Unwanteds, read Uranus and the Bubbles of Trouble.  Evan finished up Humphrey's School Fair Surprise and read I Q Gets Fit.

Language Arts:  The boys started working on their packing lists.  They thought about what they would need on vacation and wrote up their own lists.

Cross curricula:  The boys all worked in their activity books.  All three boys worked in their various Minecraft activity books and Alec also worked on several pages in his new Pokemon activity book. I found this book at 5 Below for only $4!  He just loves it.

Math:  Each of the boys worked on two more pages in their math workbooks each day.  I had accidentally ordered two of the same Multiplication Facts Made Easy book for Evan for the fall and offered to let Alec have a few easy weeks of school if he wanted to work on those; the deal was he had to complete 4 pages each day since they were so simple but he's having a ball taking a break from his more complicated math book to work on this one plus as a bonus it's giving Evan confidence and making him look forward to working on it himself!

Life skills: all three boys have been helping out at the sawmill.  They're learning how to cut logs into lumber, clean up the mill, and measure out boards.

History/ geography:  We've been watching a lot of the Olympics.  The opening ceremonies really taught us a lot about geography since they showed a map with the name of every country and lit up where they were located (many we had never heard of!).  We also read The Mangrove Tree learning about how planting Mangroves helped one village in Africa.

Socialization:  We had friends over to swim this week.  It ended up pouring rain most of the day but we didn't let that stop us from having a good time.  Our three families have been getting together every summer since my middle son was in preschool and through the years even though they all go to different schools (or homeschool!) they've remained friends and have so much fun together.   The boys spent an afternoon building and playing together using our Qba blocks, soft blocks and trucks.

Physical Education: We've been swimming, running, and playing all week.  Alec has been teaching Evan how to dive.