Paper Plate Venus Flytrap Craft

Gnats have invaded our windowsill garden, but no matter - the children spotted the perfect solution to the problem, while we were grocery shopping today.

I would have rather purchased one of the Easter lilies from the super market floral section, but I figured the children would get a bigger kick out of the Venus Flytrap.

After all, I had one myself, back in the '70s, ordered I'm sure, from the back of the same comic book, where I found the Magic Rocks, and Sea Monkeys. But, I realized after we got our new "pet" home, that despite my childhood experience with the plant, I don't actually know that much about them.

Needless to say, I went directly our library website to put a few books on hold. Our local library didn't have any on the shelf, so we'll have to wait until next week, for the books to arrive in from partner libraries. In the meantime, we watched a few video clips, like this one, with David Attenborough, or this one, called "Jaws of Death", from the BBC (a little over the top, but fun).

We also did some quick research, and learned, that despite the fact the Mom of the House, gleefully poked one of the leafy jaws with a pencil, in order to make it snap closed - this is not a good idea. Apparently, the leaves will only close so many times before they are done completely.

So, in order to occupy little hands, and keep our new friend from being poked to death, I decided a craft was in order. We found just the thing at No Time For Flashcards via Just Playin' Around, which we modified to make into a paper plate puppet.

I gave each child two paper plates. They colored the inside of one plate pink, and light green, like the inside of the flytrap's jaws.

The back side of the second plate was colored dark green.

Then, that plate was folded, and cut in half, an inch or so in from the fold...

...so the pieces could be glued, pocket style, to the back of the first plate...

...which was partially colored green, to fill in the gap.

Then, we folded the plates, and fringed the edges...

...folding up one section, and cutting two, around to the staples...

...to create the proper trap effect.

Of course, a plants gotta eat, so we made some flies...

...by sewing two pom-poms together...

...and stitching the thread back through to the middle...

...to stitch on mini muffin cup wings...

...securing them with glue, and gluing on eyes (nice large eyes).

Even so, they never saw the trap coming.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Egg Tangram Fun

There are some days when we just fall into fantastic lessons. I love those days. And, yesterday was one. First off, I read a math themed post from Love2Learn2Day, about Easter egg symmetry. She also mentioned, and included a link to an Easter bunny tangram activity.

We usually try to sidestep all the bunnies, and eggs at Easter (just a weird personal preference), but the mention of the bunny tangram, reminded me that there is also an egg shaped tangram puzzle. And, although we won't tie it into Easter (though you easily could), it goes along perfectly with our current birding obsession, since the symmetrical pieces of the egg, break apart, to be reformed into more than fifty, fantastical birds.

I went right to work printing off a version of the puzzle from Puzzles.com, which includes the egg, ready to be cut into pieces, as well as nice big patterns for several birds. I found thirty more bird solutions for the egg tangram, at Mathlove.com, though they print smaller, making them trickier for younger children to match to big, puzzle pieces.

I glued six different colors of construction paper to flattened cereal boxes, and traced the puzzle over them...

...to cut a puzzle for each child, in a separate color, so they wouldn't get them mixed up. Interchanging the colored pieces, would give you nice Easter egg puzzles too, if you are so inclined, and make for some very colorful birds.

Speaking of colorful birds:

I'm not usually a huge fan of Dr. Seuss (another weird personal preference), but his Scrambled Eggs Super! was just too perfect a match for this activity, to pass up. In it, a young boy searches nests of the world, for the best eggs, to make the most amazing scramble ever. You can even find an old, animated version of the story, here, on DailyMotion.com.

And, if you really want to cap off the perfect egg/fantastical bird themed activity right, you'll pick up a package of those pre-cut, and printed Easter egg cookies, that are on sale everywhere, right now - or even better, cut your own cookie dough into egg shapes, so you can make the pieces bigger, and easier to handle - and slice them apart following the tangram pattern, from the sources above.

Then, let your children piece together their favorite, colorful bird...

...before baking.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Paper Plate Millinery - Easter Bonnets for Children

I've seen a number of versions of paper plate, newspaper, and paper doily Easter bonnet crafts for children, this year. So, when I saw Lisa McCue's adorably illustrated Easter Parade at the library, I knew we'd have to have a go at a little paper plate millinery ourselves.

McCue's illustrations tell the story of a father bunny heading out to the Easter parade with his daughter, in her homemade hat, sweetly decked out with bits of ribbon, and a few plastic eggs. Along the way, they pass a menagerie of dressed up, animal town folk, each of whom offers, and adds, a little something extra to the small bunny's hat, until she finally she is "the grandest lady in the Easter parade", in keeping with the words of the Irving Berlin song, that serve as the text to the story.

There is sheet music for the song, at the back of the book, in case you're not familiar with the tune. But, I suggest going straight to YouTube, skipping over the so-so Fred Astaire clips, to this Bing Crosby, Holiday Inn clip (it's always Bing over Fred, when it comes to singing). And then, if you're anything like me, you'll probably want to click here, to find the definition of rotogravure.

Finally, after looking at all the fun, and fanciful hats illustrated in the story, you'll probably want to decorate one of your own. We don't have an Easter parade in town, I think maybe those are more something of the past across the country, but we do have both sets of grandparents due to arrive in this weekend, which will most definitely mean a need a for hats for an Easter tea.

I started the girls off with plain hats, made from a paper plate, and bowl combination (similar to instructions I found, last week at Naturally Educational).

I cut away the center of the plates...

...so the bowl could fit through (with wrong sides showing), and glued them together.

I also added two hole punches on either side, in case anyone wanted a chin strap-type ribbon.

When the glue was dry, I sat them out with glue, scissors, construction paper, tissue paper, crepe paper, crayons, markers, and a few odds and ends scavenged from the craft cupboard. I showed the girls again, how to make spiral roses, and they went to work, each girl...

...creating her millinery masterpiece.

Of course, I'll need something to wear to tea, as well (or possibly for camouflage while bird watching).

For more story themed arts and crafts, check out this week's stART (story + ART) link-up, at a Mommy's Adventures.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

A Day (and some games) for the Birds

We had a terrific, relaxed day of books and reading, yesterday (thank you Beverly Cleary!). The Man of the House, and I even managed to finish listening to our audio copy of Mark Obmascik's The Big Year, A Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession.

There is a little more language in it, than I normally like, but other than that I can really recommend it. The story follows the three top birders of the 1998 North American Big Year birding competition. We'd never heard of a Big Year before, but it fanned the flames of our own mini birding obsession, started this spring. Of course, we're a long way off from a Big Year - we're thinking more of Little Local Year.

We're off to a good start in that respect too, having positively identified 16 species of our feathered friends, this week - nothing like the record breaking 745 species spotted by Sandy Komito in 1998, but it's a start.

And, the excitement of my youngest three, when we not only spotted, but heard a blacked-capped chickadee, while checking out our 4th osprey nest within a five mile radius of our house, tells me we might have a family hobby in the making. Though, right now, it's still too cold to get much enthusiasm from the Man of the House, when it comes to walks by the river, or late night owl spotting expeditions, but the bulk of the birds won't arrive in our area until summer anyway.

In the meantime, we're honing our skills with Big Animal Games' made for PC, Snapshot Adventures, Secret of Bird Island. The mystery/birding game (which is kind of like Pokemon Snap meets Where in the World is Carmon Sandiego), was made in collaboration with Cornell's Lab of Ornithology, so while the graphics are not terrific, the markings, calls, and geographic locations of the 135 North American species found in the game, are all scientifically correct.

I picked it up hoping to pique my 13 year old's interest in the hobby, too. Unfortunately, he declared it an "educational game", after a few minutes of play, and wanted nothing more to do with it. But, the rest of the children love it (almost as much as I do), the only draw back being, that it requires a large amount of quick reading, making it necessary for the younger girls to have someone help them play.

All of the children, including T, have enjoyed the bird themed card game, Birds and Binoculars, by Vida Games though, which admittedly is more of a "go fish", than a birding game. The cards do have the birds' names printed on them, as well as the cartoonish likeness of the birds, so it is useful for spelling, and sight word practice for the younger children. And, the addition of "dirty bird" cards, which let you switch match piles with other players, and "binocular" cards, which let you look at everyone else's cards, add a level of strategy not normally found in a game of Go Fish.

Oh, and as to Obmascik's book, it's being made into a movie, set to come out this fall, starring Steve Martin, Jack Black, and Owen Wilson as the competitive trio of birders from the 1998 Big Year, which might be worth spotting at the theater. By then, most of the birds will have left us for warmer climates anyway.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Happy Birthday Beverly Cleary!

Tomorrow is a big day. Not only does it mark the 50th anniversary of the first manned flight into space, it's also Beverly Cleary's 95th birthday. Which means, of course, it's time to Drop Everything And Read.

So, if you don't hear from us tomorrow, you'll know it's because we're lost somewhere on Klickitat Street with our good friends Henry, Beezus, and Ramona.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Resurrection Scene - Craft for Children

The younger girls helped me mix up another batch of salt dough, this weekend (4 cups of flour, 1 1/2 cups of salt, 2 cups of water, and 1 tablespoon of oil)..

. ...to form into a roundish stone, and a cave around an empty can, with a slit, in the dough, at the back, to fit a popsicle stick cross...

...for our second year of a tradition we picked up from Little Page Turners, last Easter - a resurrection scene.

We baked our dough tomb, and stone for a few hours at 250 degrees Fahrenheit, and then let it cool for a while before adding the cross, and Little People from our Nativity set (which I remembered to leave out, when I packed up the Christmas decorations, this year).

The girls still want to paint it all, but I went ahead and set it out for our Bible reading of Matthew 27:45-28:19, this morning. After I read the passage (which you can read by clicking the link), we talked again about how the characters from the Nativity scene fit into the resurrection scene, both from the bit we read in Matthew, and what can be found in the other parts of the Bible.

Jesus - though not a baby any longer, is clearly part of the story. And, just like the baby was wrapped and laid in the manger, Jesus' body was wrapped and laid in the tomb.

An Angel - announced Jesus' birth, and an angel rolled back the stone, and announced, "He is not here, He's risen, just as He said."

Mary - was present all through both stories.

Frankincense and Mirr - were brought by the wise men after Jesus was born, and spices were brought by the women, after Jesus was buried, to anoint the body.

We also talked about how Jesus appeared to the disciples a few days later, and asked Peter if he loved Him, three times, and each time after he responded with a yes, Jesus told him to feed His sheep.

And, Judas, instead of bringing gold as a gift, took a bribe of silver to betray Jesus.

Don't forget to check out the Bible Alive! Tuesday link-up over at The Fantastic Five, this week, for even more Bible themed fun for children.

It's great to be a homeschooler.