Fun Activities For Kids At Home

Here are some creative and fun learning activities links from my blog for your children to enjoy at home as we move into unprecedented changes in our lives with self-isolation and lockdowns due to the global covid-19 outbreak.

May I offer a few practical suggestions with these at-home activities?

• Look for items that your children would enjoy.
• Plan for 1 activity per day.
• Keep things informal.  Don’t try to do school at home!
• Take your time.
• Don’t rush through a list.
• If something sparks joy and delight — stay there and look for other similar activities rather than moving on to the next thing on your list.
• Repeat.  Especially young children love to repeat an enjoyable activity.  Don’t be afraid to print things out and do it again if your child loved it.
• Photograph and video them doing their activities.
• Display their finished work each week on a door or shelf “gallery”.
• Share their activities with grandparents and social groups to stay connected.

So here we go ~

1. Paper dolls and paper men from different historical eras to colour in and cut out.  Use these as puppets for narrations.
2. Narrations are the child “telling back” what he heard in a read-aloud. Narrations are the cornerstone of a Charlotte Mason education.  Children must pay close attention while they listen to the story so that they can make it their own and express what they remember and understood as they narrate.   I have collected over 100 narration ideas for every learning style.  In this Ebook, you will find lists of suggested activities for audio, visual, kinesthetic and creative learners along with templates and printouts.  You can see examples of the templates and ideas in the original post.
3. Letterboxing – a great “treasure hunting” geography game to practice in your house and garden. Letterboxing is an intriguing mix of treasure hunting, art, navigation, and exploring skills.
4. Current Affairs is the study of social, political and important happenings in the world at the present time.  Use this Current Affairs download with calendar pages, maps, flags and symbols to chart the events around the world during the coronavirus crisis.
5. Nature Study and enjoy the great outdoors with fun nature activities in three Smash Nature Journals.  Go to my  Packages page to order your Smash books.  If you order all 3 you get the third book free!
   
6. 3D models such as the Little House in the Woods.
7. Art appreciation activities of famous artworks and famous artists~
   •  Famous Artists lapbook
   • Famous Impressionist Artists lapbook
   • Tracing Outlines of Famous Art Works
   • Van Gogh “Starry Night” ~ Art Appreciation
   • Van Gogh’s Sunflowers
   • 3D Model of Seurat’s “Bathers at Asnieres”
8. Creative projects ~
   • Morse code bracelets
   • Make a rag doll family
   • Make a Polly Pocket in a soap dish
   • Painted heart rocks
   • Corn starch clay ornaments
   • Toy car travel mat
   • Pretty beaded candle jars 
   • Marshmellow paste cake decorations
9. Bible activities ~
   • Colour in a young man in armour
   • A young woman in armour
   • Easter ~ here is an awesome “Easter pictures and hands-on activities“ download using all  5 senses.
   • Parables lapbook with almost every parable in complete NKJ scripture quotes in a variety of colourful square-fold minibooks with blank pages for the child’s own notes.
   • Book of James Lapbook
10. Sight Words are frequently used words that your child should easily recognize in his reading.  In my Sight Words Ebook, you will have all the word lists, words in sentences, games and activity templates.
11. Handwriting practice with laminated charts and games. I have created a 20-page E-book is packed with practical tips and it includes helpful activities and fun pre-writing games to build up your child’s gross motor strength, develop fine motor control and develop their spatial awareness, correct posture and pencil grip for maximum control and minimum stress while learning to write.   
12. Hands-on activities ~ Here is a list of some of the many hands-on activities and posts on my blog ~
    • Make memories with hands-on activities
    • Easter hands-on activities
    • End of year activities
    • How to fit in hands-on activities
    • Hands-on knots
    • Ancient Egypt Lapbook and hands-on activities
    • Vikings hands-on activities
    • Ancient China hands-on activities
    • Hands-on Sonlight
    • Having fun with maps
    • Action!
    • Tailor-made
    • Around the world mobile

I hope that these posts and links and downloads inspire you in your homeschooling!

Wishing you all health, happiness and precious family times.

Blessings, Nadene

• Subscribe Click to receive all my new posts packed with practical tips, projects, plans, pages & art ideas by email
• Facebook Follow Practical Pages on Facebook

Time for creative mom

In response to my post Sketching Again, a reader recently asked,

“How much time do we as moms need each day to be creative? “

I suppose it depends on your family life and demands on your time, and whether you enjoy creative activities.  Enjoyment is a powerful motivation.

If I can carve just 20 minutes of creative sketch time for myself, I feel so grateful and rewarded. This is not every day, and it is not always possible when life and stressful situations are more important, but it is something I find easy to pick up and do when there is a lull or gap in my days.  Right now, with just one teen to assist in her homeschooling, I have a lot more free time than I had while juggling three young kids all on different cores so I can find time to be creative!

We need to grow and be creative ourselves in order to give continually to others.

For some folk that “creative / me time” may be physical, such as going for a brisk walk or run, doing a quick workout, or taking a nice hot bath with soft music playing. Others need to be alone, maybe to read a book or listen to a podcast.   Some love to garden, sew, knit, quilt, or sketch.

When the children are young, then it is best to sketch or craft with them. Within a few weeks of doing sketches or nature journal prompts, the kids feel more confident and know what to do and can pretty much work without your help, giving you that time to do the activity along with them.

Doing art together with my children. You’ll see my art page at the bottom of the picture.

We enjoyed Fabulous Fine Arts Fridays, a whole day for our Music and Art Appreciation lessons and some poetry or Shakespeare.  Our Fridays were always so relaxing and enjoyable, so different from our normal school schedule, that we all looked forward to this time together.  It was also very informal.  We simply listened to a classical music piece while observing an artist’s work and often did some art ourselves.

Sketch Tuesdays always were a wonderful opportunity to draw and sketch something really simple.  Because we had a whole week to complete the sketch, there never was any pressure.  And despite there being no feedback or critique given, the children learnt so much about their art and skills simply by viewing the slideshow and experimenting with new and different art mediums.  We sometimes copied other famous artist’s style in some of our Sketch Tuesday sketches, discovering the artist’s true talent and ability.  Again, it is fairly simple to pull out some paper and sketch and paint right alongside your children.

Otherwise, simply do something creative and personally rewarding in the afternoons while the family are doing their own thing.  I often find a half hour after lunch before I need to take down washing or start preparing dinner.  Weekends are also a good time to sketch, paint, garden, sew or do some sort of creative hobby.

If you have lots of children, or little babies or busy toddlers, then you may be deep in the trenches, and creative time for yourself might be impossible for this season, but, remember, that this season will pass, and you will be able to have your body and space back!

Blessings to you as you carve out small Mother Culture moments for yourself each week.

In Grace, Nadene

• Subscribe Click to receive all my new posts packed with practical tips, projects, plans, pages & art ideas by email
• Facebook Follow Practical Pages on Facebook

 

Summer Art ~ Mondrian

Barb’s Summer Art plans for this week’s Sketch Tuesday covers ~

Mondrian

His art is so utterly ‘simple’!  Simple black vertical and horizontal lines and red, blue and yellow blocks of color.

Even very young kids can do this!  Here is a very simple YouTube video lesson.

But if you read the evolution of Mondrian’s art, you’ll understand how his abstraction developed.

The Summer Art focus art piece “Broadway Boogie Woogie” is a very interesting artwork to discuss:

• No black lines
• Balance of white space
• Lines of color interspersed with color
• Does this look like an aerial image of Broadway?
• Do the little blocks of color remind you of the neon lights of Broadway?

So, maybe because his art is so simple, so easy to copy, it is no wonder that designers use Mondrian’s art style in countless objects, clothes and architecture!

 
Maybe high schoolers could paint some sneakers, or a T-shirt, or design a piece of furniture, or decorate and fire ceramics in Mondrian-style?

Here’s our Mondrian art:

I encourage you to join you child and do a Mondrian-inspired art work today!

Blessings,

More Klimt Art

Following Charlotte Mason’s approach, we have continued to look at and enjoy a famous artist and his works for several weeks.  This week we enjoyed more of Klimt’s amazing art.

Once again, as we did with our Klimt’s Tree of Life, I printed out outline pictures of some of his works and we sat quietly painting while we listened to music.

Kate and I both did the same picture, but each of us followed a different approach.

Kate painted hers in dazzling acrylic colors and gold, 

while I studied the original painting and applied similar colors with gold paint.

Lara chose to do a Klimt picture of mother and child, and she stunned me with her beautiful technique.

Simple and beautiful, isn’t it?

Art appreciation is really do-able!  Give these ideas a try!

Blessings,

 

 

Klimt’s Tree of Life

Continuing from our previous Summer Art Klimt painting,

we painted our own versions of Klimt’s

Tree of Life

I printed out an outline picture found on Google and we both had fun painting!

Lara painted her tree “ombre” colors.

I painted my background in gold, typical, I felt, of Klimt’s style.

Here’s another Klimt Art project  found on Deep Space Sparkle.

Blessings,

Notice Board – Famous Artists & Composer

Here is the last post featuring our new homeschooling notice board ~

Famous Artist & Composer

Our Famous Artist studies have been really rich and rewarding.  This year I selected several famous artists, as well as some featured in Patti’s posts on All Things Bright and Beautiful. (Patti prepares a weekly art, music and poetry study with links & sources – all done for you!)

After I read a brief biography as an introduction to a famous artist, we chose one famous artwork and study it quietly (either in an art book, a postcard-sized printout, online or as an image saved as a screen saver).  I encourage my children to try to re-create the painting as a detailed, visual, mental image and ask them to tell me what they noticed in the painting, and importantly, what feelings the colours, textures, objects, placement, space, and details in the painting created.  My kids enjoy creative discussions about the mood of the painting, or how it made them feel. I encourage them to form a personal connection with the artwork.

Sometimes we may do an art appreciation lesson where I may trace an outline of the picture and they can paint or colour it for themselves.  We also jot and paste a thumbnail of the artist in our Book of Centuries.  We record the artist and we sometimes refer to my Art Era Timelines. Usually, I am quite happy that they simply recognize the artist and the famous art pieces.

Our music appreciation lessons are very informal.  We simply listen to one of “VOX Music Masters” CD’s, which tell the musician’s life story over his music, while we paint or sketch, or I play a featured music piece each week. Sometimes we watch a YouTube video of a famous music selection.  My children enjoy occasionally filling in a music appreciation notebook page.  You can download all my Famous Musician pages free.

My aim is to instil a love of beautiful music in their hearts and minds.  It is easy – use the hard work and efforts of others like Barb of Harmony Fine Arts.  She has wonderful free Fine Arts plans!

I want to encourage you to conduct your art and music appreciation lessons very informally.  Surround your children with rich, beautiful music and art and cultivate a wonderful fine arts appreciation in your homeschooling!

Much grace, Nadene

Previous Notice Board posts include ~

• Current Affairs
• Nature Study
• Bible Study
• Latin words

Wonderful Works of William-Adolphe Bouguereau

This year we started our art appreciation with works from William Adolphe Bouguereau, a very successful French painter of the 1850’s Paris Salon.

His paintings are beautiful and my daughters have loved looking at his works.

My youngest daughter chose “The Hard Lesson” for our most recent art appreciation lesson.  She orally narrated her observations and agreed to paint her own copy of the painting.

Instead of drawing or tracing an outline of this artwork, I used Picasa‘s “pencil outline” editing option and created a very quick full-page illustration.

Miss.L11 painted her picture, while I used chalk pastels for my painting.  We listened to Brahms as we quietly painted.  An hour or less later, our paintings were finished and hanging on our Art Gallery wall (well, actually on our school room door).  Not a ‘hard lesson’ at all!

And here are your free pages ~

• William-Adolphe Bouguereau Biography & Picture Study
  – includes a blank biography notebooking page and postcard-sized pictures for picture study

• William-Adolphe Bouguereau Wall Chart – includes a brief biography and mini gallery of his paintings
• “The Hard Lesson” outline picture ~ William-Adolphe Bouguereau – Hard Lesson
• Other Famous Artists free pages

May you enjoy this easy lesson in your Fine Arts!

Blessings and much grace,

Vermeer Painting Made 3D

Our latest Famous Artist is

Johan Vermeer

His pictures are usually of rich, detailed interiors

featuring one or two people posed near a window.

Simple paintings to study and appreciate.

For the painting

Woman with a Water Jug

I prepared a 4-page printout ~ Jan Vermeer Woman with a Water Jug 3D picture

(Click the link for your free download)

I removed the background of 2 of the pictures using MSWord.

Now, the “how to” ~

• Leave the first main full picture complete.
• cut away some of the walls of the background in the next picture
• use foam squares on all the corners
• make a few larger cellotape circles for the insides of the cutouts

• cut away more backgrounds and details in the next layer
• carefully position each layer over the previous layer

• each layer brings the painting into 3 dimensions!

And at last ~ a full, 3D-version of the painting!

A quick, easy and very effective art appreciation lesson.

Give it a try with your kids.

Blessings,

Matisse’s Goldfish

This is our third week of looking at the famous Fauvist artist ~

Henri Matisse

We enjoyed a lovely simple art appreciation lesson ~

The Goldfish

I used Charlotte Mason’s approach and asked Miss. L10 to look closely at the picture for a few minutes.  Then she tried to describe the picture with as much detail that she could …

… the tall cylindrical shape of the gold-fish bowl

… the number and color of the fish

… the reflection of the fish in the surface of the water

… the pink round table

… the blue railings on the balcony

… the leaves and flowers of the flower pots

… the black  and grey background

She and I happily painted the outline picture that I traced.

We took our time and listened to our Famous Composer Tchaikovsky as we painted.

Miss. L10’s painting

A simple, relaxed art appreciation lesson.

My painting

Will you give it a try?  Here are Matisse’s famous quotes, some art works and the Goldfish outline ~

Henri Matisse paintings & quotes & Goldfish outline

Blessings,

Matisse Paper Cut-Outs

This month’s Famous Artist is

Henri Matisse

As a famous Fauvism artist, his modern art is full of

bright colors and dramatic art.

Fauvism was characterized by bold and often illogical colors.

We started our art appreciation lesson with Matisse’s

“Sorrow of the King”

1. Look carefully and describe what you see ~

My children noted :

• the background is made up of colored blocks of paper
• the “people” are not realistic
• they could identify hands, body shapes, a guitar and a ‘dancing’ person
• there were yellow leaf-shapes all over the picture
• the picture did not really look sorrowful, nor could they find a “king”

I read a few Matisse quotes ~

 “The entire arrangement of my pictures is expressive; the place occupied by the figures, the empty spaces around them, the proportions, everything has its share.”

Matisse’s quote about his art inspired my youngest daughter to describe her own thoughts about Matisse’s paper cut-out picture.  She came up with a very amusing story, completely illogical, and yet symbolic, from the artwork.  She certainly “made it her own”!

2. We used Erika’s World’s Greatest Artist free download. 

• I used my Famous Artist Biography pages as our notebook page. We read a brief biography and the children noted the details on the notebook page.
  
• Erika’s puzzle was an excellent “review” of the picture we had just examined.
• We made up the minibook with the thumbnails of Matisse’s art.

3. Art fun with paper cut-outs !

1. We chose a theme for our picture – “Camping” – from this week’s Sketch Tuesday’s topic.
2. This lesson used scraps of gum paper and sugar paper, so we keep a stash of scraps especially for these lessons.
3. Cover the entire page with blocks of color.  I made mine into a sort of sunset. Miss.L10 made her picture of land and sky with clouds.
   
4. Now cut out shapes that express the idea of a thing.  Not exact. No pre-drawing. Just freehand with your scissors!
5. Paste the shapes on the page until it is full or tells a story.  It can be illogical – like fish in the sky, shapes in the negative space the suggest an object, random colors … “Matisse it!”
6. Have fun, sign your name and hang it in the gallery!
7. Quickly “Duster-Buster”  up all the little paper pieces on the floor!

An easy, fun Matisse art lesson!

Blessings,