Valentines!

Our first night of making Valentines, Atlas has a class of 18 to make them for! Joaquin's are mostly being sent via mail.

We have a fun huge collection of supplies for making valentines this year!

Here are some that Atlas made

Atlas loved using loads of glitter glue!

Joaquin's

Oliver's has several layers of Spiderman pictures glued together.

Colorful Play Dough

We made our own play dough. the boys helped me mix it up, then I cooked it on the stove.

They gave each color play dough a name, green is Slime, orange is Sunset, blue is Aqua, and purple is One Eyed Monster.

Oliver's creations

Scientist Atlas holds a mini planet earth.

The recipe we used-

2 cups flour
1/2 cup salt
2 cups water
2 tablespoons oil

2 tablespoons cream of tartar

Food coloring

Mix all ingredients thorougly in a pot. Cook over medium heat, stiring constantly, until dough clumps together and is no longer sticky. Remove from pot and knead well. After dough is cool enough for little fingers, enjoy play!

I made four batches of this recipe, so each of my kids and one friend could have a nice size ball of each color.

Sock Monkeys!

We didn't make an actual sock monkey, but, we did draw one! We read a couple of our favorite sock monkey books, looked at the loads of great sock monkeys online, then drew our own.

Joaquin's sock monkey is done after a character in his book

Atlas' sock monkey is very happy because he is being read a good night story and tucked in bed.

Chinese New Year

In celebration of Chinese New Year, we had a "chinese" dinner (we actually made sushi, becuase that's a favorite for my boys and they could use their chop sticks!) and crafts. First we hit the local asian markets, where the boys picked out new chop sticks and some sweet treats. When we got home the boys set up the table and made lanterns to hang above our dinner.

The kids used rubber stamps to decorate their lanterns

Hanging lanterns

Joaquin and I learned how to make paper cranes

We made felt fortune cookies for the play kitchen. We each wrote a fortune, Atlas' is the most random, and kind of sad, "THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS UNICORNS."

We also made some dancing ribbon dragons, that the boys had fun spinning around in circles with.

Printmaking Heros

We did styrofoam prints tonight. The kids decided they wanted to draw favorite video game characters. They drew their characters onto egg cartons, used a roller to ink them, then pressed them on to a colored sheet of paper.

Scratching out his character

Rolling with ink

Joaquin made Sir Sack, from Little Big Planet.

Oliver's

Atlas made Link, from Zelda

The Real Big Art Show

After a month of the kids doing art projects five days a week, it was time for an art show! We gathered all of their art work from January and put it up for display in the living room.

I had each of the kids make a blue ribbon. They looked at their art work and decided which they thought deserved a blue ribbon, wether it was the most fun to create or looked the best.

Joaquin decided to pin his on his planets, he loved using chalk pastels and thought it came out great!

Oliver chose his butterfly, I know he had a fun and messy time creating this one!

Atlas decided on his runaway bunny, he loves playing with it.

We had such fun doing our art show, maybe we will put one on at the end of every month!

Rainbow of Colors

The boys finished their rainbow that they started earlier in the month.

Love how it came out!