Watch a Butterfly as it is born! Plus a freebie!

Here is a great time-lapse video of a butterfly as it is born.

After your child has watched it, they can complete this fun life cycle of a butterfly craft.

HappyFolding Origami

The ancient Japanese art of origami has fascinated kids for years, but sometimes it is hard to teach your child an art form you may not yourself be familiar with.  Thank goodness for HappyFolding!  The site features tons of how-tos including: pictures, videos, and reviews of origami books and paper.  Perfect for some fun art lessons.

Free Playdough Recipes E-Book

Playdough is always a fun activity at our house, so we are really excited to try some of the recipes in Pocketful of Posies new ebook of play dough recipes.  Head over to her site and download your own copy and you will be set when you are stuck in the day on a rainy spring day.

Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? Lesson Plan

Pre-Reading

Before you begin reading Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? by Bill Martin and Eric Carle, take a picture walk with your child. Ask him or her what he or she thinks the story will be about.

 After Reading

After reading, ask your child to tell you what happened in the story. Ask , “What does the polar bear hear?” Talk about some of the words in the story such as “bellowing,” “yelping,” and “trumpeting.” Explain that these are all words that mean a loud kind of noise. Ask your child, “What other noisy words can you find in this book?”

Read this fun tale about a sleeping polar bear.

 Writing  Prompt
Make up another story using your child’s name: with this template.


Some examples your child might use are clock ticking, car honking, or bird singing.

Math

Have your child practice their addition facts with this Polar Bear Addition Activity.
Art

Make a Polar Bear Puppet using a brown paper bag and this template. 

Baby Penguin at the Monterey Bay Aquarium

On Saturday, January 8, in a nest, high up in the penguin condos of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Splash Zone exhibit, African blackfooted penguins, Umngane and Dassen became first-time parents!

The new chick was first checked and weighed by staff veterinarian, Dr. Mike Murray and then returned to its proud parents for care and feeding. A second exam two days later revealed the chick had doubled in weight, (4.2 ounces) which is a great sign that the parents are feeding it regularly.

You can see the new baby chick in this video below:



Here are some penguin activities:

Penguin Addition and Subtraction
Penguin Subtraction 

Count the penguins on this fun worksheet.

 Practice multiplication facts with this penguin themed worksheet

Find the pattern with this penguin themed worksheet.

Make an adorable little penguin with this art template

Handprint Tree Craft

I love these adorable hand print trees over at at Shared Jelly ! Perfect to let your little ones explore colors and also get a little messy…. plus, handprint crafts make great keepsakes!

Origami Pumpkin.

Just in time for Halloween, here are instructions for making an origami pumpkin.


 You can download the printable image at Slide by clicking on the picture above.

Van Gogh Lesson Plan

Vincent Van Gogh was a famous Dutch artist.  Older students may want to read this biography about Van Gogh along with these reading questions.

Sunflower Series

Van Gogh painted a series of sunflower paintings like the one below:  Learn more about this series here.

Math:

1. Count how many sunflowers you see in the picture above.
2. How many different colors do you see?
3. What fraction of the sunflowers are facing forward?

Reading

Learn more about sunflowers with this sunflower coloring book.

 Art:

Make your own sunflower art with this weaving activity. 

Starry Night

Another famous Van Gogh piece is called Starry Starry Night.  A picture of the painting is below:

Math

Have your child practice counting stars.

You can also use stars for counting, sorting, adding, subtracting and multiplying.

For multiplying, point out that each star has 5 points.  One star times 5 points equals 5 points, 1 X 5 = 5, two stars 2 X 5 = 10 etc.

Learn more about Van Gogh with this video:

Color Zoo

Color Zoo by Lois Ehlert is an amazing work of art. The pages are filled with shape cutouts that are stacked on top of each other to make a recognizable animal. As you turn the pages, a layer is removed, revealing yet another animal picture. The first page shows a tiger’s face using a circle, square, and triangle. When you turn the page, the circle is removed to reveal a mouse face made with a square and a triangle.

You can make your own Color Zoo to go along with the story.




Supplies:


• Scissors

• Glue

• Crayons

• A variety of shape cutouts in different colors and sizes

• Paper to glue animals on

Directions:

1. After reading the book, tell your children that you’re going to make your own Color Zoo! How many different animals do they think they can create?


2. Put all the shapes in the middle of the table for your children to look at. Have your children think of an animal they want to make, and help them find different shapes to create that animal. Sometimes it helps to just start putting shapes together and see what it looks like!

3. When they’re satisfied with their animal, have them glue the shapes together on paper.

4. Add eyes, mouths, whiskers, tails, etc. with crayons.

You can watch the book being read here:



If you are interested in purchasing Color Zoo, please consider supporting Homeschool Parent by purchasing from the following Amazon link, thank you!

Corn Syrup Painting

I love how shiny this looks even when the paint is dry!  To see how we made it, click here.

Learn To Draw Portraits

Budding artists will love this video series that explains how to draw portraits. The 27 video series details:

*Value and Contrast

*Graphite and Eraser

*Sketching

*Value Shapes

*Measuring

Splatter Art

My kiddos love to paint, and while I love nurturing their artistic spirits, the idea of cleaning up all that paint? Uh... not so much. So, you can imagine my delight when I found this cool place for them to unleash their inner Jackson Pollock!

Try a little virtual paint splattering!

*Just move the mouse around the screen to splatter the paint. The slower you move the more paint gets applied. If you move quickly, you'll get a thin line of paint. Be aware, it's a continuous line of paint.

* To change colors, just left click with the mouse.

*To clear your creation, just hit the spacebar.

Above are just a couple of my creations. It's actually quite addicting!