Easter Art: Do-A-Dot Bunnies

Look, I squeezed in an Easter art project! Be proud of me. 

I saw this on Pinterest a few days ago (originally Kids Activities Blog's Cute Bingo Dauber Easter Craft), and since The Boy loooooves his Do-A-Dot markers, I knew it was a must-do.

Also? It's the easiest art project ever. Just do a bunch of dots, wait a minute for the dots to dry, and draw little bunny faces on the dots with a marker.

The Boy and I each made one. I was surprised that he had the patience to draw a face on each of the bajillion dots he made. Shows what I know. Homeschooling: surprising parents who underestimate their children, one day at a time.

Egypt

So, before I post the fun activity I need to say a few things. We have been doing a homeschooling program and doing their curriculum. We've been hating school. The girls hate it, I hate it, heck even my husband hates it. We have pretty much halted in our learning. So. I've decided going back to HOME schooling. I chose to homeschool because I think learning should be hard work, but tons of fun.
And to the real reason for the post..........................

Today we started back into "My America and My World" (an Abeka history book). We learned about Egypt. We learned about the Sphinx and learned about Pyramids. So, we made those out of sugar cubes. These are pictures of the progress. My kids decided it would be lots of fun to paint their pyramids.. So we did, you can do that when you're homeschooling!!!

 My princess decided eating them was just as fun as making stuff with them.

 My fashionista decided to try and make a sphinex, that's why it's rectangular instead of square.

 My scientist made a pyramid and building to go around it.

 My pyramid.. Because I get to enjoy learning right along with them!

Baby Brother got to "glue" with water.. and he ate all his sugar cubes... Yeah... He enjoyed every second!

What things we've learned from this lesson:
Math: you need the same amount of cubes on each side in order to make a square.
Science: Sugar melts in water, also because paint has water if you add to much it also melts the sugar
History: About pyramids and the Sphinx
Reading: Each kid took turns reading outloud from the history book


*by the way, i don't get anything for mentioning Abeka.. I just LOVE how simple the history books are and how they get more advanced every year.

Progress

Picture from here

My fashionista has been really struggling to read. We've try different approaches. I was getting really sad because she was hating reading. And I know that she could really love it.  She's six years old. My other daughter was reading chapter books by six. I assumed my fashionista was behind because she wasn't reading chapter books yet. About a year ago, she really struggle with reading the first set of Bob books. We have a few other sets, she has struggled but made it through most of them. I have felt that she needed to start all over on the Bob books along with the other reading program we do.
Today we started over. She read six books, easily. No problem at all. She turned to me and said "wow, reading is fun."
She is seriously floating on cloud nine and is currently reading more to her sisters.
When we're with our kids and teaching them, it's hard to see their progress. Especially when they are struggling. It's so encouraging to go back and take what your child has struggled with and see the real improvement. I challenge you to do this. Go back and revisit an area of schooling your child was struggling with. And help them see that all their hard work is paying off!!

Shamrock Art FAIL

When I saw this cute shamrock art project on Pinterest, I thought it would be super fun and easy. Bell pepper + green paint = St. Patrick's Day awesomeness.

Unfortunately, I can't cut a straight line to save my life our kitchen knives are really dull. We ended up with this:

{A couple of okay shamrocks, but mostly...not.}

The Boy was pretty disappointed. Soooo, we took a page from Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood. (The Boy hates it when I sing the "When Something Seems Bad" song, but I do it anyway.)


And this is what The Boy came up with as a solution:

Painting his own shamrocks! He was pretty happy with that. Crisis averted.