Learning At Home: A Magic Picture!

We hardly have time to do home learning during the school term these days, what with Little Bee's CCAs and school work. So, it was a much welcomed reprieve when we finally managed to squeeze in time to do some fun crafts during the June holidays.

This interesting "magical" craft amused Little Bee for a couple of hours! I tried this with Big Bee when she was younger, and she was amazed at the end product. It was truly gratifying when we saw the same sense of wonderment in Little Bee's eyes too!

This "magical" picture changes from monochrome to colourful with just a pull of your hand - what wizardry indeed!

You will need:
Thin card or paper
Scissors
Markers, colour pencils, felt tip pens
Small plastic folder
Tape

Step 1: Take a sheet of thin paper and fold it carefully into 3 equal sections.

Step 2: On the front flap, mark out a rectangle and the finger grip space. Cut away the finger grip space.

Step 3: Open out the card and cut out the rectangle. This will be the front of the card.

Step 4: Draw a decorative border on the front frame. Cut a separate piece of paper that is the same size as one section of the card, and draw your design, colouring the entire picture.

Step 5: Slip your completed picture into the plastic folder with the top against the fold of the plastic. Trim the plastic folder to the picture, and use the tape to stick the back of the picture to the plastic.

Step 6: Use a marker pen and draw an outline of the picture on the plastic.

Step 7: Fold the bottom flap of your card into the middle section. Slip the plastic-covered picture over the bottom flap. The bottom flap is now between the coloured picture and the outlined picture on the plastic flap. Fold the top flap down over the plastic. Grip the plastic and paper, and then pull the coloured picture out. Voila! The picture will seem to appear magically in colour as you pull it out. Enjoy!

Little Bee was able to work on this herself with minimal help from me. She had loads of fun! Experiment with different pictures like a hillside covered with white, fluffy sheep or a bare table top with a birthday cake appearing on it (I am excited to try this one out!).

Inspired To Paint

On a lazy Sunday afternoon, Hubby took out paints, easels and canvas, and encouraged the 3 females in the family to indulge in a bout of escapism. Painting, to us, is escapism. The focus it provides is an amazing reprieve from the stress of daily life. Whether we emulate existing paintings, attempt to re-create the great works of old masters, or enact another world from our imaginations, it provides us with a little channel into another world.

Little Bee had previously sketched out a rainforest some time back, and could immediately launched into painting this rainforest alive through mainly verdant shades. 

Big Bee opted to paint a semi-abstract painting comprising of a fairly challenging blended background and a pair of love birds on a beautiful blossoming tree. 

Whereas I decided to re-enact an European countryside scene which I found online. 

We will be displaying our paintings around the house, which makes it so much more meaningful for the Bees rather than us buying paintings from other painters. And I think this rejuvenating exercise will be a regular one for us! 

Mummy Art School

I tend to sneak in some painting sessions on Fridays or over the weekends, as the Bees are enthusiastic about painting. As I have had a good number of years of formal art training before, I usually attempted teaching them, and it was always good fun. 

However, one fine night as the Bees were painting with me, they suggested that I send them for art classes instead! I was flabbergasted. Is it not better learning from your own mummy? Isn't it more comfortable painting at home? Don't you guys have enough enrichment classes?

Then it dawned on me that the Bees wanted to work on more challenging art pieces - which I can't possibly teach with my amateur skills (look what I had done to Van Gogh with them, haha!). 

So I decided to let them attend a couple of art workshops only during the holidays, and get them to continue painting at home during school term. 

Here were what they produced at one of the art workshops. The art piece of the lavender mountains below was what I encouraged Big Bee to copy-paint at home without any instructions. I could see the vast difference, of course - so I will definitely be sending them for more art workshops during the next holidays! 

Big Bee's painting from art workshop: Sunset with verdant giants

Little Bee's painting from art workshop: Sunset and a little fox

Big Bee's painting done at home, with some guidance from me: Rolling Lavender Mountains

Painting also works wonders for the girls' patience and sense of permanence in life. One windy afternoon, the Bees were working on their paintings, and Little Bee completed her painting of a golden field of sunflowers that we had been working on for a few nights. She was proud of her painting, and so was I. It was bright, bold and sunny - just like her. 

I left the painting in the balcony to dry - and went outside with the girls to collect our mail. In a split second, the skies opened and rain lashed down on earth furiously. By the time we ran back home, much of the living room floor was wet! And I was stupefied to see Little Bee's painting that was drying outside just moments ago wet, crushed and destroyed. Little Bee was devastated. So was I. We remained dazed and Little Bee sobbed for a while. It was rather heartbreaking. 

But I turned around and told her it was alright - that we can always paint again, together. She sobbed and nodded, saying, "Yes, I will try harder again. Never mind, Mummy, it is ok - I will try harder and paint another better one." 

What sweet, brave words from a little, dejected girl. But what a wonderful opportunity to teach a little one the perfect lesson of impermanence too. 

Here are a couple more of their sketches: 

Farmhouse by Little Bee

A Great Big Farm by Big Bee

Blue Christmas

I wanted to do some easy Christmas crafts to get the Bees into the mood of feliz navidad, and chanced upon this intriguing art piece after some googling. According to conscientious Big Bee, this was the hardest piece of art and craft she had done, which I wonder why! Little Bee just went with the flow in her usual free-spirited way. 

Hubby loves it, and declared that we should frame these up. I thought we might improve further with subsequent attempts, but I was heartened that this was so easy and fun!

Step 1: Draw and cut out 3 Christmas trees from construction paper. Ideally thick construction paper. I used normal paper and the effect was not good in the end - as you can see why below. Arrange the trees around a piece of art paper to resemble a fir tree forest. 

Big Bee's cut-outs

Little Bee's cut-outs

Step 2: Use white chalk and trace the trees as well as the forest floor, which could be hilly or flat. Good to use thick crayons for a more striking effect. Draw in dots for snowflakes and a nice round or crescent moon hanging in the sky. It can be challenging to use white crayon to draw on white paper, but this is part of the fun! 

Step 3: This is the fun part! Take out the construction paper of the 2 trees at the sides, leaving the construction paper for the little tree in the centre. The Bees then painted a layer of light blue watercolour painting over the whole paper, except for the ground and the moon. They were awe-struck by the fact that their paint glided smoothly over their crayon outlines of their earlier sketches. It was brilliant seeing them swish their watercolour brushes over the snowflakes and giggling that their sketches came to life with a light blue background! It is essential to use watercolour for its translucent and layering effect. 

Big Bee's crayon outlines!

Little Bee's crayon outlines! 

Step 4: Put back the construction paper of the 2 trees by the sides if you wish. Otherwise, use darker blue paint and paint the sky, avoiding painting into the trees. The Bees put the thin pieces of paper back and made the mistakes of painting over the thin paper, so the paint seeped through the paper, hence losing a significant portion of the final effect. 

Step 5: Take out the paper for the little Christmas tree (and all the rest of the construction paper) and tadah - we have a nice, chilly-looking winter scene, set in the thick of twilight! 

Big Bee's blue fir tree forest :) 

Little Bee's blue fir tree forest :) 

Once again, this was done in under an hour - and the Bees really loved this, especially how the white crayon outline "shone through" the blue paint! 

Merry Christmas, everyone!  

Ladybug Lifecycle Wheel

Val popped by our house with my aunt 2 Thursdays ago, and I came home early from work to do a little craft work with the 3 girls. I simply love working on crafts with a group of kids, as it enabled me to observe the diverse team play and peer observations between a bigger group of kids. Am waiting for Chloe to come by together and form a bigger group soon! :) 

We worked on a ladybug lifecycle wheel, and the girls loved the final output, which was entirely their own work. All I had to do was a little guidance and a whole lot of encouragement. 

The craft was really simple, and we finished everything in under an hour! 

Main materials: 

2 small paper plates

1 fastener

1 black construction paper, cut into an oval shape for the ladybug's head

Glitter glue

Red poster paint

Black marker pen

1) First, the girls painted the outer shell of the ladybug with one paper plate, and whilst the paint was drying, we took up the second paper plate to illustrate the 4 stages of the ladybug's lifecycle. 

I explained the 4 stages briefly to the 3 girls before they started drawing and writing out the stages. Once again, as with the apple tree lifecycle craft, a paper plate would be perfect to demonstrate the cyclical nature of lifecycles. 

As Val is younger, I printed out the 4 stages for her to stick on the plate and she was able to articulate to me the 4 stages in chronological order immediately. She was also able to write down the names of the 4 stages as well. Well done, Val! 

Meanwhile, the Bees were busy drawing out the various stages and writing each stage down. This took around 20 minutes.

Big Bee's 4 stages

Little Bee's 4 stages. Oops, she got the spelling of "larva" wrong ;)

2) Upon completing the 4 stages, I assisted all of them, using a fastener, to attach the 2 paper plates together - and we had a wheel! 

3) I used a stapler to help them attach the ladybug's head which is just an oval-shaped black sheet of paper. It will be more aesthetic to glue the head on instead, but stapling was much faster and more fuss-free!

4) I got the kids to draw and colour black spots around the ladybug, and for the Bees, I got them to write down "Lifecycle of a Ladybug" on the plate. It was tricky to write on an uneven plate, especially for Little Bee. This took another 15 minutes. 

5) Then, we used silver glitter glue to draw the ladybug's face. I had to assist Val and Little Bee with this because it was really tough to squeeze out my silver glitter glue - so both their ladybugs' faces look similar! 

Voila! We had a brightly-coloured ladybug lifecycle wheel in less than 60 minutes! It was really fun and entertaining, and the Bees told me they love this craft! Try it! 

Big Bee's ladybug

Little Bee's ladybug

Val's ladybug

Through The Seasons

As we focus on our homelearning theme of lifecycles, the Bees learned about the cyclical nature of various lifecycles, which is the most fundamental concept that they took away with. 

I thought it might be fun to depict the eternal recurrent pattern of lifecycles by understanding the seasons and how these seasons transform living things like trees. It is a "lifecycle" of sorts - where a tree blooms with resplendent flowers in spring, ripens into mellow dark green leafage in summer, casts off its gilded leaves of yellows and tangerines in flaming autumn and then remains barren yet stoic in winter with its branches laden with flawless white snow. 

We painted the 4 seasons and envisaged how a tree might look like in the different seasons. It is particularly hard to talk about seasons for us living in tropical Singapore, but travels to temperate countries, books and the mass media certainly helped in illustrating to the Bees the differences in the seasons. 

They had great fun using finger painting and the usual paintbrush techniques to paint the cyclical transformations of a tree through the four seasons! 

Big Bee's 4 Seasons

Little Bee's 4 Seasons

For Little Bee, I also used Chinese and English cards comprising of 春天，夏天, etc, as well as their English counterparts for word association and recognition. 

Pasta Art

One of the advantages of aligning our homelearning theme with that of the school is that some of the crafts I planned to do were already done in school! Here is an interesting craft that depicts the amazing lifecycle of a butterfly which Little Bee created in school - using uncooked pasta. 

For the school's previous learning theme on dinosaurs, Little Bee also used pasta to create the skeleton structure of a brachiosaurus, after painting a landscape where the brachiosaurus supposedly lived.   

Pasta art is fun and creative - and really simple for the kids! 

The Colourful World Of Bugs

Little Bee's curriculum theme in school (Minibeasts) and our homelearning theme (Lifecycles) had converged a little last term, and I found it a lot funner and easier to build on top of what she had learned in school into our homelearning. 

As we built our lifecycles lapbooks with information about butterflies and ladybugs, amongst other insects, these knowledge was reinforced through her art and crafts of minibeasts done in school, like some of these below. 

A fluffy caterpillar and colourful butterfly

A ladybug necklace

1 Scene, 3 Renditions

Big Bee had been fascinated by the short brush strokes painting technique of Vincent van Gogh, as well as his brilliant use of colour blends and psychedelic hues since May this year, when her art teacher in primary school introduced his techniques to her class. During the mid year exams, they had to produce a painting in Van Gogh's style, and her art piece was graded top in the class, much to our pleasant and unexpected surprise. 

Subsequently, after we visited his exhibition in the ArtScience Museum and through idyllic evenings at home, she would randomly paint the same scene using a similar brush stroke technique but different colours to reinforce the influence of colours on the mood of a painting. Well, of course she doesn't know the impact of colours and their influence on the mood of a painting in depth yet, but I am happy that she is experimenting with painting during non-study times at home, as painting is an excellent way to destress! 

Here are 3 renditions of a similar scene that she had done. Like me, she is particularly fond of landscape painting - I think it helps us dreamy souls escape into another tranquil world. Which version do you like best? :)

This was done in class during as a mid-year art exam, using oil paints on canvas

Done right after visiting Van Gogh's exhibition, using poster paints

Done on a lazy weekday evening, using oil pastel crayons

Housing Of The World

Big Bee completed a project recently for school, titled "Housing Of The World", which I found really interesting. She researched for the various housing of different cultures - with a little help from me to focus her search to a few salient cultures - and did her own independent internet research for the write-up of each culture. 

More importantly, she learned about how different people in the world live, which opened up her eyes that the world is truly a multifarious, diverse place. Little Bee also derived much pleasure and knowledge while flipping through jie-jie's project book. 

Big Bee is the most intrigued by Mongolian yurts (and also because she discovered that Mongolians live amongst many horses, some of them gorgeously wild and free!). So, she is now persuading me to go to Mongolia for a holiday, so she could also live in a yurt, amongst horses! Sounds like a very compelling idea indeed... 

This pictorial reporting format - combined with internet and library research - is truly a wonderful way to teach our older kids about the many facets of our varied world :) 

Some other pages from her project book: