how would you change the world? a watercolor project for kids

Lately, at four and a half, Ethan is really into asking these big, philosophical questions. Sometimes I'm not ready for them. Especially at 3 a.m. when he wanders into my room wondering about the Trojan War, or inquiring if we can work together to end homelessness. Mostly, though, I'm captivated by this age and the wonder and intellect that his little brain can conjure up at any given moment. There has been such a burst between four and four and a half and I am loving just talking to him. (Which is good, because he never actually shuts up.)

Anyway, we made this watercolor world project. As we worked (which took two days due to the time our world took to dry), Ethan had time to ponder the question: how would you change the world? Given his usual oddly mature level of insight, I was interested to hear what he had to say. His actual response, of course, had me cracking up:

Kids. They say the darndest (and truest) things.

Here's a little more detail into this fun little craft, which looks absolutely gorgeous when hanging on the wall -- especially near a window.

You'll need:
- White paper cut into a circular shape
- Construction paper
- Salt
- White glue
- Liquid watercolors
- Dropper

First things first: get your liquid watercolors ready. Blue and green, of course.

Next, trace your child's hand onto construction paper (and cut out).

Once the traced handprint is cut out, glue it onto the round, white sheet of paper. Even though the watercolors will soak through, the paper will lap it up enough to keep the handprint a lighter shade of blue and green than the rest of the world.

Using droppers is always fun, so Ethan had a blast. He just kept dropping sploshes of green and blue until the little round Earth was completely soaked through. (It needed to dry overnight.)

Once the Earth was dry, peel off the traced handprint. Using white glue, outline the handprint and then drop salt along the glue. (Ethan had fun with this. Some of the salt got elsewhere. Things are more fun when they aren't perfect, right?)

My favorite part, of course, is gluing on the world and finally getting to hear the answer to the "how would you change the world?" question. This one was a beautiful addition to our dining room wall -- and it sparkles so beautifully when the sun hits it.

homeschool preschool - age 4 - around the world (part one)

We've had a busy week in general (so many Halloween festivities!) and a busy week in tot school, too. Our Around The World unit will probably be spread over three weeks just to cover all of the material without a rush. This past week, we wrapped up our first week and it was so much fun! To kick things off, Ethan and I began with a talk about where our family history began. Using our classroom map, I mapped Ethan's family history as well as those of some of his best friends. He enjoyed seeing the places on the map where he and his friends "came from."

From there, we began our activities. For this unit, I checked out a book from the library to correspond with each activity. This was a fun way to learn more about different countries and cultures before diving into an activity. We have a whole bunch more countries to learn about over the next two weeks, but to recap what we went over during our first week:

INDIA

The book we used was "The Road to Mumbai" by Ruth Jeyaveeran. For our activity, Ethan made some clay diyas and learned more about Diwali. While a traditional diya has a cotton wick, we improvised with some small candles from the dollar store. Ethan loved using the modeling clay to create the base for his diyas and then had a blast decorating them once they dried.

ITALY

The book we used was "Gabriella's Song" by Candace Fleming. For this activity, we learned all about Roman mosaics and Ethan created his own mosaic art using cut up squares made from paint swatches. He absolutely loved this activity!

A flower and a camel

RUSSIA

We read "Rechenka's Eggs" by Patricia Polacco. For our craft, we made eggs like Rechenka's using some wooden eggs I found at Michael's, paint and glitter -- lots of glitter!

VIETNAM

We read "Ten Mice for Tet" by Pegi Deitz Shea and learned all about Tet, the Vietnamese New Year. For our craft, we made our own Li Xi, or red envelopes embossed with gold. For this one, Ethan got to use gold embossing powder to create designs on red envelopes. He plans on handing them out to his friends to celebrate!

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homeschool preschool - age 4 - bug week (1/2)

This past week was week one of two of bug, insect and creepy-crawlers week! This week was extra special because we also got to host our homeschool preschool co-op at our house, which was a lot of fun!

During our co-op, the kids got to learn about worms...

...as well as release some ladybugs!

VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR LACING ACTIVITY

This was an activity we did with our co-op and that appeared in Ethan's weekly tot tray rotations. In the past, Ethan has tended to be disinterested in lacing activities, but he really loved this one and did this activity several times over the week! I printed out the Very Hungry Caterpillar on cardstock, punched some holes and threw in some shoelaces for the kids to do their lacing.

LADYBUG DOT GAME

This was another activity that we featured with our co-op (as pictured here) but also one that stayed in our weekly rotation. Ethan loved this activity! When doing the activity with the co-op, each child got to take a turn rolling the numbered dice. Whatever number was rolled is the number of dots each child got to place on their ladybugs.

SPAGHETTI SENSORY PLAY

For our co-op, I boiled a whole lot of pasta and placed it into Ethan's water table along with some toy spiders and some tongs. The kids got to have some slimy fun playing in the spaghetti and picking out the spiders!

BUG MATH

The Bug Math activity was hands down Ethan's favorite of the week. I cut out two jars, a plus and equal sign and some bug cut-outs. Ethan would place bugs in both jars, count them and then practice adding them up.

BUG PHONICS

For this one, Ethan got to practice sounding out each word and filling in the missing letters. He really enjoyed this activity, especially solving the missing letters in the middle of the words as opposed to just the starting letter.

INCHWORM MEASURING

For this activity, we learned about centimeters vs. inches and practiced measuring some inchworms. Ethan was really fascinated with this activity and spent a lot of time working on it. Of course, this slowly morphed into measuring everything laying around our tot school classroom.

STICKY SPIDERWEB GAME

For this activity, I placed some masking tape (sticky side up) on a tray and paired it with a tub of pom poms. Ethan got to practice those gross motor skills by tossing the pom poms onto the tray and hoping they get stuck in the sticky spiderweb! He absolutely loved this game and it'll definitely be rolling over into part two of bug week!

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homeschool preschool - age 4 - stars, week 2

We wrapped up week 2 of our stars theme this past week!

Rhyming Stars

I printed some sight words on blue card stock and Ethan got to practice reading them and match the ones that rhyme.

Draw Your Own Constellations

Using star stickers and white chalk on black construction paper, Ethan got to make his own constellations. It was fun seeing the kinds of shapes and constellations that he came up with!

Punctuation: Asking, Telling & Yelling

Using some star facts, I introduced the concept of punctuation with an asking, yelling or telling activity. Ethan has been asking about the punctuation marks as we read, so I thought it was a good time to introduce them.

Star Stuff

I still have to post on our book bin for this theme, but one of our favorites was Star Stuff, a children's picture book about Carl Sagan. Ethan absolutely loved this story and learning how we are all made of star stuff!

Using a roll of white paper from the educational supply store, I traced Ethan's body and cut it out. I filled some spray bottles with orange and yellow paint (plus a little bit of water so it sprayed easier) and let Ethan go to work making beautiful "stars" all over his body.

After adding some glitter (duh!), we had our finished project:

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