Home Art Studio Review

Art is one of 'those' subjects that I just don't ever feel like I cover adequately, so I was really excited to discover Home Art Studio!  We checked out the First Grade program.

The First Grade program caught my eye because of it's focus on Art Around the World.  It covers art from Mexico to Australia, a great way to incorporate geography in our art lessons!

The DVD-ROM contains 18 video art lessons and a PDF of lesson plans and instructions.  It costs $24.99 at  Jerry's Artarama, which also has the list of needed supplies for easy purchase.  (There is no requirement to purchase supplies through the website).  It's great to have someone else (who knows much more about art than I) 'in' our home, teaching my children.  Ms.Volin is a great teacher, and my kids enjoying watching her.  You can't beat 18 'private' art lessons, from a professional for only $25!

You can check out a FREE lesson for each grade level HERE

Lesson #1 in the series is a 3-dimensional roller coaster, My boys had such a blast making it and C (age 6) even made several more the next day (and he is not a big fan of 'art').

Lesson #2 was watercolor rainbow and weaving.  

We are very pleased with the Home Art Studio and are looking forward to the other art lessons on the DVD!  We highly recommend this program!

Disclaimer:  I received a free copy of this product in exchange for my honest review.  I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way.  All opinions I have expressed are my own or those of my family.  I am disclosing this in accordance with the FTC Regulations.

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Science with Isopods

To finish up our Crustaceans Unit we did a few lab experiments (harmless of course) to determine what type of environment Isopods (Pill bus or Rolly Pollys) prefer to live in. 

This was part of our Pandia Press Life Science Curriculum

Field Trip #67 Friday Blog Hop

Field Trip Friday!

A Blog Hop designed to share 'FIELD TRIP' related Blog Posts

(does not have to be a 'home school field trip', can be any trip to any place with your children!)

To finish out our Crustaceans unit, we went to a Shrimp class at the Living Art Marine Center and also got to explore their hermit crabs!  We are going back there this week for a Reef Walk and a Micro Organisms Class, a well as two more scheduled trips over January and February. 

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Our Christmas Ornaments and other Christmas fun!

We made several ornaments this year to go with our Christmas curriculum that we were using (we added the ornaments in ourselves). If you follow me on Facebook, you've already seen them, but I wanted to post them together....there are 4 more we didn't get around to doing, but here is what was made

   

 




We hung them all up on a little tree in our school room!

We also made our own wrapping paper


C finished his lego club build

 
Put on our Santa hats and went caroling at a nursing home with our friends from church

And made a gingerbread house!!

I'm working on a 12 days of Christmas curriculum to share with all of you next year that will include ornament craft kits like the ones made this year. I also have the ones we made this year available for sale! Just email me (or leave a comment).

Hope everyone had a very MERRY Christmas - Hopes to a Blessed New Year!!

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Mele Kalikimaka!

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

Preschool Wrap-up (week 17)

(this is actually from LAST WEEK, with my Christmas Activity post, I got behind a week)
This ended up being a short week with a field trip, co-op and a sick day...so we did not get everything done we had planed...BUT...since the next two weeks are more just fun themed, I think we'll take Monday to get caught up before diving into the Holiday Fun! :D

Writing Practice and What is the same? From 3Dinosuars.com

Our sensory bin, it's blue rice and a variety of shells and pebbles. We got the shell cards from HERE I found the little orange hermit crab on clearance at Walmart, he is rolls around on the floor, the kids LOVED him!

Here are the kids making one of our ornaments that coincide with our Christmas curriculum, I have most of these featured on the First Grade page, but the two littles did really well at this one. It was threading small beads onto pipe cleaner to make a candy cane ornament. I was actually quite impressed that my 2yo was able to do it without any problem.

Check out the Weekly workbox post to see all that fun we had planned! And don't forget to follow my pinterest board for other great ideas on this theme. You can track our weekly themes and activities HERE

For how to dye rice go HERE

It is gonna me quieter around here than usual the next two weeks...but I'll still be posting some. We are off 'school' until the 7th of January!  Hope everyone had a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY NEW YEAR!  (Mele Kalikimaka me ka Hauʻoli Makahiki Hou)

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Field Trip #66 Friday Blog Hop

Field Trip Friday!

A Blog Hop designed to share 'FIELD TRIP' related Blog Posts

(does not have to be a 'home school field trip', can be any trip to any place with your children!)

We finished off our Insect unit with a trip to the Bishop Museum to check out their new GIANT BUGS display!  It was pretty neat, the bugs moved and they were definitely GIANT!  Some of freaked the littlest guy out a bit, but he did like the butterflies and ladybugs!  The bugs will be there until March 31st.

They aren’t kidding when they say Hawaii has gigantic cockroaches!

**NOTE:  Before linking up please review guidelines HERE