Elementary School Lessons

A Science project about the environment: a house, trees and ornamental plants.

Sample house with a red roof and red door made by me. That is the younger daughter in the background making the paper house that we will use for the project. Click here for the pattern of the house.

Below are the daughter’s hands at work putting together the paper that will become a house:

Initial design idea in the photo below. We lacked paper so the front floor of the porch is cut short, lol. That was the paper that we used for the houses. I needed to add that part because that was where the railings of the porch was attached.

We decided to put up the trees after the daughter has cut the “leaves” or the green parts, the trunks and the wee fruits. I drew the design on the construction paper and she cut these out. Notice the lopsided roof, that was still unattached at this point.

Details are important to make this “imaginary” house and backyard seem real, hence the doghouse which very much looks like Blue’s Clues home, flowers that look real (some are made of fabric while the rest are embellishments) and trees at the back of the “property”. We then went on to put together the itty-bitty craft creations by pasting, using thumb tacks and using toothpicks for the flowers. Roof has not yet been glued.

Finally, after putting together the finished products: trees were attached to the trunks, fruits were pasted on the trees, roof was glued to the house, flower pots arranged neatly, doghouse glued near the entrance/gate and mini-fish pond added, we were all done. The mini-pond consisted of blue construction paper and its plastic container/cover glued on top to make it look like water. Daughter cut the fish while I made little rocks out of black construction paper scraps.

Notice the China flag in the background: while I was putting together the details, the daughter made the China flag she will use for the United Nations’ Day parade.

We were done before 5pm even if we started before 9am. In between I had to cook lunch and wash the plates <- taken cared of by the eldest child. Tiring day it was but definitely worth all the effort.

The youngest daughter’s weekend project consists of making a house and backyard with lots of trees and flowers.

I was able to get a lot of ideas in the web when I searched for patterns. In the afternoon I tried to do a house and a tree.

The daughter loved it! She can’t wait for the print outs for the detailed outline so she can make her own.

Here’s what I made: presenting my low-cost housing unit and a tree, ta-da!

The youngest daughter enjoyed “decorating” the outside walls of the house when they came home from school:

I “copied” this pattern but I used my own measurement. For the 4th wall, I had difficulty adjusting it to be able to get a square. I obviously ran out of paper which made the house pink in front and white on the sides and back.

Am excited to get more supplies at the bookstore for this project. Can’t wait for tomorrow to come 😀

LEGO Pilipinas, Tara Na exhibit is happening at the SM Mall of Asia from August 12 – 27, 2011.

Here is the Philippine map (photo taken from our photo blog, Photo Stories) in its entirety:

View the photos here.

Read the blogpost here.

Vitamin A Food Mobile project:

Used egg tray for mixing the paint, water color paints in tube (ugh! the smell was bad), craft glue, scissors, paper for the drawing, long native baskets for the food (from last year’s Christmas gift “boxes”), and puncher. Not in photo is the hanger, round clips (from the notepads project of teacher mom), yarn from projects I can’t remember and native tray (from two Christmases ago where food gifts were given).

Vitamin A rich food: egg, spinach, carrot and cheese (not in the photo yet).

Most of the food mobiles submitted were made of “plastic” fruits and vegetables. I see nothing wrong because these are more colorful and livelier to look at but I think it is better that the children learn to do these art projects from scratch because it not only enhances their imagination and creativity, it also promotes the use of whatever materials one has in the home.

Last year, I wrote about Global Art Philippines and the national art competition they held last year.

Last month, the younger daughter availed of the gift certificate I have forgotten about have long buried in my bag. Good thing Miss Yen, the directress of Global Art Philippines was accommodating and gave us the chance to redeem the free services. We got eight hours of free lessons plus materials.

The younger daughter was scheduled to have four 2-hour sessions.

Below is her art work, which was done last Saturday, her second from the 4 two hour sessions:

Nice eh?

Thank you Global Art Philippines, especially Global Art Ortigas (Main) for giving my daughter a chance to have these lessons in your center.

Global Art Philippines Facebook page

Ortigas branch (Main):

Unit 101 Sekai Center, 368 Ortigas Avenue, corner Madison Street, San Juan
Tel: 515-7005; 726-0435

Dirty for today’s Photo Hunter theme.

Playing with play dough is one of the most enjoyable things children can do. They not only think creatively but they also develop fine motor skills and create concepts.

Parents can make their own play dough using tried and tested “recipes” to lessen the children getting in contact with the dangers of those colors being used in commercially bought play dough.

Never mind of the play dough gets into the fingernails and make these dirty, as long as the children are having fun and learning too, I’m sure play dough time is something they will look forward to during play time.

I am definitely missing seeing the youngest child make wonderful drawings.

Below is a Mr. Gru drawing she did half a year ago when she was 7.9 yo, “copied” from a drawing tutorials from YouTube.

She has done several drawing which I featured, including these digital art drawings of a singer and a house, the little boy and dragon’s head.

One more thing I’m missing is her playing the recorder. She said she has forgotten some of the musical pieces she mastered when we were still homeschooling. 🙁