"Stained Glass" Window with Crayons

We have been having so much fun making crossbows, trebuchets, catapults, costumes and castles (whew) for our Kings and Queens unit study that this almost scratched this project off of our list. Thankfully, icy roads and freezing temperatures, had us locked up in the house so we were able to make this pretty faux glass window. It is nice balance to all of the weapons we have been making!

You need:

Some sort of picture with simple lines

Card stock

Old crayons

Wax paper

Grater (I wish I had used a crank cheese grater)

Iron (sad to say, it took me 30 minutes to FIND my iron. I don't think I have used it since I had kids!)

First draw your shape onto card stock. (I wish I would have then made a copy of the pattern to that it would be easier to piece together later) Then cut the pieces apart to make a template for each section of the window.

Next, get to peelin' and gratin' those crayons. That was really the most time consuming part of the project. Luckily, I have two willing assistants.

Dump the crayon shavings onto a piece of wax paper.

Fold the paper in half and iron until the wax melts. All the directions I have seen say to use a low setting. I cranked it up as I as a I could. What can I say, patience is not my best quality when it comes to crafts. Isn't that pretty?

Finally, copy the template onto your wax paper and then cut out your pieces of "stained glass." The prettiest way to finish this project is to glue small strips of black paper to secure the pieces to one another. We just used some good old fashioned scotch tape!

For more We Made It Friday, check out Ramblings of a Crazy Women.

Weekly Wrap-Up: Corn is a Fruit, and Other Happenings

This week started out with a bang and fizzled....FAST. I am in the midst of the first trimester, can't ever remember being this tired in my life phase with the added bonus of children who do not nap.

Family Field Day to officially kick off our study of Nutrition, Exercise, Rest and Fun.

Thank goodness we had science class at my house this week and it was on Nutrition, which is what we are studying. Awesome!

Oh and it has been confirmed by a botanist, botanically speaking CORN is a FRUIT. Go figure. It can also be considered a grain. Technically vegetables do not have seeds and corn is a bunch of seeds.

We did some apple prints....that is the extent of my creativity these days.

Logan gave himself a black eye.
Taste testing some apples.

Yup, and this is the extent of our "academic" learning this week.
Painting from an areal perspective. That was Dylan's idea and a great one at that.

These paints are incredible! The colors are so vibrant!

Dylan started making this "Nutrition" game, I am excited to see how it turns out.

For more Weekly Wrap-ups check out Kris at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers

Konos Attentiveness

We finished up our Konos Unit on Attentiveness last week. We learned a lot and made many wonderful memories!

We constructed some wind chimes

and a scale with water and glasses

Vibrations make things move!

Signs for our bikes

Bigger Ears = Louder Sound

Frogs have funny ears.

Wow, that is loud!

It works on the cello too!

...and the box

Our voices are powerful!

Field Trip to the Illinois Railway Museum.

Stop, Look and Listen

And of course, our crawl through ear

Family Field Day

We kicked off our Stewardship Konos unit with a Family Field Day!

Weekly Wrap-Up - Konos Style, Part 2

Our Konos Character Trait this week and for the next 4 weeks is Stewardship and our unit is NERF (Nutrition, Exercise, Rest and Fun). (Am I the only one who didn't know what that meant?) We had a light Konos week (mostly because I was recovering from Dylan's party), but we did manage to learn the 5 food groups and have an intense debate about corn. Is it a fruit, vegetable or grain?

If you aren't familiar with Konos it is a HANDS - ON approach to learning. In that spirit, KONOS suggests emptying your fridge and grouping everything into the food groups. While I think that is a very exciting thing, not happening here. Besides not wanting to be paranoid that one of my food allergy kids got hold of something, the idea of dragging my meat and dairy products onto the floor....ewww. We compromised with pretend food and a handful of boxes from the recycling bin. I think to make it more concrete for the boys we might go through and label all of the food in the cabinets and fridge during Logan's nap, but I am so not dragging all of the food out.

Sorry KONOS.

Corn, What is it? Fruit, vegetable or grain? Anyone?

Check out Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers for more Weekly Wrap-ups! Now if I could figure out how to get that cute Weekly Wrap Up button, we would be all set.