Snowflakes, Art Prints & The Artist Katsushika Hokusai

Jet is 44 months, Dude is 7 years old, & Spudder is 5 years old

We did some art experimenting today that evolved into 3 different art projects for my 3 different students.  I was trying to find a way to have them all involved and the pictures above show my proud fellas with the resulting projects.

We started off with a little bit of reading in our Polar Lands book and decided to make snowflakes as described in the book. I knew we'd need a little bit heavier than normal paper for the extension projects I wanted to do, so we went with fingerpaint paper, but later switched to cardstock for Spudder's project. You’ll see why later.

One thing we learned from the book was that all snowflakes are actually 6 sided. This was news to me, and necessitated a different method of paper folding than I was familiar with. Instead of folding a square into 1/8ths, I traced a dinner plate to get a large circle, cut these out for everyone and folded them into 1/6ths.  I found the easiest way to do the folding to be to fold the circle in half, bend (but don’t fold) it in half again and just put the smallest crimp in the top edge (so the center point is marked) and then fold the 1/2 into 1/3s. Despite my wordy description, it was actually really easy.

Each of the boys cut triangles or other shapes into the edges of their snowflakes, being careful not to cut all the way across. Jet was a little unsure of himself at first, but after showing him how easy it was to cut two intersecting lines, he took off cutting triangles.

After the snowflake unfolding excitement, Jet continued with his part of the project by turning his snowflake into a stencil for some blue paint. A paint roller or sponge pouncer probably would have been ideal for this project, but we didn’t have either, so I just reminded him to dab with his paintbrush instead of smearing. I also didn’t bother to tape the snowflake down. I just held it and got my hands messy. The M&D paint we used washes up pretty well.

Tada!

For Spudder’s snowflake we did something a little different. I wanted to let him use his snowflake to make prints. We tried using the snowflake he’d cut out of fingerpaint paper first, but it was just too big and delicate after multiple attempts, so he went back and cut a smaller snowflake out of cardstock, and that worked better.

After spreading a thick layer of paint on his snowflake while it was laying on a scratch piece of paper, he turned it over, positioned it on his project page, covered it with a paper towel, and applied a little pressure.

Then carefully peeled the snowflake back to reveal his print. I tried to encourage him to overlap his prints, but he wouldn’t have any of that.
(This could also be a fun start to a winter scene project.)

Dude did go ahead and make the snowflakes with his brothers, but I really had a different project intended for him. His project was from the book, The Usborne Art Treasury, a wonderful book that combines artist studies with simple art projects. This particular project was inspired by the Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai.

We didn't do the project quite like the book said, but we were close. To make his print Dude used a pencil to etch a Hokusai inspired drawing into a piece of Styrofoam that I cut from a disposable food tray. He then used blue paint to make several prints from his etching. Dude enjoyed this immensely and immediately suggested we make 30 prints! We settled on 6 instead.

His favorite!

  

You can find biographical info on Hokusai, a nice size picture of one of his most famous prints, the full details of this project as well as many more in The Usborne Art Treasury. Dude used it as well as the Children's Book of Art to put together a short presentation on Katsushika Hokusai for his homeschool co-op class.

Here's a link to an animated documentary about Hokusai on YouTube that you might also find helpful:

 https://youtu.be/cebBWjgGAAQ

More book suggestions for an artist study:

More book suggestions on snowflakes:

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Water Week Science – Condensation & Precipitation

Here are the science experiments we did to help my son understand the processes of condensation and precipitation. These are some pretty difficult concepts for a 4 year old to grasp so I tried to model as many things for him as I could.

 

We started off by simply observing condensation form on a cup filled with ice water. We talked about the cup being cold and cooling the air around it. We also talked about there being water vapor in the air all around us and how it condenses and turns back into liquid water when it gets cold enough.

Dude also observed the condensation that formed when he breathed on a cold mirror.

Next we talked a little bit about water being “sticky.” I didn’t worry about any technical terms, but I did put a small amount of water on a piece of wax paper and let Dude move it around with a q-tip to observe these forces and how the water naturally wanted to “stick” together.

We first demonstrated precipitation with a simple sponge. After getting it wet Dude squeezed it (to connect all the tiny water droplets into bigger droplets) and “made it rain” into a pan.

Our final science experiment for this unit was to make it rain….inside a jar! This was not only really neat to watch, but also a great way to model every aspect of the water cycle, making the the perfect finale for our week. You can see all the details for this project HERE.

You can also see our evaporation experiments HERE.

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Making It Rain! (In A Jar)

I found a description of this experiment here and couldn’t resist trying it as part of our water cycle studies.

Here are the materials you’ll need for this project:

A Jar
(We used a giant pickle jar, but I think a smaller jar would have worked better)

A Hammer

A Nail
(I used a screwdriver tip because because I couldn’t find a nail at the time.)

A Towel

Ice

Salt

and Water just shy of boiling (not pictured)

First you’ll want to place your jar lid on the towel and use the hammer and nail to make several dimples on the inside of the lid.

Be careful not to actually puncture the lid. You only want to make indentions not actual holes.

Now for the fun part: You’ll need to warm enough water to fill your jar about 1/3 full, until it’s almost boiling. Dump this water into the jar and immediately put the jar lid on upside down (rim up). Fill the jar lid with ice and sprinkle some salt on top.

And watch it rain!

Ours actually took a few minutes to get going. I think because we used too big of a jar. But it was pretty neat to watch!

And if you're looking for a good book to go along with this experiment, we're big fans of all of the Magic School Bus books. The Magic School Bus At The Waterworks follows along well with this experiment and further explains how water gets to our houses.

You can see the rest of our water cycle experiments here & here.

And a recap of all of our letter W activities COMING SOON.

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Water Week Science – Evaporation

As you can probably guess, we did a BUNCH of science experiments during our unit on water.

Here are the first few that demonstrate evaporation:

For our first experiment we filled a jar with water and put it in the windowsill. We marked the water level with a marker the first day and Dude made a prediction about what would happen to the water level over time.  Every couple of days after that, we’d observe the new lower water level, mark it with a new line, and talk about evaporation. At first I explained the process to him, but he was soon explaining it to me!

For our next experiment we put a small amount of water onto each of two plates. We then put one in the direct sun and provided some shade for the other plate. After a couple of hours Dude observed what had happened to the water on each plate and we discussed why.

Our last evaporation experiment was the most visual and definitely Dude’s favorite. He started out by wetting his chalkboard with a rag.

Next he fired up the hair dryer, pointed it at the chalkboard, and watched as the water evaporated right before his eyes.

Like I said he LOVED this one!

Next up I’ll be posting our condensation and precipitation experiments, so keep an eye out for those!

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