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Welcome to our school’s journal and witness to the miraculous journeys, discoveries, and adventures that come with a year in the life of our excited, energetic, eager & extremely motivated little family of big learners!!! These big learners are highly intelligent, extremely inquisitive, curiously talented, beyond hilarious, magnetically outgoing, amazingly energetic, brightly shining, bursting vibrantly with good health and cheer, enthusiastically demonstrative and creatively clever, ingenious, artistic, crafty, innately creative, imaginative, skilled, and adorably precious, most loving and loved, sweetest and tenderly thoughtful, kindest and giving kiddos & we are so very blessed and honored to be able to participate in the experience of watching these awesome, amazing, & wonderful beings continue unfolding and fulfilling their destinies!!! These are the days of our school year 2010-2013...

Monday, November 22, 2010

Painting with Small Children

Painting with Small Children: "As a brand-new home schooling family, we're branching out in our craft projects at home. Thursdays have become, much to my kids' delight, Painting Day. (As our oldest is just in Kindergarten, our "home school" is VERY fun right now!)



I was nervous about a weekly Painting Day, but here is how we have successfully been using paints with a five and a two-year-old.









  • For children who are able, have an assignment. You could set something out for them to paint a picture of, or talk about a character or scene in a favorite story for them to depict. Discuss the details with them first, and get them excited about what they're about to do.

  • If pictures quickly become a 'paint lake', try limiting the paint colors.

  • Pour washable paints into smaller containers- our favorites are mini muffin tins, or plastic trays that used to hold goodies. The trays you see above used to hold ice cream-filled mochi.

  • Teach children to stroke the page with their brush, and never scribble.

  • Very small children can have a lot of fun painting if you first pour dribbles of paint all over their page and let them use brushes and fingers to paint their own picture. This is a great high chair activity!

  • I stapled a large piece of oil cloth to our kitchen table as a semi-permanent tablecloth, and it is simply amazing for doing art projects on. Crayons, markers, paints, and even ball point pens wipe right up.

  • Good smocks are a sanity-saver. We found these inexpensive smocks at Ikea, and they are great for protecting them from neck to knee. If I could change one thing, the sleeves would be fitted so they don't drag through the paint and projects. Old dress shirts from Dad's closet, worn backwards, are also a great option (although not waterproof.)

  • We have laminate floors that are, as far as I can tell, indestructible. However if you DON'T have such impervious floors, a drop cloth under the work area is a great option in case something spills.

  • Finally, and most importantly, just let the kids paint!



We've had a lot of fun painting together -- yes, I paint pictures too, and no I don't bother to correct people when they compliment my five-year-old on "her" beautiful art work! And as an added bonus, as our days get shorter and light gets scarcer, I have an unending supply to cheerful artwork to bring light and warmth into our home.


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Chelan 083 Myrnie is Mom to two little girls, wife to her husband, and a lifelong book junkie. She can be found crafting and gabbing here and being all crunchy here.








Photo credits: Myself





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Educational thoughts from history's garden for us to ponder...

~ Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school. ~Albert Einstein
~ I have never let my schooling interfere with my education. ~ Mark Twain
~ The principal goal of education is to create men who are capable of doing new things, not simply of repeating what other generations have done. ~ Jean Piaget
~ The primary purpose of a liberal education is to make one's mind a pleasant place in which to spend one's time. ~ Sydney J. Harris
~ It is a thousand times better to have common sense without education than to have education without common sense. ~ Robert G. Ingersoll
~ Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run. ~ Mark Twain
~ An educated man is one who can entertain a new idea, entertain another person and entertain himself. ~ Sydney Wood
~ Education is a progressive discovery of our ignorance. ~ Will Durant
~ Education is what remains when we have forgotten all that we have been taught. ~ George Saville
~ The whole object of education is...to develop the mind. The mind should be a thing that works. ~ Sherwood Anderson
~ Education has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading. ~ G.M. Trevelyan
~ The chief wonder of education is that it does not ruin everybody concerned in it, teachers and taught. ~ Henry Brooks Adams
~ A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education he may steal the whole railroad. ~ Theodore Roosevelt
~ They say that we are better educated than our parents' generation. What they mean is that we go to school longer. They are not the same thing. ~ Douglas Yates
~ What does education often do? It makes a straight-cut ditch of a free, meandering brook. ~Henry David Thoreau
~ Education is an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity. ~ Aristotle
~ Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence. ~ Robert Frost
~ It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. ~Aristotle
~ Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself. ~John Dewey
~ The tragedy of education is played in two scenes - incompetent pupils facing competent teachers and incompetent teachers facing competent pupils. ~ Martin H. Fischer
~ [Education] consists mainly in what we have unlearned. ~ Mark Twain
~ Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing worth knowing can be taught. ~
Oscar Wilde
~ Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another. ~ G.K. Chesterton
~ Children have to be educated, but they have also to be left to educate themselves. ~ AbbE Dimnet
~ Education is not filling a pail but the lighting of a fire. ~ William Butler Yeates
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