Model Magic and Magic Paint Board

Arjun and I have been home sick for two days.  I've been sick, that is, and Arjun has been home with me since I've not felt well enough to drive him to school.  Yesterday I was too sick to feel guilty about watching movies all day.  Today I have my wits back about me and we have only spent half of the day watching movies.  Keeping a three year old engaged when one doesn't feel well is challenging.  We came up with two projects that helped us get through the day.  The first one we started last week when we found ourselves with some over-the-hill Model Magic.

I guess that if you keep the stuff for a few years, even in it's foil wrapper, it eventually begins to dry.  Usually Model Magic is soft, squishy and very, very moldable.  Ours was still pliable enough to make impressions in, but definitely not fresh enough to use as the manufacturer intended.  I thought it would be fun to make soft foamy letter stamps with it.  We pressed some blobs into Arjun's letter blocks and set them aside to dry.  I had thought we could use paint on them, or markers.  We haven't tried that yet since Arjun had other ideas. 

 

We received this most excellent "Buddha Board" as a holiday gift.  We use it almost every day.  Arjun loves to practice making letters on it with the brush.  Mostly he likes to make "A"s.  I had the stamps we'd made drying on the table when he decided to paint them with water and stamp them on the board.  It worked! 

We love this board.  It's particularly great for us right now since Arjun is so into writing.  This way he can practice and practice and practice without generating tons of difficult-for-me-to-throw-out documents.

AND I just came across this tutorial.  I wonder if this paper comes in larger sheets.  It would be fun to make a huge disappearing drawing board!
The stamps also make excellent boulders for dumping.

12 Fun Things a Guy Might Like to Do on a Snowy Weekend

1.  Build a fire.

 

2.  Paint

3.  Bake bread and make yogurt.

3.  Experiment

4.  Drink Hot Chocolate

5.  Nap

6.  Shovel

7.  Swing

8. Build a crane with Legos

9.  Fix things

10. Practice the bodrhan

11.  Sled

12.  Build a tractor

HOORAY FOR SNOW!!!!!!

Our favorite bread recipe

Arjun and I LOVE to bake.

Bread, pretzels, bagels, muffins....whatever, really.

It's a fun and useful activity that we like to do together on weekend mornings.
Arjun loves non-sticky tactile experiences and he loves "working."  So kneading and shaping dough has always been of interest to him.

We've been baking bread for weeks now and we've tried many, many different recipes.  We've recently started using our own version of several different ones.
This is what we've developed so far:

1 tsp instant yeast
3.5 cups warmish water (or whey from making yogurt - we learned this in Make the Bread and Buy the Butter it makes the bread more tangy.....Mmmmmm)
4 cups white or bread flour
1/2 cup vital wheat gluten
2/3 cup oats
2 cups whole-wheat flour
salt
seeds - always add sesame, poppy and flax seeds.  I sometimes add fennel.  Fennel is great for toast and cheese sandwiches, but Arjun and I do not like fennel seeds with peanut butter and jam.

Mix all ingredients together and knead - or use a dough hook on a mixer - for a bit.  Place dough in an oiled bowl.  Cover with a kitchen towel and place in a warm dark place for an hour or so.  If you moisten the towel it will keep the dough from developing a crust if the warm area is very warm.  Punch down then place about half of the dough in an oiled pyrex bread pan.  Maybe ours is 4"X10"?  Cover, and let rise for another hour or so.  Then bake at 425 for about 30 minutes or until the crust is golden and tasty looking.

Arjun and I put the rest of the dough in an oiled glass bowl and leave it in the refrigerator.  We use the dough to make pizza, baguettes or another loaf later in the week.

Happy Holidays

Back to school

We are back in school!  Both of us.  Arjun and I are happy to be back on a regular schedule, though it is sad for me that we won't be spending as much time together.  We''ll just have to make our evenings and weekends even better.  We've done well at that so far.  We go to sleep wiped out nearly every night.  There is so much fun stuff to do...
I was so happy to see the students again! Or, as Arjun calls them, "the big kids."  He thinks they are the coolest.  They are, really.  Though they are not all so big.
The first finished project of the year is the Kindergarten shapes game project.  Kindergartners spend most of the year in Art looking at the work of abstract expressionists.  We start off by looking at and talking about simple shapes.  I read them this book:

Then we look at some simple cards I made so that we can a establish a sort of common language.  Using really basic materials - sometimes markers, sometimes crayons, sometimes paint - we take turns calling out shapes.  Everyone makes the same shape on their paper, but everyone's composition is entirely their own.  After we make shapes, students color and decorate as they wish.  This time we used crayons and worked on watercolor paper.  We dipped our paper in a watercolor bath when we were finished.

I love this project.  I love it even more every time I see the results.  They are so different every single time!

Maybe an angel?

At dinner, Arjun says, "Mmm.  What did you put in here?"

I say, "Ummmmm...broccoli, olive oil... then I cooked it in the cast iron pan."

Arjun:  "Yummmaah!"

Me:  "How come you're so great?"

Arjun:  "Because I have my Mom!"