Saturday, March 27, 2010

Peep Wreath























You either love them or hate them, I happen to love Peeps! Some of my kids like them some don't. Bill definitely falls into the "does not like" category but he did love this Easter wreath I made with them. With all the new colors they have now I was able to fill it with lots of spring colors and work to fill in with other Easter treats.
The base of the wreath is a 12 inch foam form covered in pink grosgrain ribbon. With hot glue in hand I started gluing peeps everywhere, it helped to set them out for a couple of days to harden up a bit. I have to admit that until I started filling in with other things I thought it looked terrible. But when Bill walked in and said how cute it looked I had to agree with him. I like the way it turned out and it looks really festive in the kitchen.

Brownie's Get Fit and Healthy

We have always had very productive Brownie meetings but as the girls are getting older we are able to accomplish so much more in three hours. We had a lot of Try its we are in the process of so at each meeting we do a little to try and get one of them wrapped up. We have a few girls who have the potential to earn all the try its and with some girls just joining our troop this past year, we will be Brownies for the summer before flying up to Juniors this fall.

The weather at the last meeting was beautiful! We were able to spend most of it outdoors. I quickly changed plans when I saw the forecast. We worked on the My Body Try it and the Girl Sports. Because everyone was having such a great time outside we were able to complete both these Try its in one meeting! We also made our Brownie pinwheels for the Mover Try it.

Claire and Katie were our snack and drink helpers and Claire provided us with a fantastic rainbow of fruit complete with marshmallow clouds! It was so cute, the girls loved it She also made really cool rainbow cupcakes. We also had a birthday to celebrate, Faith brought cupcakes for all of us as well so we had plenty to eat! We had a quick round of Happy Birthday to cover all of our February and March birthdays. Happy Birthday Day Faith, Faith, Brooke, and AnnMarie!

We are looking forward to some really fun stuff in the coming months including a trip to COSI and a tea party. We're also busy planning our summer months so there is lots of Girl Scout excitment going on!







Sunday, March 21, 2010

Teens Rule!














What a great group of kids! We had an all time high turn out to our Tween (now many Teens!) night Friday night. We have had up to 25 kids in the past, we had 32 kids for our St. Patrick's Day celebration! They had a great time. The weather was beautiful so they all ventured outside for a couple of games then headed back in for singing, dancing, and playing video games. It was nice to see some new faces who have joined co-op this session!

The official welcoming committee!

Saturday, March 13, 2010

My Little Chihulys

We finally got to our Chihuly art project this week and it was worth the wait! I wanted to do this at the end of our unit study so that the kids could apply what they had learned.

 
We started with this matieral called DuraLar which feels like a heavy plastic. Once submerged into 200 degree water it is bendable and when removed from the water will hold its shape. It is really cool to work with. I precut the pieces into 5x7 sheets, they each got two. One they trimmed down to an oval shape. The other they cut in half and made two smaller oval shapes.

The kids really enjoyed helping to create their shapes. I would bend and submerge and then they would help move all the sides in the water. The end result:

Then the really fun part started, painting! Special glass paint was supposed to be used to give the pieces some transparent looks. I ordered four colors to work with which was plenty.

The kids were only to paint the back of the pieces to make them look shiny and glass like from the front. Then we used a Sharpie paint pen on the rims of the pieces to highlight the rim like Chihuly does.

This project came from Dick Blick and although the age was for junior high - high school, all the kids did fine with it. The main issue was the really hot water. It was a great project to wrap up our Chihuly study. The kids are pretty proud of their creations! I'm pretty proud of how much they have learned and that we got a big project done this week, yea!

Friday, March 5, 2010

Chihuly Illuminated



As soon as I found out that there would be a Chihuly exhibit at the art museum I planned a unit study. We have learned so much about glass, glass blowing, and all the people it takes to create these masterpieces. We have watched DVD's that interview Chihuly and show him and his team at work in his studio. It is amazing to see them shape the glass, this was the kids favorite part.
Many books have been read and we learned to identify the different shapes and how the installations are assembled. We don't do enough artist studies and need to do more. We all enjoy it and they learn so much and never forget the experiences. We are wrapping this unit up next week with our own Chihuly replicas. Hopefully they will turn out!




Blurry I know but this was so neat. The tubes on the bottom are glass with neon inside them. Reading about this they were created by dropping the glass down from standing on a step ladder which is how they created the pool of glass at the bottom.


The kids had to study these pieces carefully for their upcoming project. Shape, color, and the rim were all important for them to see.


We were all intrigued with the tree trunk that this display sat on.


Chihuly is a collector of these blankets and uses them for inspiration.


Wall of paintings that help convey designs to Chihuly's team.


This was an awesome little lesson on light. These sat in an illuminated box display with different light switches on the side. You could change the light to see how the glass looked. This was the spotlight which we decided was the best but the black light also was neat and made the large piece in back glow. LED was our least favorite. Lighting is truly everything!


All the chandeliers are my favorites. We learned so much about these in the books we read. They are unlike anything I have ever seen. The size, color, the way the light goes through the glass, they are just magnificent!

This was just gorgeous. We spent a lot of time looking at this display. We were able to see so many new things. The kids were looking for the steel frames and anchors they learned about when watching an installation on DVD.

I think one of the main reasons I love Chihuly is that he is not afraid to use color. The more the better and I agree! No room in my house is not painted a color and no color is used twice!




Glow doodles, to hold up and draw what you see and then illuminate it. Paige working very intently.






Almost all of the museum is currently under renovation. There is a small area that has some of the permanent collection displayed. This has been Ethan's favorite painting since he was three years old. We went to our very first "First Saturday" then and the project was based on this painting. We made the coolest sunflower that was taller than Ethan. We had a great time and never stopped going after that. We have had many, many years at the museum and because of this all the kids have a great appreciation for art.



A quick stop in the gift shop finds Lindy trying on as many beaded rings as possible!
We left the museum to meet Bill for lunch and then made a stop in the Downtown library. We were gone all day, it was the ultimate way to homeschool!