Evolution

One of the things I'm enjoying most about homeschooling Justin is the freedom to let activities evolve. We're not often on a tight time schedule, so Justin (and his friend when they share activities) has the freedom to go on little rabbit trails. For instance, last week Justin and Tiernan were painting brown grocery bags to turn them into Joseph's Coat of Many Colors. After they finished painting their "coats" they decided that some of Dave's spare wood lying around outside needed to be painted too. Then, they decided that the red would make a fantastic color for their fingernails (and they were convinced it would stay on forever and were a bit surprised when I gave a nonchalant "Sure!" response to their asking permission to do so.)

Another day, while eating lunch, somehow we got on the topic of changing the freezing/melting point of liquids. So we grabbed some ice cubes out of the freezer and sprinkled one with sugar, one with salt, and left the other one plain. Then we watched them while we finished eating to see if there would be any difference in the melting process. (Surprising to me, the ice cube with sugar on it melted quickest.)

This week, we did an art lesson with chalk pastels that I was inspired by from here. I gave Justin the choice of drawing a pepper, Indian corn, or an acorn. He chose the pepper. I thought it turned out pretty good.

Justin's pepper done in chalk pastels (he insisted on taking the photo; it's a bit out of focus)

Then Justin decided to have fun blending colors (the best part about using chalk pastels!)

Finally, we decided to do the Indian corn, too.

We also did a fun art project based on the book "Quick as a Cricket." In the book, a little boy identifies with an attribute of a different animal. I had Justin pick out the ones he thought were like him. I was a little surprised when he chose all the same ones I would have chosen for him. I guess he has pretty good self-awareness.

Justin focusing on water color painting

Add it all up, and this is me! (click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading)

Today, we finally got around to making leaf cookies. Justin has been wanting to make them for weeks (it was all his own idea...I'm not sure where he got the idea from). Since Justin's allergic to food dyes, we had to get creative (which also turned into a science lesson!). We used red cabbage (which surprisingly turned the water blue at first, then purple), peas, and carrots.

Our natural food coloring

Our finished cookies