Mindstorm explored

Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you.
~Oprah Winfrey

Creativity Greenhouse

Charlie, in particular, has been feeling very artistic lately. He is all about drawing, painting, sculpting..anything that gets his creative juices flowing. As a way of him getting a bit more 'expert' experience than mama can provide, we arranged a few classes with our home school friends at the Creativity Greenhouse - a local art studio for kids. The instructor there is fabulous - offering up great ideas, and letting us customize a program for the kids that we think they will enjoy.

This time around the kids are exploring ancient civilizations using art. They have done gold tiles and canopic jars while studying Egyptian culture, and Greek theatre masks. Next on the books is Roman and Mayan art.

Play in the park!!

Afer our visit to the Creativity Greenhouse, the boys and their friends headed across the street for some play in the park.




As an aside, you just have to love a city that knows enough to leave the huge, hollowed out trunk of an old tree intact in the park instead of pullign it out, don't you?

Cold, wet fingers, but happy smiley faces. The errosion table made it through the winter!!

Spring

Spring makes its own statement, so loud and clear that the gardener seems to be only one of the instruments, not the composer.
~Geoffrey B. Charlesworth

Salt Dough

Often the simplest things are the best. The cardboard box that the expensive toy came in...the sidewalk chalk instead of the oil pastels, and this stand-by recipe for salt dough. Charlie and I whipped up a batch this afternoon (in about 1 minute flat!) and he had a great time creating masterpieces. His favorite was this hammerhead shark...



Salt Dough Recipe
1 cup salt
2 cups flour
1/2 cup water

Combine the salt and flour. Stir in water. Create something wonderful. Let air dry for a few days, turning over if possible so that it can dry evenly.

Science co-op - Dirty Water

This week at science co-op, we played with dirty water!! The talk was all about pollution, and all of the many ways our lakes, rivers and streams are contaminated every day. They made a filter out of their own bodies, and learned about particulate, filtrates, and residue, and then built their own filters to try and clean out the debris.




The water was still a rather un-natural blue when it came out of their filters, but was looking a whole lot better than when it went in!