Doodle Draw Art...Love!

If you're looking for a nice easy way to help your kids learn to draw, then have I got the website for you!

 DoodleDrawArt is a Youtube channel and blog that teaches children to draw cartoon style animals, vehicles, seasonal themes and characters all using simple lines and basic materials.  The videos are all nice and short, and include narration.  And if you can't find what you're looking for, they even take requests!

Have a look - and maybe you'll even enjoy trying out the drawings yourself!

• YouTube:  http://www.youtube.com/user/DoodleDrawArt
• Instagram:  http://instagram.com/doodledrawart
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DoodleDrawArt
• Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/doodledrawart
• Blog: http://doodledrawart.blogspot.ca/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/DoodleDrawArt

The instagram portion of this Online Art Class makes it most engaging, as she encourages her online students to post their pictures of her lessons and tag her in them, making it an easy way to show off your work!  How cool is that? 

Why not give her a boost and share the YouTube channel with your friends?  Oh, and I almost forgot to mention, she's a fellow homeschooler!

Art Class - 3D Hand

 source: https://www.facebook.com/different.solutions.page

Halloween Costumes on a Budget

At our house, Halloween is the most fun time for innovation and creativity.

This year, my boys are quite obsessed with Star Wars, the Clone Wars. And, as a result they decided to be clone troopers for Halloween. As with most Halloween costumes, our endeavor started with a trip to the local fabric store. $12 later

we were home with 1.2 m of white upholstery vinyl, which I estimated was enough to make costumes for both boys.

Using newspaper we created templates directly on their bodies by looking at a picture of a clone trooper.

Once they were satisfied with the shapes for all the

pieces we laid the newspaper pattern pieces out on our piece of vinyl and cut them out

A bit of hot glue was all that was needed to afix the pieces to some dark colored old clothes

Add a couple of helmets (gifts from last Christmas.)

-voila! Clone Troopers!

Sneakers

Sneakers
 

Oh dear! Is Sneakers in trouble again?

The kids have been asking for lots of new little critters these days, so my latest amigurumi creation is Sneakers!

If you crochet, and are interested in a pattern, head on over to Etsy. You can find it here on
Etsy at Ashton11.Etsy.com

Father's Day Craft

Check out my most recent post to handmadenews.org


It's is a quick and easy Father's Day gift to make!

Mom's are so easy to please when it comes to crafts made by their children. But Dads, well, they like something a little bit more practical. So why not make him something he can use all year. Get it? Coffee can??

Oh, I am so bad! I can never resist a pun!

Anyway. Have a peek at this article and see how it's made!

Handmade News

Homeschoolers are always on a quest for creative ways to offer up curriculum.

Arts, crafts, science, math. You name it! We want hands on ways to teach it.

A great place to find for a full range of craft instructions and ideas can be found at handmadenews.org. They have a Crafty Kids department with ideas that kids can do themselves, and there are many other departments which highlight green crafts, craft techniques, business tips and more!

I believe in teaching my kids to be self-sufficient and to work at entrepreneurial enterprises. Handmade news is a trove of resources to help with this. Have a peek if you'd like some inspiration, or just for the plain fun of it!

Oh, and did I forget to mention…I’m one of their newest columnists! Yay for me!

Inuksuk

We've been learning about Inuksuk!  What fun.

In case you don't know what an inuksuk is....It's a Canadian indiginous place marker.

They have been used for thousands of years by the Inuit, Canadian Arctic people, to mark an important location.  

An inuksuk (pronounced Ee nook sook) is used to mark a spot where surplus food has been stored, or to tell about a prime location for hunting or fishing.   They also were used for marking a good resting place, or to indicate a residence.  

Inuksuit (the plural form of inuksuk) were originally built in unique shapes to give specific meaning.  But, more recently, they have come to resemble the shape of stone people. 

We built an inuksuk in our backyard.  

First we collected up the required stones 

Next, we decided on a good way to arrange them.

Next was the tricky part, stacking them!

We wanted ours to look like a person!

And here it sits, to welcome us and our friends!

To learn more about inuksuk visit this site:

http://www.pinnaclefarms.ca/ORIANAsite/AboutNameandLogo/InuksukNew.html#In1

Rainbow Jello

...Sometimes working in the kitchen is the perfect way to enhance a learning activity!

Recently my 5 year old was learning the colors of the rainbow.

He was having a little trouble remembering the order, so I went online to find a way to help him remember them.

Fly to My Window is a blogger with lots of creative ideas.  And this one was no exception.  Taking the day to add layers to this jello art masterpiece was a great experience.  Spending the day mixing and pouring while naming the colors is a great hands on way to reinforce the light spectrum, and kind of tasty too!  

Drawing Manga

Art is a favorite subject in our household.  And, lately we've been exploring drawing cartoons.  We've never read much manga, but the art work is very interesting.  My 9 year-old son discovered a great series of books that give excellent directions on how to draw manga characters.  They are by Christopher Hart.

The first one he discovered was the Kids Draw Manga Fantasy book pictured on the left.  He was excited that his finished work looked like the pictures in the book!  That is always so encouraging, isn't it? Then, he wanted more books, and he specifically asked for Christopher Hart.  So, we picked up a few more that were even more direct with their instructions.  They included the Xtreme Art titles Draw Manga, Draw Mini Manga and Draw Manga Monsters.