Maori Clothing

As a fun way to get the clothing study for New Zealand in the boys got to design some.  The only thing that I made was the dolls to get them started.  Then each of the boys designed the patterns and made the pieces.  Once they sewed it together they added any extra embellishments that they wanted.  Sam made the girl on the right and Gabe made the boy on the left.

As part of our New Zealand studies the boys are working on the language.  Where they also speak english in New Zealand some of the words are a little different than ours.  To make it fun for the boys I made them a memory game with the new zealand version of our words.

Through out the whole game, Gabe was trash talking big time.  Well Sam got revenge, he kicked Gabe's butt at the game. That is Gabe's look of defeat in the picture.  LOL all in good fun.

Learning through art...

The boys are doing a lot of art based projects to learn with.  Here are just a few from the past week.

This is Sam's Science lesson.  Other than learning about animals we are working on learning health/body science.  Inspired by an idea I saw on pinterest he drew out the digestive track and how a certain type of food would effect the body when it went through.  He has an obsession with New Zealand so he choose the kiwi as his food.  All the white spots are flaps that tell how it will effect that part of the body.

They even had art projects this week.  This is the scribble art lesson from the 52 art lab book that I got from the library.  Gabe's is on the top it is his favorite animal, the orangutan.  Sam's is on the bottom.  I was really impressed with the pops of color he put in, very unlike him to let go like that.  His is the Scottish terrier.

A final project that I had them do was to make a tourism poster for the New Zealand study.  Sam's is on the top and Gabe's is on the bottom.  I thought that they were both good but needed a little more so I am going to have them do it again soon.

A day about New Zealand art and money

Our day was so jam packed with projects that I split this into two different posts.  Our Civil War study is in the next entry.  This one is all about New Zealand and what we covered today. 

I started out by having them learn about the money.  I made them some play money so that they could see what it all looked like.  I just found some images on google printed them out and laminated them.  When the lesson was done we put the money in our continent bins.

 

The boys looked up things such as what was on the money, the history of it, value, and to what it was made from.  Did you know it is made from a special type of plastic polymer. 

After they started working on art projects.  This is their Koru design.  It is used in a lot of Maori design, as well as some other cultures.  If you want to learn the meaning behind it check it out here.  Gabe's design is on the top and Sam's is on the bottom.

After they made totem poles because they are very popular in the Maori culture.  Sam's is on the left and Gabe's is on the right.

Finally what I personally felt was the best project of all, Maori Warriors.  The warriors have lots of tattoos all over the body (especially the face). Well I was not about to let the boys actually tattoo themselves so we took pictures so they could draw tattoos on themselves that way.

First up Sam.  His before on the top of course.  His tongue is sticking out because that is supposed to be a threatening look to his opponents.  I love how his after one came out.  We thought after that we should have taken his glasses off.  oops

Gabe wanted to do his whole body.  The top of course is the before and the bottom is the after.  My boys, so threatening, LOL

I feel that the first week back was a success.  We had lots of fun which was nice.  Make sure to check back and see what I have in store for week two.