My Kings!

 For our world geography we are using the program Expedition Earth.  The boys are really loving it.  We stick pretty much to the schedule for Gabe but we added in extra country pages for Sam.  The program is wonderful full of crafts, recipes, and fun facts.  Today we are finishing up our South Korea.  Sam actually made supper today, Korean BBQ beef.  I was really yummy.  The craft was to make jeweled crowns. 

 Sam's crown is on the left and Gabe's is on the right.  This is a top and front view of the crowns.  There was no specific directions on how to make them it was the kids decision.  The crown was just supposed to represent the metal work that South Koreans did.  Sam made his first and added all of the feathers, they represent different things of the Korean Flag.  Gabe made his second and idolizes his big brother so it looks just like his. 

 Both of the boys showing off their creations.  Such cuties they are.

My two kings!  Love these two!

American Reveloution Crafting

Time for a craft post for you.  This one has to do with schooling (obvious huh.)  It was a presentation put on by Sam.  We have always had a hard time teaching Sam history.  That is because the kid know so much about it.  He has always been an avid reader and his choice of topic, history.  We do work on Story of the World with him but more often than not he stops us to add in facts that the other did not mention.  We decided that he needed extra in his studies to satisfy him.  We thought that we would give him a time period in which to research and then present us with a presentation over the topic.  There is no rules just be creative and have fun.  First up is the American Revolution.

The first picture is of his entire board.  If you click on it, you might have an easier time to see it.  It was huge, hard for him to get closer and fit the whole thing in. 

He drew all of these little people to represent the most influential people in the war.  He actually has them going all around the whole display.  They actually have facts listed on the backs of them and carry the flags for the countries they were supporting.

He had plenty of battle diagrams.

There was also lots of lift the flap sections to give more info.  He really did do a great job on it.  He is already starting to work on his next project, the industrial revolution. 

See you guys tomorrow, have a great one.

Michelangelo's in the making...

Well we are fully in to our study of Italy now.  So of course that means we have to do a study of Michelangelo.  Here is one of the projects that we did.  They painted lying down, and thought it was a little cool.  They would have liked it better if their arms did not hurt so bad. 

They even took precautions to protect their eyes by wearing their sunglasses.  Too cute for words.

Overall the project was a hit.  I think that they would definetly want to do it again.

A little about Sam....

Sometimes it is kind of hard to know what Sam wants in life.  He is kind of a private kid and keeps all of that to himself.  As his mom, knowing what he wants is important of course.  Well lately he really has been into Arts and Crafts, so I decided to give him a project that would help me find out.  Some people call the dream boards, some call them wish boards, you can call it what you wish.  They are really the same thing, things that you want in life.   

So here is Sam's board.  He took a large canvas and covered in so polar fabric.  Then he glued some animal ribbon around the board because he wants to save animals all over the world.  Then he took some wooden shapes and painted them up to represent things he wants most in life.  Lets take a look at them shall we.

He wants to visit Canada!

Build his own house!

Start a store of his very own!

Be a farmer and grow his own food!

The monkey represents his brother!

Be a World Traveler!

Start a Zoo to help all of the animals he rescues!

Be CEO of National Geographic!

The frog represents himself, because that is my nickname for him.

Well I hope you liked his board.  He made sure to leave extra space because he will have more dreams in the future.  I love that he is always dreaming.  I think the world has a good future with him in it dreaming the way he does.

To make a snake...

One of the lessons that I do with the boys is have them sew as a life skills lessons.  They actually have their own sewing machine that they got for christmas last year.  Sam is becoming really good with it.  Gabe is good as long as he realizes that it is not a race car.  Well I am always trying to have some fun projects with them to sew.  Recently Gabe started to become really interested in Snakes (he watches alot of Jeff Corwin).  I saw this project and I thought how perfect it would be for them to do as a joint project.  I was actually sewing something on my machine at the same time, more on that at another time.
Being the smart momma that I am (hehehe) I actually thought to document their process in photos for you.  Hope you enjoy, I know that I did. 

First step.  Pick out the material and cut out your pieces. Side note, The helmet is on because he recently started learning to ride his bike.  He has gotten obsessed with the helmet, wears it all the time.

Step two.  Get pins in so you can start sewing.

Then big brother realizes that you are big enough to start sewing on your own.

After you get it all sewn together, it is time for stuffing it.  Phew that sure is a tiring job, LOL!

Once you get all of the stuffing in that you want, it is time to sew it closed.  Look at that concentration, he is just to cute sometimes ;)

There you have a super easy and cuddly soft snake made by two brothers.

the full snake

Make a Didgeridoo..

With our studying of Australia, one thing we had to make was a Didgeridoo.  I was so excited to find this link on how to make one. We gathered up the supplies and started making it.

First step is to get a three foot of pvc pipe.

Then we spray painted them all one color so that it would look like wood.

Then you let 2 very excited boys design up one each, with aboriginal style paints of course. :0)  Once they finish painting DH melted down the beeswax and made mouth pieces for them.

The finished products.  Gabe made the one on the left and Sam made the one on the right.  The boys love having them.  They love to put on little shows with them.  Thank goodness the noise level is realitvly low on them. LOL :0)

Time Zones....

Reading my blog you have noticed that we are very interested in studying things around the world. So an area that we could make fun for our studies was the time zones. We decided to make clocks painted to look like the flags of countries.

So here is our first set of them, our goal is to make a wall of them. We picked up the clocks at Wal-mart for 3.97 each. So the whole project has cost us less than 12.00. The kids are loving it because they get to choose each of the countries that we put on it. Then Sam has been setting the times. Each month we are going to try and add 2 new countries.

Sydney, Australia

Montevideo, Uruguay

London, England

Brasilia, Brazil

We put cities on them to since the only country that has one time zone is China. This way they can figure out the exact time zone. Hope you enjoyed the project and I will try to share others as they are completed.

Marsupial Love

Looky, Looky I made it back for a second day straight. Woo Hoo! Alright I will get to why I am here, I thought that I would try to get everyone caught up on what we have been doing and the boys have been loving of it. To start off with the boys are loving studying Australia, so much so they want to move there. :0)
The thing that they are loving the most are the animals, mostly the marsupials. This picture is actually of a poster that the made recently about the different marsupials. It has the fur pouches to store each animal in. They included on the back of each animal some info about it. Then to top it off the drew what each of the habitats looked like. They are pretty proud of how it turned out, I think that they did a great job.

I shared photos with you yesterday of the platypus that I made for the boys, I thought you might appreciate these. Gabe is having so much fun with his, he made a leash all on his own for it. As you can see he is pretty pleased with himself. The photo below is just to give you a closer look at what he did.

My other one ever so eager to learn, has decided to design his own stuffed animal now. He is making a wombat. Of course he is going to end up making two because his little brother wants one too. I am very proud of the ambition that he has.

On a side not if you look at his shirt that he is wearing it is another sign of how much he is loving Australia. It is a shirt that his dad painted for him of Ayer's rock.

This final picture is not of an animal (well if you ask him he will tell you that he is a monkey, LOL) but of Gabe's sewing project, Australian themed. He is making a boomerang pillow.

I will make sure to share photos of each of their projects when they are done. Until then I hope to be back soon, Have a great one everybody.

Window With A View......

While schooling the boys I always try to have some sort of art class for the boys. It is always so much fun to see what they come up with. It is hard to come up new original ideas for them, so I am always looking at the library for books to help.
The Muppet book is our book this week and it is lots of fun. It has so many wonderful projects but our choice project was a "Window With A View". The boys loved this so much, it hangs next to of each of their beds.

This is Sam's window. He is very much into studying Greece right now so he drew what he thought Athens would look like from a birds eye view. Such a silly kid, I love it though. The colors really pop and it looks great on his wall. The picture below is what it looks with his curtain closed. If you notice there is even a shelf on the base for them to put there little nic nacs on.

Surprise this is Gabe's window. I know shocking my little monkey put monkey curtains on. He loves doing art but just rather play with other things right now so he does not put as much effort in it. If you look in his window though I think it turned out great. It is of a, wait for it, monkey jungle. I know you did not think it was going to be that though did ya. LOL.

Hope you enjoyed our room with a view. What view do you have?