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.

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. 

Another productive day here for school.  The boys are keeping such a good pace that they able to keep the day light by choice. They had sculpting with clay.  Which they where to choose a land mark from around the world to sculpt.  Then to bake banana bread.  That is it, a nice simple day.  They actually where able to start on tomorrows work too.  We got a chapter of story of the world in for tomorrows lesson.

This is Gabe's sculpture.  He calls it Tahj Mahal at night.  Very cute, he gave it to me as  gift.

Sam has a strong desire to move to New Zealand when he is older.  Everything he has a choice in becomes about New Zealand.  When he got to choose what to do of course he choose something from there.  This is the Sky Tower in Auckland.  Sam calls it Sky Tower in a wind storm.

This was from the Story of the World lesson.  It was made by Sam and is called Napoleons Triangle.  Sam was excited at first to do it because the measurements were written in centimeters.  Like I said he wants to move to New Zealand, so he is trying to learn about the metric system.  

We went gluten free here about a year ago.  It has been challenging but overall we are really glad that we have.  The hardest part is the baked goods.  We love baking here and things just are usually not the same gluten free.  Well I have found a brownie recipe that you would never have a clue that it is gluten free.  It is one of our favorites if you could not tell.  LOL.  Check out the recipe here, you will be glad that you did.

Children of the World

I was busy trying to come up with a fun way to teach Gabe about geographical thinking.  Like where someone is located in the world what type of clothing they might wear.  I came aross the site BlueBonkers.com.  On it they had paper dolls for children of the world.  I thought that they would be perfect for Gabe except they are dolls.  He would destroy them so easily.  Then I got to thinking that I had some of those self adhesive magnet sheets.  Magnet dolls, PERFECT.  I am so glad that I found them, look how cute they are....

This is the Italian girl with extra clothing.

An Eskimo boy with his dog.

Hawaiian girl with extra accesories.

The Mexican boy all dressed up.

                                     
                                                          The Korean boy and all of his hats.

The first set that I made for him.

As you can see they were having so much fun playing with all of them that I ended up going and making more for them.  Well actually the rest of the set.  I would share all of them with you but that would be alot of pictures.  Instead I will share the link so that you can go make some for your little ones.  Here you go for the children of the world.