Painting pandas

We are taking a break from our school and learning a little bit about China. We started with a little Chinese dance. Prime wasn't really into that while J was quite absorbed. We also listened to some popular children's songs in Chinese via Sing and Learn Chinese. Then we painted pandas using a Chinese calligraphy set. The kids grind their own black ink and tried to hold to their Chinese calligraphy brush properly. We also read quite a few short cute Chinese stories, learned a little bit more about Chinese New Year traditions and listened to a story about kitchen god. Now I know when their paternal grandparents buys candied melon around Chinese New Year. It is so that they can appease the kitchen god and he'll eat so much that it'll glue up his mouth and he can't say anything bad about them to the heavenly emperor. Ha-ha! Then in the spirit of Chinese New Year and because it is really needed, I tidy the house while J dusted and Prime played. :) We also got to meet up and play with our Enki friends in the afternoon. It was a good day.


Here is Prime's panda. I think he also enjoyed using the Q-tip. I used the Q-tip to make the light in the panda's eye. I think making snow is more fun.

Here J is panda as well her name in Chinese. See how she holds the brush? It is suppose to be held upright. The key is in the wrist.

Here is my demo painting of the panda for the kids.

simple pleasures

Lately, J/Prime has been enjoying some simple pleasures all by themselves.

1. Dance !
I bought few favorite worship cds thinking it would be good for our family worship and bible study. But unexpectedly it inspired so much dance from the kids. Whenever they feel like it, the start the cd and start to dance all on their own. They have been dancing like crazy and thoroughly enjoying themselves in large part due to J's leadership. They would dance individually in different parts of the song and then would come together to dance together. J's been directing Prime and doing some choreography with him. Now she says she really enjoys dance and I don't even have to ask her to practice. Ha! (Both kids are a little shy and they dance most freely when they think no one is watching them esp. Prime but I have been videotaping them a little here and there because it's just so fun to watch them.)

2. Writing love notes.
One day my hubby left me a few love notes unexpectedly and that inspired the kids to write love/gratitude love notes to us. They were so excited writing these notes and finding places to stick them. They wrote so many of them and for a few days, I found these notes everywhere and had to tell them to go easy on these. :) Of course, I loved reading them and I will always treasure them. This was also great a writing practice for Prime and J thorough enjoyed helping him with spelling.

3. Independent painting.
I was having a headache so I let the kids loose with painting with no supervision. They used regular paints, the kind that is ready to go in a bottle and construction paper. They put the paints actually in paper cups and shared very nicely. When they finished, they cleaned up and J even put saran wrap over the paper cups to save the paint and put all the cups in a gift bag. I was really surprised and so proud of her. So that was one project I didn't have to lift a finger and they thoroughly enjoyed themselves. I'm thinking they'll have to do more of these kind of projects! :)

J's Prime's

expressing through painting

J's painting: "Reflection Cave"

Prime's : "Golden Moon".

Colors of July 4th

J and Prime's attempt at painting their picnic caddy (made at Home Depot) in 4th of July colors.




Happy July 4th everyone!

Pictures from today (+ favorite on-line game links)

I'm just writing things down and posting the pictures for scrap book purposes. Having said that, here we go.

These are our painted rocks. J painted a bee. She was laughing hard when she was drawing glasses for the bee. Prime's was trying to draw a Dalmatians dog. You have to use some imagination for his. The big blob of black is the eye, and the front is his nose. The last one is mine.

Here are our finds at the food co-op. I'm not sure how it works but I really like the idea. Nobody explained even after I told them this was our 1st time. I didn't ask further as I was ready to go. I'm sure we will go back there though.

I wonder if I plant those butterfly flowers, will butterflies really come?? The lady said the pumpkin drawing is just an exaggeration. I hope so. I'm not trying to produce such a humongous pumpkin. J loves sugar snap peas so those are for her. I thought I'd try yogi detox tea.

J getting the royal treatment at Cookie Cutter and getting a trim. This is her 1st time since I got a coupon. Usually I cut her hair. I think this is much better. :)

Oh, one last thing, for anyone who is interested. These are our favorite computer game links.

http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/ (They love the panda puzzles and the beaver badminton)

http://www.coolmath-games.com/0-bouncingballs/index.html ( Our whole family love this. Just to warn you, it's a very addictive game.)

Painting Princess Spring - J style

I will let the pictures speak for themselves. :)

J girl's painting

J girl is using her thumb to make the fish, then adding details to the fish's body with a cotton swab. Viola , the finished product.

This time, there is less confusion as to what the painting is. On W boy's painting, daddy wasn't sure what is was. One of the fish, he thought was a person doing cartwheel!! ha-ha! What an imagination!

W boy's painting

Today, W boy did a little painting using a combination of fingers and brushes (various sizes). He attempted a painting from a book called "1 2 3 I can paint!" by Irene Luxbacher. The green in his painting is achieved by mixing yellow/blue, the muddy brown is done by yellow/red. The purity of paint we used today is not good but W boy wanted to use those bottles of paint, perhaps it's because they come in big bottles. Anyway, for purity of color, stockmar is excellent though pricy.

W boy also continue to work on his phonics, learning short "a" and short "i" sound as in cat and inchworm. He makes finding the sound seem so easy and got them all correct. Even a few words like "milk", and "camel" I thought was a little tricky, he got them w/o problem. He is starting to read a few words such as cap, bat, as well as bib and pin. This may not seem like a lot but being able to put the letter sounds together is a big step for W boy. : )