Saturday, July 16, 2016

Arrow of Light Awards

We just finished our first year on the new program and we have two Arrow of Lights to award. I wish we had done this last year when my son got his, because they look really cool.  We started the year with 6 boys and one den and now we are up to 13.  We have a Webelos/Bear den and a Wolf den.  Because we were combined, our Webelos earned their Arrow of Light in about 9 months because they were doing Wolf and Bear stuff the first few months, I am so impressed with the boys and their den leaders for getting everything done!


Color bands:
purple or light blue=bobcat
red=wolf
teal=bear
green or navy=webelos
yellow, tan, blue=arrow of light

How I made my arrows:
I cut the dowel in half with a saw and then notched the ends for the arrowhead with the pocked knife.  I glued the jute and the arrowheads on with wood glue.  I cut the duck feathers in half with the exacto knife  to make fletchings and glued them on with hot glue.  I added more jute to the end of the arrow.  I painted the colorbands on paper and then mode podged them on, the advantage of paper is that I could have used marker instead of paint and I can get the lines straighter.  You could just thin out white glue if you don't have modge podge to accomplish about the same effect.  The fletchings were the hard part since they aren't straighte and don't want to be glued into a straight line, maybe I needed two people for that part.  Oh well, they look nice now they are all done.

arrowheads=$4.99 (for five on amazon or just find a flat rock and make your own)
duck feathers=$4.81(for 22 on Amazon, not all the feathers were usable this was probably enough for 4 arrows)
dowels=$0.59 at Hobby Lobby

I had everything else at home, so these arrows cost me about $5.50 each.

Tuesday, July 5, 2016

Youth Arts Festival 2016

Here are a few pictures from the Artist Reception on the last day of this years arts festival. I taught the Lego classes!  Here you get to look at all the fun projects and dream for a whole year about what class to take next year.  Unless of course you would rather dance, be in the play, learn to play ukulele, or learn to perform magic tricks and then your art will be on stage...
  The Lego pictures are my students, I think they did a great job!









Snack and Story for my 2nd Grader, Fun With Read Alouds

We had an hour break during my Lego classes this year and my son said the only other art class he wanted besides Lego was the snack and story class which they don't offer to 7 year olds, but it sounded so much fun that we made one ourselves.    My classroom luckily had a microwave and a refrigerator, so food art was possible!

We picked a dozen books, some old favorites and some new ones and then we picked some of our favorite lunches and tried to craft them into theme food.  This is what we came up with...



My Lucky Dayby Keiko Kasza

We had a great discussion about irony.




Bad Kitty by Nick Bruel

Such a snarky book.  It is really revealing about my daughter's sense of humor since she has read these books to pieces.

  • Nuttella Sandwich (snip triangles out of side of bread, and forehead off of top), snipped pink marshmallow ears, m&m eyes and nose, white marshmallows for muzzle
  • tuna and crackers or goldfish crackers


We shared our picture with the author, since he is my daughter's absolute favorite and were thrilled to hear back from him.  he said,

"I absolutely love it!  Bon apetit,
Nick"







"Roger the Jolly Pirate" by Brett Helquist
Wonderful comedy for kids, glad we found this!  My kids said we should have made a cake like Roger did in the book...  
  • Pizza
  • Olives
  • Pepperoni
  • Jolly Ranchers


Talent Show, Scaredy Pantsby Abby Klein

yep, I love doing magic for talent shows...

  • Pretzel Rod Magic Wands
  • and Rabbit Bread




The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson

I had never read this before, delightful book, and we had a great discussion with it.

  • Gruffalo Cupcakes
  • and Scrambled Snake (popcorn and gummy worms)



(The big one is my gluten free cake, and it was nice to have cupcakes for the snack since it was Josh's birthday that week, btw popcorn and gummy worms together is gross!!!)

Captain Awesome to the Rescue
by Stan Kirby
we wanted to try out some chapter books...

  • Super Hero Capes (red fruit roll-ups)
  • Awesome Kabobs (red, orange, and yellow fruit, decorated with a picture of captain awesome)

T

The Giving Tree By Shel Silverstein
(we didn't really like this book, it was kind of a grown up book...)


  • White Frosting, cold cereal, Pretzel Sticks, Cherry Sours


David Gets in Trouble by David Shannon

  • Balogna, raisins, tortilla chip, crackers



Buy My Hats! by Dave Horowitz
Prepare the kids first:  
I told the kids the best way to sell something is to sell something like milk that is needed everyday, but if not there are other tactics to get people to buy, such as "everyone else has one", "its addicting", "you need the upgrade", "it is super fun".  Then I challenged my kids to look for these things in the book and see why they think certain things sold well.  What a wonderful educational book for a second grader!!!

Robotic Cell Phones=Pop Tarts, Chewy Spree, Townhouse cracker
Skateboards=carrots and chewy sweet tarts
cup o' Mud=pudding



The Enderman Invasion By

Winter Morgan
(trying to show my son that there are  books available on almost every topic...)

Chocolate Poptarts, Chocolate Licorice, purple candy, white frosting
Mushrooms=Apple Slices and Pineapple Chunks
Mushroom=Red Pepper and String Cheese

(more minecraft food art: minecraft pigs and desert sand)



Bread and Honey by Frank Asch
all Frank Asch books are adorable and so clever!


  • Bread with honey and Bit O' Honey (already eaten!)



More Arts Festival Food Art from the Edible Story Art class:
Monkey and Rabbit