Friday, October 22, 2010

Art Fair post # 4

I forgot to post Dakota's art work he entered in the fair. This was his last year to be able to enter any art in the fair because he started teaching art in October.

 Dakota painted this mask to wear to the Jr./ Sr. banquet this past school year.

 This painting is of buildings in our down town area. Dakota painted the house on top of the building pink because it used to be pink and that's the way everyone remembers it. The picture below is a picture he took of the buildings.

 

 This is an ink drawing Dakota did of downtown.

 The oil cat. Dakota's favorite medium is oil.

 Stained ceramic. The cup didn't even turn out the way Dakota had visioned, but it still won first place.

 This is a collection of Dakota's senior pictures.


Dakota was very pleased with his winnings.

Bayou Art Classes

Elijah is surely getting exposed to art because he takes two art classes at co-op and then takes Bayou Art Classes in Dakota's studio. AND we always have art projects going on around here. He loves art!

Dakota's art classes are going well. Here are the projects Elijah has done so far. Already getting started on his fair entries for next year.



Sunday, October 10, 2010

Rocking Robots ROCKS!

Elijah and I just finished a fun lapbooking unit called Rocking Robots.
What is Rocking Robots? It is a Download N Go unit by Amanda Bennett and sold at The Old Schoolhouse. These units are awesome and are only $7.95 each!
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I’ve been doing lapbooks since way back when Dakota (now 18) was just a little guy. There was no such thing as pre-made lapbooks back then. Download N Go really makes lapbooking easy.

These units are packed full of information and printouts. You don’t have to print everything and you don’t have to do every activity, there is plenty there to choose from. Some things were too young for Elijah, but that would be great for families that have several children different ages. So we just skipped the stuff that was too young, but there was plenty of other stuff there to keep him busy.

I’m not sure how other families use Download N Go units, but I decided to email the unit to Elijah so he could pull it up on his computer. The unit had a ton of videos for him to click on and watch. This was great because I knew the links were safe for him to click on. I had also printed out the lapbook templates for him, so he was able to watch the videos, read the information and fill in answers. You can really make these units independent work if you wish to.
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The units also gives you a list of library books. We were not able to get to the library to check out any robot books, but that didn’t matter, the unit itself has plenty of information. I do not feel like we missed out on anything by not having library books.

Elijah decided to get out his Gears and build a robot. He said this robot’s job was to go around picking up trash and putting it in a garbage can.
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Here are a couple of pictures of Elijah working in his lapbook.
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To end our unit I gave Elijah a little robot kit I had bought for him. He put this together all by himself.
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We could have spent more than a week on this unit, I like to bunny trail. Since I was given the Rocking Robots unit and asked to give a review on this unit by October 10, I was on a schedule and had to finish up the unit.

I asked Elijah what was his favorite things about the Rocking Robots unit and he said watching all the cool videos, the math code sheet, learning about the Mars Rover and building his own robot.

My favorite things about the Download N Go units are links and videos that Elijah can click on that I know are safe. The units offer more than you need and at a great price. The units can be done together or used as independent work. Also the topics are interesting.
You can read more reviews about the Rocking Robot unit at the Download N Go blog.

We are looking forward to doing a lot more Download N Go units this school year.

Monday, October 4, 2010

Art Fair post #3

 This pipe cleaner flower got second place.

 Fifth place in Christmas ornaments.

 First place in leather work.

 I love how the punched metal turned out.

 Remember our dinosaur fossils we made a few weeks back. After they dried Elijah painted them. They turned out nice and won third place.

 String art of a butterfly got second place.

 Fall wreath got fourth place. There were a lot of fall wreaths in the fair.

 Elijah's Christmas wreath got first place. It also plugs in and has white lights all over it. Looks neat!

 Elijah's decorative Tee got second place. He slept in this shirt last night.

 Pencil holder got first place.

 Elijah's sculpture of a dinosaur got first place.

 This necklace got third place.

Waste basket got first place.

Art Fair post#2

 Elijah's color drawing of a butterfly in oil pastels got first place.

 Charcoal leaf abstract got first place.

 Charcoal landscape got second place.

 Charcoal portrait for first place.

 Charcoal still life got first place.

 Black and white landscape for first place.

 Black and white animal got first place.

 Black and white portrait got first place.

 Black and white abstract for first place.

 Color drawing landscape got third place.

 Color drawing portrait got second place.

 His watercolor portrait got first place. I thought he turned out cute!

 Water color leaf abstract for fifth place.

 Black and white still life for first place.

 His color drawing abstract did not place, but I still think it is a great abstract.

 The water color leaf project got fourth place.

Colored rice mosaic for first place.