Crayola Oil Pastels

S drawing a "ghost" with yellow hands.

I have my own pastels that I play with, but "adult" pastels have certain health hazards, so this is one art supply I didn't want to share with the kids. I bought them their own, nontoxic, Crayola oil pastels. Instant hit!
Oil pastels look like crayons to the kids, so their first impulse was to use them like crayons. But they glide on nice and slippery, and have a nicely saturated color, so there's novelty as well.

Designs with Wooden Shapes

We've been a little bit into drawing mandalas lately, especially interactive mandalas thanks to the artful parent. When we got out these wooden shapes, I wanted to make a mandala with this medium. S liked what I was doing and began making his own. He told me it was a "shooting star mandala."

My mandala is on the left.
On the right is S with his "shooting star mandala."

Sunday Art

The kids were especially put out, a few Sundays ago that they couldn't play with their friends. They were bored. I gave M. the sidewalk chalk, pointed to the little "patio slab" we have just out back, and encouraged her to draw.

She drew a temple.

Little Mozarts

He put up the "forte" flashcard and
enthusiastically played "forte" up and
down the keyboard.

I wanted to introduce our two youngest to music, both appreciation and learning an instrument, but without doing more than a few minutes practice most days. You know, the "slow and steady" approach.
I chose to start our 5 3/4 year old and nearly 4 year old on Music for Little Mozarts, Level One, simultaneously. Mia said she loves piano practice because she can "color, color, color." I'll have to make her slow down so she doesn't finish all the coloring pages on the second week of lessons.
The both love playing their first song, "Racing Car." We have a CD that accompanies them. Whenever the singer says, "ready, set, zoom!" the children do a glissando up the keyboard. They struggled a lot with their bare hands, so I gave them a small stuffed animal that they drag gleefully up the keyboard.

Fine Art: "Coming from the Mill"

For art appreciation this year, we are using the book Where in the World? Around the Globe in 13 Works of Art by Bob Raczka.
We began in the middle of the book with Coming from the Mill, by L.S. Lowry in 1930. This was painted in Salford, England, so we're including it in our unit study on the British Isles.
I based our first fine art lesson of the school year on Charlotte Mason's instructions in Home Education.
1. I opened the book and asked the children to quietly study the picture, then tell me what they could find out about it. My children chose to describe the buildings (house, church, skyscraper) and show me where all those people were going.
2.  I told them what I knew about the painter and the painting (mostly paraphrasing what I had just read on the facing page--thanks Bob Raczka). I also pointed out that Lowry's buildings were outlined in black, then colored in.
3. Then I gave my kinder some heavy paper (cover stock) and a black colored pencil. She drew a house with a sidewalk. Then I gave her watercolor paints, and she completed the painting to her own satisfaction.

"The art training of children should proceed on two lines. The six-year-old child should begin both to express himself and to appreciate, and his appreciation should be well in advance of his power to express what he sees or imagines," (Home Education, Charlotte Mason, kindle edition, page 201, location 4587).