A bit of an update on last week’s kiddo daily delight on recipe making, Robin and her girls went home and baked their recipes.  Some turned out better than others, but they learned a lot and had a blast.  Way to go Robin!  There is always a way to further the learning of your kiddos, toddlers or tweens.  Thanks for sharing with us your baking adventures!

This week we read a story out of Children’s Stories from Around the World (a Deseret Book publication that I cannot find anywhere…printed in 1976).  I remember my mother reading the stories to us and there are some wonderful tales. 

Anyways, 🙂  we read about Tamayo in The Flower Seller of Manila.  The young boy took on an unaccostomed task of selling flowers in the market alone (usually a job for the women and girls).  Despite the unfair teasings of an older boy, Tamayo managed to sell all of the flowers, making the needed profits for his grandmother.  On his way home that evening he came upon the bully, struggling in a nearby river, unable to swim.  Tamayo saved the grateful boy and they became friends.

We then looked at a beautiful new art book I just recieved from Brian Croft.  Metaphors of Nature is an exquisite and unique book of art and poetry.  The art is made entirely of nature, much of which was gathered in Carmargue, where the pink flamingos gather in the south of France to live and nest.   The children loved looking at the incredible creations found and reassembled by artist and entomologist Croft.  Another day, we’ll have to read it again and enjoy the poetry by Clive Jorgensen that accentuates each piece.

After our discussion of flowers and nature, we went outside to collect flowers and create natural art of our own:

Thanks to Tali, we had a good idea of what to do…

Materials:

hammers
rocks
rolling pins
water color paper
paper towels 
scissors

1. Take a piece of water color paper and place a flower a top.
2. Using the scissors, remove any extra stems etc.
3. Place a couple pieces of paper towels over the flower.
4. Beat or smush the color from the flower petals.
5. Begin to lift the paper towel. If the petals remain on the towel, the print is ready. If not, keep pounding.

They were soo much fun. Here is what some of them looked like:

Smashing flowers has never been this much fun!  Is this why you love your found art so Brian?  🙂