Printmaking

This one day of lessons about printmaking took 9 days to finish.  We started on the 8th of July and ended on the 17th of July.  Since it's summer time our schedule is a bit all over the place.  Normally I would cover all that we could in one day (24 hr period) and then move on.  But because this art camp month also includes a financial element, I really want to focus on getting all the lessons or "jobs" done.  When they get them all done they get paid 4 dollars to put in their envelopes.  I will try to explain this all more as I show you all that we accomplished when learning about printmaking.

I remembered this art project being a favorite from 3 years ago.  You can see it as part of the first week recap post.

On July 8th, when we got started, I first worked with Lachlan.  He was having a tough day and I thought some one on one time would be good for him.  I popped out all of the foam shapes and laid them out on the table.  Then I showed him how you could put a few small shapes on the cardboard cap or just one big shape on the cap and then glue it in place.  He made two, one with a big star on it and one with a heart.  He started getting ready to paint the star all one color but I wanted to show him a new technique so I showed him how he could paint different colors on the star.  I just had to show him and explain it to him for a second and he finished the star. 

 Then he put two colors on his heart.

 It looked really cool on the heart itself, then he pressed it to the paper . . .

 . . . because the paint was painted on the heart pretty thick, it squished together on the paper and didn't end up being a very defined separation of color.  I told Lachlan we could try again, but he was done for the day, and that's okay.

We did not come back to printmaking day until 4 days later on the 12th of July.  This art camp it set up a bit different than the other months.  Instead of a topic poster we get this sheet of shapes.

 Each shape has the title of the lesson or "job's" that are included for that day.  When the job is done, they pop out the shape and stick it to the poster, which is an easel.  Here Peter is putting up the first two, which were printmaking and the Blue - resourcefulness. 

Each day we are learning a new character trait.  One that usually goes pretty well with the financial side of things.  On this day we learned about resourcefulness.  We learned about it's meaning and then read through various scenarios on the back of the resourcefulness feathers.  At the end of the scenario, they ask if Falco used resourcefulness or if he did not.  Did he use it or lose it?

 Let me write out one example.  Falco wanted to be a great artist, but he didn't have any fancy art supplies that other artists had.  He wanted to buy some supplies but he had no money.  Instead, he decided his unique art style would be to use recycled materials like old paper, empty bottles and cereal boxes.  Did Falco use resourcefulness or lose it?

These feathers make for great conversation!!  We read them at the table when we sit down for a meal.  As they finished eating I prepared the next lesson which was a memory matching game called Don't Get the Wolf. 

 It's just your average memory match game . . .

 . . . except, if you happen to flip over the Italian Wolf you have to howl and your turn is over.  Our dog Mona was a bit confused by the howling. 

 As we were playing, Adam was rolling through the house like this.  He was rolling backwards, so at least he was looking where he was going?

 Later on this same day we did the Build the Triangle lesson/job.  We had to be resourceful and find some sticks, then figure out how many it would take to press a triangle shape into play doh. 

Play doh could be out everyday if it was up to them.  It turns out it takes 3 sticks to make a triangle, which my boys already knew.  But it was still fun to finish this task. 

I gave Adam three sticks and play doh and this is what he chose to do with them. 

They continued to play with the play doh for quite a while.  It was a lot of fun!

At this point we had most of the lessons/jobs done for printmaking day.  But it was 4 days later we finally finished all 6 jobs and got paid for our hard work.  The last lesson/job was the Paint & Press Song.  So it only took a minute to sing.

I gave each boy 4 MGT bucks and they got to put one in each of their pockets.  One in spend, one in save and one in give.  The 4th dollar they could choose what they wanted to do with it.  They could save it, spend it or put it in the give pocket.  This is just another way that Mother Goose Time gives them an opportunity to really think about their money and the purpose of it.