Tag: Summer Themes

Chlorophyll Painting

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👦🏻 “Mama, why are all leaves green?”

👩🏼 “The chlorophyll inside the leaves makes them green.”

👦🏻 “Chloro….what did you say???”

👩🏼 “Chlorophyll sweet boy, chlorophyll. “

HA! Not an easy word to say but it is super fun to demonstrate!

Gather up some leaves to test the chlorophyll inside. Kiddos can gather them up from outside or even from your refrigerator! Spinach has a very high concentration of chlorophyll and it is easy to get it to release, making it perfect for this project.

Note – leaves with a waxy or tough feel will not release the chlorophyll as easily as a soft leaf like spinach.

Print out the Chlorophyll Painting page and tape it securely or hold it down firmly as you work with the leaves.

Now get to work! My kiddos found it easiest to bunch or bundle up the leaf and then press firmly to scrub across the page. The spinach was soft enough that even my 3-year old had no trouble participating in this activity.

It is fun to see how their chlorophyll painting adds leaves to the tree on the worksheet!

The final product – a fun little tree and a crumbled up pile of leaves!

This project is great at home, but it would be even better in a classroom setting. Have each child bring in a small bag of leaves and then see what different designs and paintings they come up with!

Don’t forget to grab your FREE Printable Chlorophyll Painting page HERE!

Happy Chlorophyll Painting!

Dot A Design

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Fun Pen Control Practice!

My son is a GREAT reader, but his handwriting…. oh his handwriting…. its mediocre at best. Its not that he can’t write well, he just doesn’t care enough to work at it. This summer I wanted to find ways to encourage him to work on his writing without making him write his alphabet 573 times a day. I am so glad I stumbled upon Q-Tip painting. It combines art, which my daughter LOVES, and pen control practice, which my son NEEDS! So its a WIN for both kiddos!

Grab yourself the FREE printable worksheets, some q-tips, and paint (we used washable paint!). Then get to work! I love that these designs invite them to explore colors, while also helping my son slow down enough to “dot each dot”.

We added one q-tip to each paint color and then began dotting. My kids tried scooping big globs of paint, but it really works best if you dip the end in the paint, dot 2-3 dots on the paper, and then dip it into the paint again.

I must say, my daughter was super excited that she got to dip her own “tools” for this project!

I love seeing their work progress. My daughter is much younger than her brother, but she has much more patience and calmness. She desires to make it neat and she takes a lot of time deciding on her color choices.

My son, on the other hand, tried to rush through the sheets as quickly as possible. Though I want the art to be “them”, I also want it to be solid pen control practice. Hence, I did remind him several times to take his time and make sure he was dotting and not scribbling.

Such a fun #GardenWeek activity!

My daughter was SUPER PROUD of her butterfly (on the left) and I think it is pretty great too!

Don’t forget to grab the FREE Printable HERE!

Happy Painting!

I can eat the whole plant!

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A Lesson on Parts of a Plant

We are digging into #GardenWeek over here and we are already enjoying the fruits of our labor. 😉

I have had this amazing reference book for quite a while but this is the first time that we sat down and read through it. It is packed with great information. The text is all broken up into small pieces and the writing is conversational to make the topic interesting. My kiddos loved it!

As we were reading about the parts of a plant we started talking about how different foods grow differently. Much to my surprise, we turned the page and VOILA, there was a page all about which fruits and vegetables were the different parts of the plants!

Usborne Books & More never ceases to amaze me!

I love that they covered this fun topic. It truly wowed my kiddos.

To make this fun concept really sink in, we grabbed our FREE PRINTABLE and a few veggies from the fridge and started laying everything on our diagram.

The kids took turns with my oldest reading the section of text and then my youngest picking the veggies off the plate to place on the diagram.

Look how cute our “plant” turned out! 😁 Now quickly take a photo to commemorate the occasion before sneaky fingers start stealing the veggies for a snack! 😂

See! I warned you! Those sneaky fingers are super quick! I didn’t even know he liked celery, but he was determined to taste every part of our plant!

My favorite part of this activity? My youngest told her dad at dinner, “I ate a root for a snack today, daddy”. Little ears really do hear what you teach them!!

Don’t forget to grab your FREE printable so you can try out this fun activity with your kiddos!

Happy snacking!