Antarctica felt set

For every unit-like study we tackle Calvin requests a new felt set and Antarctica was no exception. Like I did with the volcano felt set request, when he asked for penguins and the like I told him to draw what he wanted and make me a list of items to include.

I've made all of Calvin's felt sets using standard craft felt, sharp scissors, hot glue, and the occassional marker or pencil. Some of the shapes I cut free-form, some I mark directly on the felt and cut, and others I draw first on paper before sticking paper and felt together to cut along the lines. I was excited this time to find textured craft felt that made good mountains, and sparkly craft felt that made good snow.

We have two small travel felt boards now that Cavlin has now decided make up Antarctica in the summer and Antarctica in the winter, so I guess it's a goot thing I made two mountains. And there are three penguins here: the Emperors, the Adélies, and the Chin Straps. The red things are sea stars, the white in the sky is intended to be swirling wind and snow, and if you're wondering why the explorer seems to be sans pants, that's because he is actually from a different set I'd made and his pants got left behind in his haste to visit that cute penguin baby. Really.

Mapping Oz

This needs no other explanation, really. If you've only ever seen the movie it might not fully make sense. You'll probably recognize the yellow brick road leading from Munchkinland to the Emerald City. The rest of this picture maps the land of Oz as described throughout the books of the series as written by L. Frank Baum. I found it, just like this, on the table in our office, drawn when I wasn't looking. That's my favorite kind of art.

What I love even more about this is that I can see he understands the idea at least of how to draw north, south, east, and west, since that's how the countries are described in the books. It's fun to see learning happen in context—a make-believe context, maybe, but an authentic one to the learner.

Lego pyramids

What can't we do with Legos? We already have a Kenyan city, near the trees of Wangari and the snows of Mt. Kenya, and a train that carries visitors south to Victoria Falls, and now we have the Pyramids of Giza. All three. Creating Pyramids doesn't really require a lot of "how-to" but here's how we did anyway.

We started with a flat sheet and built a base that was 28x2 on all sides. For each subsequent layer we stepped in one row. In order to make it usable for play he needed to be able to reach the inside so we left a doorway by not finishing one wall, and we also made the tip removable. No sooner had we finished the first pyramid than he mentioned the need for three pyramids if indeed this was to be Giza. That took a bit more doing, since we were running of materials, but we managed it. The only thing we couldn't do was make the tip easily removable, since we were out of the smooth thin pieces, but the other two pyramids are smaller (as they are in Giza, mind you), and that step wasn't as necessary.

Appropriately we happen to have one mummy, one pharaoh, one safari explorer, and two explorer pilots in our minifigure collection. The camels, however, were our own creation. Don't laugh.

To make the tip removeable we stabilized it with two platform pieces, then limited the point at which it snaps in place to just one side by using thin smooth strips on three of the sides and just one dimpled strip on the fourth side.

Africa exploration art

We spent a lot of time exploring Africa this week. Between atlases, dedicated books, BBC and National Geographic videos, and the help of YouTube, we've been to a number of places. Calvin was the instigator of this foray, and his interests led us from Victoria Falls (between Zambia and Zimbabwe, he'll tell you) through the savanna on up to Mt. Kenya and the Great Rift Valley. We learned a lot about the animals and a bit about the land. It never fails to amaze me how much information a little guy can swallow up while still being hungry for more.

It is Saturday, meaning it's Artist day at Ordinary Life Magic, and because we explored Africa with our pencils, crayons and paint at hand, Calvin has a lot to share this week.

We started with the biomes, and exploration pictures of each one.

Then it was elephants. That's who he wanted to see a lot of on his trip through Africa, so he drew an awful lot of them.

Then giraffes, and lions, too.

We listened to music and enjoyed colors and clothing and ornaments traditional to a number of south and east African populations, and we really enjoyed reading a number of different African folk tales, or Anansi stories. This is really where our week began, since it was our trip to a play of African folk tales last Friday that launched our recent safari. An Anansi book we got from the library had torn and cut paper art illustrations, so we tried that, too.

I think this was my favorite art "moment" from the week, though. Early on Calvin requested a return of the paints and the week long painting project. I am very glad that our first experiment with that went well enough to elicit a requested return. He spent the week working out a landscape painting of the savanna. With an elephant, of course.

There are still many more projects up our sleeves, and because we're having such a great time with Africa I think we'll decide to skip the flight home and spend another few days, maybe a week...maybe more. I'd like to make African masks, and Calvin want to learn more about Egypt. Maybe we'll make pyramids. With rain, sleet, and snow outside right now, the the rainforest is also pretty appealing.

More posts on our African "travels" can be found in the journal.

The Amazing Mammoth Hunt

Another new game on our shelf, just as highly recommended as the last. The Amazing Mammoth Hunt is a geography game, challenging players to identify a variety of (mostly) countries on the world map; land on a square and properly identify the location of that square's country in order to collect a token, the goal being to collect the most. In general this is my kind of game, but it was a little too advanced for Calvin (something we expected when we ordered it).

We started talking more about continents this week, along with our focus on Africa and African folk lore. This afternoon I got the game out and played we with alterred rules, focusing on identification of continents instead of countries; I asked Calvin to correctly identify the continent of the country on his square in order to collect the token. A few of the countries he's already familiar with, like the US, Egypt, China, and Russia, so I ask him to identify these entirely on his own. We had a great time playing this afternoon and I think it's a great way to build his exposure to map use (and for added fun I keep a globe on hand for clarification).