100 Days of Art: African Beads (Day 15)

In our Expedition Earth curriculum, we "traveled" to Kenya this week. One of our craft projects was to make our own African beads, since Kenyans do a lot of bead work. I know these aren't really authentic, but the kids had a great time making them!

We used polymer clay for this project. The kids chose two or three colors and tore off small pieces of the clay.

They then flattened them out and layered them, then flattened them out again.

Next they rolled the clay longways like a snake.

They then tore off chunks of that roll and then rolled them in the palm of their hands to make balls.

We then used wooden dowels and the plastic tools that came with the clay to poke holes all the way through the beads.

We baked them at 240 degrees for about 20 minutes. Once they hardened, they strung them on string!

I love the marble effect they have. Mercie made hers to look like earths. The boys used random color combinations but they all turned out beautiful!

Check out our other projects in my 100 Days of Art Challenge!

Day 1: Learning to Draw

Day 2: Pyramids

Day 3: String Art

Day 4: Optical Illusion Art

Day 5: Kandinsky Concentric Circles

Day 6: Rainbow Paint Chip Mosaics

Day 7: Llama Valentine Box

Day 8: Minecraft Valentine Box

Day 9: Model Insects

Day 10: Symmetrical Butterflies

Day 11: Butterfly Feeder

Day 12: Dragonfly Magnets

Day 13: Watercolor Peruvian Llamas

Day 14: Panamanian Molas

30 Days of Clean Challenge: Day Four

I am super proud of myself for getting to all of these projects! The house looks and feels cleaner already. The kids were out of school for Spring Break this week, so I decided to tackle a big project - our "homeschool room". It's really just our second living room that I haven't done anything with since we've been living here for two years. I really want it to be functional for homeschooling, so I moved a few things around and bought some new shelving units. I threw away a bookshelf that was broken. I took the glass doors off our curio cabinet and am using it as a bookshelf now. I threw away a garbage bag full of trash and stuff that we didn't need anymore. I still have to go through our books, but that is going to take another entire day of work! I wish I would have taken before pictures. 

This is looking into the room from our dining room. I moved the couch - it was on the wall where the curtains are. Those two shelving units on that wall are new. I have puzzles and games on the 9-cube shelf and Zeke's toys on the larger 4-cube shelf. I plan to use the empty cube on the big shelf for his Tot School.

Another view of that wall - you can see the shelving units better. In the basket on the floor is our Expedition Earth books and atlases. I am going to buy a world map to hang above the 4-cube shelf.

Another view - the tall bookshelves are built in. We have our Continent Boxes stacked up beside those.

The view looking from our dining room in the other direction. We have our keyboard beside the door to our laundry room. The bookshelves on the far end have our books, some more puzzles, and a few are empty for our new books for next year.

Another view of that wall and the built in bookshelves. We have the kids school books on the cube shelf. They each have a vertical row for their books and binders. I had just reorganized it last week, but I feel like the way it is now will be better. 

Check out my other posts in my 30 Days of Clean Challenge!

Homeschool Highlights: 3/9/20-3/13/20

We took the week off for Spring Break since my two public-schooled kids had Spring Break this week. It was a nice break, but we did stay busy.

Tuesday I took Mikaela, Silas, and Titus to our "big town" an hour and a half away. Mikaela needed a prom dress and new batting gloves, and Silas and Titus needed baseball cleats and pants. My mom kept Zeke and Mercie, and Eli had a baseball game. It was fun taking just a few of the kids! 

We ate lunch at Applebee's and even got dessert, which we don't usually do because with so many of us, it get expensive!

Silas got an Oreo Sundae.

Titus was enjoying his chicken quesadilla!

Titus was trying out a bat at the sporting goods store.

Mikaela found a prom dress! It's very pretty in person.

We did a lot of puddle-jumping and splashing at the beginning of the week. Zeke loves to play in the water and mud puddles! 

Zeke was throwing rocks into the puddle.

Zeke loves going to Nana's house!

Titus and Mercie had several practices this week. Baseball will be starting in just a few weeks!

Titus working on his batting form. We had practice on the football field since the baseball field was too wet. The football field is turf.

We did get some school done this week. Titus is reviewing a program from Math-U-See that helps with addition and subtraction fact retention. It is working already and we love it! 

We were playing a card game. We take turns flipping a card and adding a number to it. 

Mercie is also reviewing an artist study from Homeschool in the Woods, and she worked on it this week. 

Here she is dot painting like Georges Seurat. 

Zeke loves his new alphabet puzzle! He is very good at puzzles.

Mikaela had a ton of softball games this week! She had some really great hits and the most RBIs on the team.

Zeke helped me work the gate at one of Mikaela's games.

I got a ton of cleaning and organizing in our "homeschool room." I put that in quotations because we don't really have a homeschool room, but we do have two living rooms in our home. One of them we use to store books and supplies, but this week I rearranged it and added some new shelves. It looks and flows much better and I can't wait to school in it on Monday! I'll be sharing more on this is my 30 Days of Clean Challenge.

What did you do this week?

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

30 Days of Clean Challenge: Day 3

I have successfully cleaned out four problem areas in my house, but they were small areas. I really am pleased with the small victories! I knew it was time to tackle a big problem area - my closet.

My closet is huge; it's narrow and long. I have my desk in there so I can pay bills and scrapbook in there. I also keep the kids baby books there for easy access. My husband and I have our clothes and shoes, and Zeke keeps his dresser with his clothes and blankets in there. I had not really cleaned it much lately. I was hanging up my clean clothes but that's about it. It had gotten seriously messy and it was stressing me out. But the thought of cleaning it was a little overwhelming because Zeke is a pretty needy toddler right now. I did convince the kids to take him outside for a while so I could get a big head start on it.

The before - the lighting is terrible but you can see how it had gotten out of control.

Especially the baby's area! 

I moved his car seat and the tub of clothes he had outgrown to our shed outside (another project I need to get to!). I donated the brown nursing pillow and over half of the blankets in the basket on the top shelf. I also threw away the picture frame you see on the bottom left - it was broken. I organized his clothes better and donated a few outfits that he had outgrown.

after! 

after - I vacuumed the carpet, reorganized some things, threw some things away, and donated some things. 

I reorganized my desk and dusted it. It's still a bit cluttered, but it's much better than it was!

I even reorganized my shoes.

I was feeling pretty good about how clean my closet was that I decided to clean under my bed! Our bed is really big and really heavy. We bought it two years ago and I have never cleaned underneath it. It really wasn't as bad as I was expecting, but it did need some serious cleaning. Instead of moving the bed, we took the mattresses off and cleaned it that way!

before - you can see the trash, dust, and other items.

after - nice and clean!

Then I decided to use the big fabric basket that I did have the baby's blankets in for something else. He has a ton of board books that I had in a basket, but the basket was overflowing! I put his books in the fabric basket and they fit much better with room for more books!

before - overflowing

after - room for more!

What have you cleaned lately?

Check out my other posts in my 30 Days of Clean Challenge!

30 Days of Clean Challenge: Day Two

Today I tackled two more small areas that I have been meaning to get to for several weeks now. The first is my "catch-all box" which sits on my kitchen counter. I like this box because I can keep important mail, pens, notepads, and stuff that I need to have handy in a convenient spot. The box is deep so it doesn't normally look cluttered. However, it was getting quite full and I needed to empty it out.

before

inside the box

I took every single thing out of the box and made piles - a pile of trash, a pile of mail to be put away, a pile of things that belonged somewhere else, and a pile of things I wanted to keep in the box.

empty box

everything out of the box

Then I put all the piles where they needed to go and put the few things back in the box neatly. Hopefully I can keep it this neat and organized!

the box now - nothing peeping out the top

the inside of the box - neat and orderly (I don't know why I keep these two Gideon Bibles in this box, but they've been there forever so I just keep them there)

The things I like to keep handy - flashlight, lighter, pens, pencils, baby nail clippers, coupons, mail to be mailed or that needs to be dealt with, sticky notes and sometimes medicine.

The next area that needed to be tackled was our school cube shelves. I usually try to do this weekly, but it had been several weeks since I gave it a good once-over.

before - messy and cluttered

I took everything off, reorganized some of the bins, threw away trash and put things back where they belong like stray pencils, scissors, glue sticks, books, etc. It looks much nicer now!

after - much more organized and clean looking

Two more small victories that made me feel much more productive!

Check out my other posts in my 30 Days of Clean Challenge!