The California Gold Rush

Last week, we finished reading By the Great Horn Spoon! by Sid Fleischman, a comical novel about a boy and his butler who run away to the gold fields of California in 1849.

Activities to go along with the reading of By the Great Horn Spoon!

http://www.lsusd.net/cms/lib6/CA01001390/Centricity/Domain/748/BGHS.pdf

The California gold rush is an event that we had never covered before, so we have taken some time to discuss both overland and ocean routes that people from the East took to get to California.

We read this magazine:



We have also talked about how people who made a fortune in California, often did so without doing any prospecting.

Gold Rush Prices Worksheet:

http://ports.parks.ca.gov/pages/22922/files/worksheet-goldrushprices.pdf

The project that Blaze enjoyed the most, though, was learning to pan for gold using this kit:

http://www.discoverwithdrcool.com/learn-how-to-pan-for-gold/



Inside the kit:



Practicing with a dishpan full of water:





How to pan for gold:

Ninja Birthday Candle Holders

Blaze is a huge fan of Lego Ninjago, especially Kai, the red ninja. With his birthday less than a month away, I started looking at things to do for a Ninjago birthday theme. It turns out that there are no commercially available Ninjago party supplies. There are some artists on Etsy who are filling this void, though.

http://www.etsy.com/search?q=ninjago&view_type=gallery&ship_to=US&page=1


I had some wooden peg people that I had purchased years ago (way back when I was making the "math gnomes"), which I have turned into little ninja birthday candle holders.

Drill holes in the top of each of the peg people.



Using acrylic paint, cover the entire peg person except the opening on the face where the eyes will be.



The eyes are drawn on with a thin permanent marker. Sensei Wu's hat is made of white clay and his beard is a little bit of natural colored wool.

The Revamped Christmas Village

We inherited this ceramic Christmas village when DH's mother passed away.



DH had been hoping that it was the beautifully painted set that he remembered from his childhood, but it was not. It was a somewhat sloppily painted set that he had never seen before. He hated it and talked about giving it away, but I convinced him that we should keep it, so that I could try to make it look prettier. It took me a long time to get around to this, but this past week, I finally did it.

I painted the entire set with white gloss spray paint.



The shiny white made the village look more like fine china.

I gave all the roofs an extra layer of paint and blaze sprinkled white glitter on the wet paint.





A couple inexpensive with trees from JoAnn Fabrics and some of the fake fur left over from the stole I made for my Halloween costume and the winter scene was complete.



" That is much better! I don't hate them any more," Said DH when he saw the newly painted houses.

The Hand-Turkey Tablecloth

It is time, once again, for the annual hand-turkey. Every year, since 2003, Blaze has made a new hand-turkey on this tablecloth, so that this little parade of turkeys represents him growing up.

 

Every year, he complains that the fabric paint tickles.

 This year's hand-turkey:
 

 His hand seems considerably bigger this year than last.

Autumn Colors Centerpiece

Using some tissue paper, some Mod Podge, and a cleaned out jar that had once held spaghetti sauce,  Blaze made a candle holder for our Thanksgiving table.



The Mod Podge was painted all over the glass and colored tissue paper was stuck to it. Then another layer of Mod Podge was painted over the top of the tissue paper.



After drying overnight, I added some jute twine (left over from gardening) around the top, because I like the natural/rustic way it looks. We set the jar in the middle of a wooden plate and took a walk to find autumnal looking things in nature that we could place around the jar.



A small pillar candle fit nicely into the jar.

Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) part 2

We made one final addition for our Day of the Dead display, skeleton statuettes. We made these by covering pipestem cleaners with Model Magic "clay". One pipestem cleaner, bent in half is just the right size for the body and legs, while one-half of a pipestem cleaner becomes both arms.



After the "clay"has air dried over night, paint with a glossy black paint. Wait for that to dry. Then, use white paint to paint on the bones of the skeleton. Clothes can be added after the white paint is dry, but we ran out of time.




Food is an important part of the Day of the Dead, which sometimes includes taking picnics to eat at the cemetery. I created a Day of the lunch for Blaze, by using the skull molds, from the sugar skull kit, to mold sweet rice (sticky rice). By using carrots, pumpkin seeds, olives, and refried black beans in a pastry bag, I was able to make a savory version of the sugar skulls.





Our completed ofrenda:

The Day of the Dead

Blaze and I have been learning about the Mexican celebration of the Day of the Dead for social studies.

We started by watching a couple short movies, this one, which was from the Travel Channel:



and this one, which was made for classroom use:


http://www.amazon.com/El-D%C3%ADa-de-los-Muertos/dp/B005S1BQZ4/ref=sr_1_5?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1351703336&sr=1-5&keywords=day+of+the+dead

The local homeschool group had a Halloween party at a park last Thursday and parents were asked to provide games or activities for the children. I had a kit for making sugar skulls that I had purchased three or four years ago, but never used, so I got that out and we took sugar skulls and 4 colors of royal frosting to the park.



I did learn a valuable lesson about placing things made of sugar in a hot car on a humid day, though. Not all the skulls made it to the park safely. Quite a few children did get to decorate them and I asked Blaze to wait until the next day to do one, so that other children could try.



The next day, Blaze and I made our own at home.



The sugar skull mold is actually handy for a variety of things. For a more permanent skull, plaster could be used and then painted. I used the molds to make skull shaped soap.



We also made our annual batch of Bread of the Dead.



The recipe of which can be found here: http://overthecrescentmoon.blogspot.com/2009/10/bread-of-dead.html

Some art projects can be planned way in advance. I purchased this little wooden casket last year when all the Halloween products went on sale after the holiday.



Blaze painted it and decorated it. Now, it's ready to be filled with chocolate candies and placed on our "ofrenda". 



Making cut paper banners is very good exercise for fine motor skills. The simple designs we used can be found here (along with several other Halloween crafts): http://www.thetoymaker.com/Holidays/Halloween/1HALLOWEEN.html



Kermit the Frog as a sugar skull coloring page, included because it is both funny and strange:
http://www.shescribes.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/kermitdiadelosmuertos.pdf



Activities:

http://latino.si.edu/DayoftheDead/

http://www.azcentral.com/ent/dead/articles/dead-education.html?nclick_check=1



We are not done setting up our offering table, the "ofrenda", but I will post a picture when it is finished.