Beach in a Bottle

January 20, 2013
A New Year and new adventures await us.  We had a very busy first 2013 session, catching up and sharing.  Cannon showed me his marble tower…at least three feet high his fine crop of wheat berry grass, the paper airplanes he made and flew with dad, his banana grahams words and more.  

Cannon examined the branches of Pussy Willows that I had brought with me. He stroked the fuzzy “catkins” and looked at the buds not yet open.  Pussy Willows are one of the first signs of spring.  My friend shared some from her garden. Perhaps Cannon’s branches will sprout roots and I can plant them in my garden this spring.

Catkins from the Pussy Willow branch.

 Cannon was eager to unpack the new Art Cart and get started.  So was Avalon, who crawled over and stood next to Cannon, holding onto his chair and trying to get a peek at what we were doing. But before we got started, Cannon and his mom showed me the first edition of Cannon’s first book, Avalon’s Book of Colors, his Christmas gift to his sister.  

 

 

He and his dad had worked together to prepare the book for publication. They did a great job!  We learned lots of things from this project and had fun too.

 

 



And now at last we can reveal his other Christmas projects.  For mom, Cannon dyed two silk scarves and for dad, he modeled desk accessories from polymer clay. 

 



Cannon proudly shows off the scarves he dyed of mom.

Then we unpacked the Art Cart and made our list, just like Toad did in The List.

We got out the globe and Cannon picked out the places he wanted to “visit” over the next few months.  Then we started our journey by looking at the Maldives – an island nation in the Indiana Ocean south east of Sri Lanka.  First we used our imaginations and made a “piece of the ocean” by filling a zip-lock bag with blue green hair gel.  Then we added some small shells and pressed the air out of the bag and sealed it.  We put it in another bag and used white glue to be sure the bag would not pop open accidentally.  This piece of ocean is fun to squish and push the shells to different parts of the bag. Good exercise for the pinchers and grabbers.  When we held it up to the light from the window we could see air bubbles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then it was time to make our Beach in a Bottle.  The project came from an article in Humpty Dumpty magazine July/August 2012 issue.

With mom’s help we gathered all of the supplies and equipment – she even bundled up Avalon and made a quick trip to the grocery for the all important blue food coloring.
Together we reviewed the steps to the project.  First we sampled some water from Figi and found the Figi islands on the inflatable globe.  After we emptied the bottle we used it for our project.


Then we had to add the beach.  We used small shells and sand I had collected from a beach on Paradise Island in the Maldives.  Cannon used a spoon to measure ½ cup of sand.  He selected small shells that would fit through the bottle opening and pushed them into the bottle.  We made a paper funnel to pour the sand into the bottle.

 

Then it was up to Cannon to tell me what we should do next. He looked at the magazine and showed me the next step.  We measured a cup of water and asked mom to use the food coloring to turn it blue for the ocean.  We made a funnel from foil and Cannon poured the water over the sand. 

 

 

 

 

 

The last step was to fill the rest of the bottle with mineral oil.  Then we added some white glue to the bottle cap and put it on tight.  Cannon turned the bottle from end to end and made blue ocean “waves”.  We could see the sand shifting beneath the waves carrying the shells to the beach.   Something to ponder…why does the water and the oil stay separated? Hum.

 

We took a donut and coffee break. Friends, Frog and Toad are still with us and we started their third book Frog and Toad Together.  We looked at the rest of the Humpty Dumpty Magazine.  I asked Cannon to sign the copy of his book that he gifted to me.  We also tried out a new cutting tool which worked very well.  We will use it next week.

It wouldn't be an Art Sunday without a bit of painting.
Cannon created this using liquid watercolors and salt.
He loves being able to paint independently with the
Apple Core tool.  He especially likes cleaning and
blotting his brush then reloading it with color.