Mish Mash Splash

March 3, 2013

Mauritania was our destination this week. Cannon found the West African country on his globe and then he found it on his new “flat map” of the world.  Most of Mauritania is covered by the Sahara Desert – the largest desert in the world that extends across North Africa, and the Middle East. 

 

We found where other deserts are located around the world; South West Africa, Australia, the United States. Next week we will look up the word “desertification”.   In 2007 Mauritania was the last country in the world to abolish slavery.  However, slavery is still a common practice. The country is very poor and has many problems.

 

We looked at images of the Sahara Desert.  In Arabic, Sahara means, “The Great Desert”. The wind moves the sand and makes different patterns, which change as the wind changes.

Mauritania Desert by Cannon Hoops

 

 We made a desert landscape, using dry pastels, torn paper and tissues.  First we picked out different shades of brown for the sand and colors of blue of the sky. Then we tore strips of white drawing paper.  We filled the edge of the paper with about two inches of pastel color.  Then we laid the strip on another piece of drawing paper and used the tissue to brush the dry color onto the paper.  Cannon continued this process with different colors and with different strips of torn paper until the desert landscape was completed.   

 

 

Exploding Colors I by Cannon Hoops

We went from dry to wet and got out the liquid water colors for some painting time.  Painting is Cannon’s favorite art activity. He filled several papers with colors and brush work that was full of energy. He has developed a variety of brush strokes to fill the “picture plane”.  We switched brushes and tried out a bamboo brush to get a different effect.

 

 

Cannon used the bamboo brush to get the "dry brush" effect. He created interesting textures as he lifted and moved his brush.  

 

Between art activities we read several chapters from Captain Underpants and from Super Diaper Baby.  We pointed out all of the spelling mistakes that George and Harold make in their writing and all the new words to add to his vocabulary.  We played an addition game using dice and a quick “facts” chart.  We played a round of sight word Bingo and constructed some silly sentences.  The we finished our session with the Banana-grams and when Cannon spelled out “ping-pong” it was time to shift to the Wii for a lightning round of the game. Cannon demonstrated his skill winning two games in a row.