Mish Mash Splash

April 21, 2013 

“In the Dream-time all the earth lay sleeping. Nothing grew.  Nothing moved. Everything was quiet and still.  The animals, birds and reptiles lay sleeping under the earth’s crust. Then one day the Rainbow Serpent awoke from her slumber and pushed her way through the earth’s crust, moving stones that lay in her way.  When she emerged…”

 

And so begins the Australian Aboriginal legend of The Beginning of Life as told by O. Noonuccal.  Cannon and I read the story together.  Then we looked at some examples of Australian Aboriginal Art that used small dots of color to fill in the shapes and designs. Then we began our interpretation of the Rainbow Serpent. Cannon rolled red yellow and blue inks onto a strip of bubble wrap and then pressed it onto the paper using the baron tool. Next week we will use the paper of rainbow dots to cut out the shape of our serpent.

 

Nesting Time

It is spring and birds are returning to Indiana. It is time to make a new nest or repair an old one. Remembering the Ghanaian story of the how a spider showed the people how to weave Kente cloth we looked at the nests woven by three different birds.  Cannon showed me his weaving from school.

A friend saved these nests that had fallen out of a tree
 for Cannon to look at. We never take a nest out of a tree.

Two of the birds had cleverly woven their nests around a tree branch and even wove some of the leaves into the nest.  We could see thin strips of light blue plastic along with the natural materials. The smallest nest was very soft inside. It was lined with fine hairs.  It was a perfect place to hold the fragile little eggs that would be laid there.

Cannon is taking a closer look

 

Helping the Birds

We wanted to help the birds build their nests so we made a “nesting wreath” to hang in my cherry tree.  Cannon filled the spaces in the grapevine wreath with lint from the dryer, hair from our hair brushes, strings, and wood shavings. We added some dried sunflowers from last summer to give the birds a snack while they worked.

 

 

The wreath is tucked into the branches of my cherry tree waiting to be discovered.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The wreath is tucked between the limbs of this tree.

 

Each blossom will turn into a cherry.

Yum, cherry pie!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vein of Gold

Blue, yellow, orange and green were the colors Cannon selected for this weeks water color experiment. When Cannon had filled the paper with color we used the yellow orange glitter glue and added a “vein” of gold threading through the colors. 

 In Between

We made another set of number beads – we are up to seven now and read a chapter of Captain Underpants.