So - We Made a Waxy Paper Mobile!

Bear wanted to make something so I decided to combine a little art & science.

I would love to post step by step pictures but unfortunately things often just happen too fast in our household, especially as waiting any longer than a split second is tantamount to torture for Bear :)
Perhaps I'll get lucky another day but for this post you'll just have to make do with photos of the final result!

So - what did we need?
Waxpaper - 2 sheets
Wax crayons
Scissors
Wire coathanger
Dishtowels
Iron
+ a Parental or adult willing to supervise or operate hot iron & scissors






< super stoked









So - how did we use them?
We turned on our iron on a low heat.
We lay out some dishtowels and put a large sheet of wax paper on top of them
Chose various colours of wax crayons and using our scissors shaved off bits on to our paper
When we were satisfied with the amount of wax shavings & their arrangement we lay our 2nd sheet of waxpaper on top of the first.
Covered this with some more dishtowels
Slowly & carefully ironed our wax paper
You can take a peek every now and again to make sure the wax shavings are melting and making gorgeous colours & patterns on your wax paper.
Voila - our 2 pieces of paper and wax shavings joined together and made a really pretty piece of paper!

So - What now?
Well you can use your finished paper for all sorts of crafts but as we are doing a lot with shapes these days Bear asked me to cut it into various shapes.
I then spied an old coat hanger lying about and got the idea of making a mobile, so Bear punched holes in each shape, I strung them on various lengths of string and we arranged them on the hanger.

So - That was fun, but what did we learn?
Well here's the fun part of homeschooling - you realise just how much your toddler can learn just by doing some fun activities!





< I learn stuff & have fun at the same time!










Some of the things we learnt from this activity:

• Colours - I let Bear choose all the colours for our project, we talked about other things with those colours e.g. Blue Sky, Mom's purple t-shirt etc. Bear decided his favourite colours are Blue & Purple...and Red...and Green...and Yellow....and so on lol. We also saw how some of the colours change when they melt together - blue & yellow goes green etc. We also talked about how our paper was translucent when we hung it up in the window - the light shines through it but we can't see through it!
• Shapes & sizes - Bear chose different shapes for me to cut out and specified sizing: A BIG square and a little square, a star >>>this<<< big and of course a HUGE airplane (I'm aware this is not a "traditional" shape ;P). We also talked about why a rectangle is different to a square
• Numeracy - we counted the sides of our shapes to help figure out if they were triangles, squares, rectangles etc. We counted our shapes and cut enough string for each shape.
• Science - we learnt that some stuff melts when it gets hot, and other stuff doesn't...like the dishcloths.
• Health & safety - We learnt about hot irons & being careful not to burn ourselves, and also that scissors are sharp so we must be careful not to cut ourselves, and also to behave sensibly when we are carrying or using them.
• Fine motor skills - I did the shape cutting but let Bear practise his cutting skills by letting him snip the cut off bits and try make his own shapes. He was more interested in shredding the bits into a million tiny pieces though.

And that's about all I can think of right now, although I know we talked about a lot of stuff because we've hit the WHY? stage big time in our household, so everything you do includes answering 101 questions.

Surprised such a simple activity can yield so many learning opportunities?
I know I was when I first started looking into this whole homeschooling thing!
I was skeptical and convinced learning couldn't be that easy - but of course it really is :)

So - What about our little Evie - well besides bubbling around, watching with an eagle eye and hanging onto every word her big bro' said, she learnt 2 valuable lessons

Sometimes you just can't touch your big brother's stuff....

...But he loves you anyway!

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