Art and Crafts

Making metal masks

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Visiting the art show at the museum last week, we saw some metal masks by local artist Colleen Davis and were inspired to make our own. We went on a shopping trip  to buy supplies and also searched the house for things we could use. For the base we used tin foil platters. Other items we gathered included foil, scourers, bottle tops, nuts, washers, nails, wire, paperclips, safety pins, split pins and split rings.

Tabitha was only interested in the “eyes” and concentrated intently on covering her face with them!

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The foil plates were really difficult to cut through and the cut edges were deadly sharp, so I cut out Aaron’s mouth for him and folded the edges over carefully. I suppose they’re not technically masks without any eye holes!

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I let Aaron loose with the hot glue gun for the first time, remembering this post from Teacher Tom. He managed really well, although we used up copious amounts of glue!

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This is Tabitha’s finished face.

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I love Aaron’s idea to use split pins for the teeth.

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It looked like so much fun that I had to have a go too!

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The masks are now hanging up on our display wall, along with some photos of the ones we saw at the museum. I used to be rather fussy about putting things up on the wall, but I’ve come to realise that this is Aaron and Tabitha’s home too and that’s more important than having a perfect house. It’s also a good opportunity to practise my documentation!

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Getting back into the swing of things

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We’ve been playing lots of “Alphabet Lotto” over the last few days. The lotto boards are double sided and the game comes with both picture and letter cards, so there are four different ways of playing. It’s great because we can all play together, with Tabitha matching pictures while Aaron and I do letters.

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I spotted these chalk pastels in Lidl last week and couldn’t resist buying them, as it’s been a while since we experimented with a new medium. I put some artificial flowers on the table as inspiration.

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Tabitha spent a long time rearranging the flowers in the oasis foam.

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Aaron drew a picture of the orange tulips, which I suppose was his first ever still-life drawing (nearly all our art is about the process, not the product).

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This morning we played with wet craft foam on the windows. I remember seeing the idea ages ago on The Imagination Tree but we never got round to trying it out until now.

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The children loved it and I was surprised how inventive they were at using the shapes, most of which I’d cut out to be part of a flowery scene. Aaron used them to create boats and submarines!

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Baby F mostly enjoyed pulling them off the window and bending them, although she had a go at painting them with water as well.

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A parcel came this afternoon with some of Aaron’s new maths materials. I am waiting for the rest to arrive before introducing it properly, but he got stuck straight in anyway. First he counted to 100, which he often does with the help of our hundred chart poster. Then he carried on well past 200! It was amazing to see him so eager and focused. He tends to get a bit confused about which way round the numerals in multi-digit numbers go, but even after one session of using these place value cards I could tell that he was starting to understand it better.

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My mum looked after the children yesterday afternoon while I was having physio in the hospital and afterwards they treated me to a demonstration of Stave House, which is a method for teaching children to read music based on stories and songs. It was incredible to see Tabitha, who isn’t even 3 yet, placing the notes in the right place on the stave and clapping along to the rhythms after just three lessons! I’m going to borrow the teaching set during half term, so will post more about it then if I remember!