Color Experiments

Have you entered my current giveaway yet?

One of my goals for this summer is to do some explorations with colors. We have been having fun with this goal. The other day we pulled out some paints and eye droppers. We were going to experiment with secondary colors and hues. Then we went to our local library for their color exploration program. Here are some of the things we did.

Our set up was simple. The three primary colors and black and white paint in a plastic egg carton. Each has an eye dropper except we only could find four, so we used a medicine syringe as well. Then of course some brushes and paper. The idea was to keep track of how much of each color, but it didn't work out that way. We just kept experimenting with colors to try to get ones we liked.

I tried to make a pretty pink and teal, but was not very successful. Hazel played with greens and browns.

My painting to see colors

Then at the library we were read a book and looked at making secondary colors with color paddles and a flashlight. Then they explored how black markers are made by drawing black line on a coffee filter and putting an edge of the filter in water.

The children immediately saw blues and greens and some reds. We let them sit and at the end of the program they looked like this with reds and oranges showing.

The other experiment involved bowls of water and Skittles. You put three different color Skittles in each bowl spread apart. The colors come off of them, but do not mix unless the table is bumped or done intentionally.

After the experiment, the librarian had the kids mix up the water and add more Skittles. I like that you can see the "S" from the Skittles floating in the water. Whatever makes the "S" is lighter than the water and floats to the top.

For more color explorations and crafts check out:

• Color Wheel and Mixing Colors
• Color Explorations: Painting
• Book Inspired Painting
• The Colors of Us
• The Colors in Nature
• Luka's Quilt
• Dying Yarn with Fruit and Vegetables Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
• Outside Water Play
• Picture a Tree
• Mixing Colors
• Brown at the Zoo
• Color Experiment Pinterest Board

Fairy Tales in Different Cultures: Mulan

Disclosure: Tuttle Publishing gave me a copy of these books free of charge. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation. As in all my reviews I am providing links for your ease, but receive no compensation.

Mulan was a story I really knew nothing about. I had not watched the Disney film when it came out and every time Hazel and I sat down to watch it, she got scared. Mulan was the one Disney princess we did not try to see in Disney World. When I was offered to review some of Tuttle Publishing's books, I thought Mulan would be fun to review to compare with the Disney story for my Fairy Tales in Different Cultures. While receiving Mulan by Li Jian and Yijin Wert is the translator, I also received My First Book of Chinese Words: An ABC Rhyming Book by Faye-Lynn Wu and two other books I will be reviewing at another time.

Now before I go into anything about the stories I have to say all four books I received are beautiful books. They are high quality and the illustrations are amazing. Now the two books I am reviewing here are both about the Chinese and both have Chinese words in them.  

My First Book of Chinese Words goes through our alphabet and gives a Chinese word for that letter. Most of the time the pronunciation of the word begins with the letter. Then it describes the word and also shows you the word in Chinese (and some are in both traditional and simplified). The words themselves teach you more about the Chinese culture. This book is truly a beautiful lesson on culture and language. 

Now onto our fairy tale for this week. The story in this book is in both English and Chinese. It tells the story of Mulan in a non-frightening way based on The Ballad of Mulan. The Ballad of Mulan is a poem written over 1500 years ago in China. It has over 300 words and depicts the legend of the heroine Mulan. This poem is how the story was passed down through the generations. 

In the story in the book Mulan goes to fight in her father's place because he is too old. She has a sister and brother. The brother is too young. Mulan loves to ride horses and shoot arrows and is very good at martial arts before she leaves for war. She dresses as a male so she can fight. Her parents do not want her to go, but they know they have no other choice. Her sister and brother help her prepare for war. She is so good at warfare they have her fighting in the frontline. After twelve years of fighting, the war ends and she gets to return home. The emperor gathers all the heroes to award them for their deeds, but Mulan refuses everything and just asks for a fast horse to return to her family. Some of her fellow soldiers follow her. She goes in and hugs all of her family and then changes from the soldier uniform into her female clothes. She puts on some cosmetics and does her hair. When she greets her fellow soldiers they are surprised to see she is a woman. 

The story in the book is spread out on 42 pages with beautiful illustrations and both the words in English and Chinese. It is truly a wonderful book. 

Now Disney of course changes the story a bit, as they do with all their movies. First they show Mulan as being a failure as a women and dishonoring her family by not being able to be matched with a husband. Next they add the ancestors coming back to life to send a magical being to help bring Mulan home. Of course the magical being does not get awakened and instead she gets their slave dragon that always is messing things up. She also does not have any siblings, but lives with her parents and grandmother. 

She sneaks off in her father's armor with his draft notice. She takes her beloved horse who understands her and she seems to understand completely as well. When she reports for duty and is to be trained she has very little skills in fighting and actually gets told to leave. She however stays and perseveres. They go off to war and find the main army to have been killed (with her leading officer's father the general of the main army). Now their sad army must fight the Hun. She gets smart and aims the fire power at snow hanging on a ledge and buries the enemy in the snow. She however gets injured and the doctor lets them know she is a woman. Her fellow soldiers leave her there since it is a dishonor to have a woman fight. They could have killed her, but since she saved their lives they do not. She however realizes the enemy did not die in the snow. She runs off to warn her soldiers and the emperor. No one will listen to her, but she is able to help them save the emperor and China. They honor Mulan as a woman and the emperor gives her his seal and the enemy's sword since she will not take a position in his cabinet.

Cat in the Hat: Let's Go on an Adventure DVD Review and Giveaway

Disclosure: NCircle Entertainment gave me a copy of the DVD free of charge and is supplying the one for the giveaway free of charge. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation. As always, links are provided for your convenience and are not for compensation.

Don't you love Dr. Seuss and The Cat and the Hat? I know we do!! When NCircle Entertainment offered us a review copy of The Cat in the Hat: Let's Go on an Adventure! DVD plus one to giveaway, we jumped at the chance. 

This DVD includes five episodes as well as some Bonus Features like the various short parts they put in before or after the show on television. What I like most about The Cat in the Hat show is there is always a lesson in each show. In the episodes on this DVD includes following a treasure map, joining a salmon running upstream, following seeds, learning about skunks and about snails.

One of the episodes on the DVD is on map reading. Now Steve loves maps so I have many pictures of Hazel pretending to read a map. She also keeps any map we get from any place we go (Plimouth Plantation, Sea World, etc.). The maps may be falling apart, but she wants to keep them and I see her play with them. 

Hazel consults her "map"  to be like Daddy

So I thought it would be fun to make Hazel a map of the way we go to Cape Cod. Since she cannot read yet, I used the landmarks we usually see and look for on the trip. I figured she could cross them off when she sees them and make it a game.

Now it is your turn to win a copy of this wonderful DVD. Make learning a bit more fun with this one. Follow my Giveaway Rules though the winner can reside in Canada and do as the Rafflecopter instructs!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Sharing Saturday 14-27

Thank you to everyone who shared last week. As always it is so inspiring to check out what everyone has been up to. If you have not had a chance to check out the ideas others shared, please do so and remember to leave some comment love! We had a two-way tie for most clicked.

From Crafty Journal: Aluminum Can Dimensional Star

and

From A Bountiful Love: How We Potty Trained Our 2 Year Old in 1 Week

For features I chose two categories. The first is summer/beach themed crafts and the other is some of my favorites!

Summer Features

1) From Kids Activities Blog: DIY Seashell Necklace

2) From Moosewood Connections: Shell Critters

3) From Stella123: The Perfect Free Beach Souvenir

4) From Kids Activities Blog: Butterfly Pasta Watercolor Art

A Few of My Favorites

1) From How The Sun Rose: Around the Sun and DIY Birthday Ring

2) From The Chaos and The Clutter: Create Your Own Babysitting Kit

3) From Jewelry Making Journal: Wire Angel Pendant Tutorial

4) From Felt with Love Designs: Reader Requested: Monkey with Blanket Stuffed Animal with Free Pattern

5) From Craft Ideas for Kids: Making Rain

6) From Mini Monets and Mommies: DIY Glow in the Dark Kids' Paint

7) From The Surly Housewife: 10 Everyday Chores Any Kid Can Do

8) From Wesens-Art: Recycling Art

Thank you to everyone who shared last week!! I hope you will join us and share again!! If you are featured here, please feel free to grab a featured button to display proudly on your blog. 

Featured Button Code:

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From Your Hostess: This week we our Craft Stick Fish, Petrosinella: A Neapolitan Rapunzel, Sock Animals, our second Fractal Lesson and an Olaf craft and our Patriotic Necklaces.This coming week we will be hosting two giveaways, so make sure you come check them out!!

Now for This Week's Party  
A Few Simple Guidelines:
1)  Please follow Crafty Moms Share via GFC (or one of the other ways that work for you).  

2)  Link any kid-friendly, child-centered post. Please no etsy shops or giveaways, etc.  Remember to link to your actual post. 

3) Post the Sharing Saturday button on your sidebar or somewhere on your blog to help spread the word.

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5) If you do not have a blog, but want to share an idea you can leave it in the comments or e-mail it to me with a picture (if possible).

 

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Patriotic Necklaces for the 4th of July

We are expecting to deal with Hurricane Arthur this year on the 4th of July. Our original plans were to go to my parents on Thursday and go to their town's parade on Friday and fireworks on Saturday. Between the weather reports and Hazel and I both feeling a little under the weather, we changed our plans. So Hazel asked if we could have a cook-out for the 4th. I told her we were expecting lots of rain, so a cook-out was not going to happen. Next she asked if we could have an indoor picnic. This I agreed to as long as she picks up her toys so Daddy can vacuum and we have room in the family room to actually have our picnic. Next she asked if we could pull out all the patriotic decorations we have made for past 4th of July parties. This I agreed to as well with the same condition.

We did make a craft for this year as well. I was inspired by Buggy and Buddy: 4th of July Craft for Kids: Patriotic Necklaces. I cut up some red striped straws and some blue ones since we had them. We also bought a package of red, white and blue star buttons. Then we used whatever red, white and blue beads we could find. Our original idea was we would wear these to the parade, however since we are not going, we will just wear them for the day. We made three of them thinking we would be with my nephew for the parade.

I made this one using both holes of the buttons to pass the string and using three large buttons as the pendant.

Hazel made this one trying some sort of pattern of stars and straws. She asked me to put one of the stars on with both holes used after seeing mine.

This was my first one. I was trying to use what we had to make it similar to the one on Buggy and Buddy. Then I added my own twist to it.

For Memorial Day we did a patriotic round-up of our past decorations and things. Click on the picture to see the round-up. 

We also shared some books and crafts for Flag Day. Again click on picture above to see this post. 

For all of our American readers, we wish you a very Happy Independence Day!!