Day 35

You know what's awesome about school Fridays? Knowing that the week's lessons are complete, and the only thing standing between us and a finished week is art. Now, we pursue the arts during the week in conjunction with science (journal entries) and social studies (projects), but Friday is nice because we all work together in one big happy grade on a single project. Of course we achieve different levels of success - a three-year-old can only do so much while an almost ten-year-old has a lot different perspective on things - but it's nice to tie our week together and try something fun.

This week, the sun helped us with our creations.

The kids cut out symmetrical shapes of black paper, and laid them on top of colored paper before baking out in the sun. Since we're in Florida, this didn't take long! Unfortunately it was pretty windy so we also had to weigh the papers down with rocks; we got some extra shadows on our finished artworks, but such is nature!

After the sun did its thing, we did our thing and continued the symmetrical pattern around the sun print and across the papers. Alexei definitely got the most understanding of symmetry out of this lesson, but it was a fun experiment for all!

Also a good reminder as to why sunscreen is important!

Tomorrow, we kick back and ponder the merits of Christopher Columbus. And buy groceries at Wal-Mart.  Which is probably about as nerve-wracking as a trip across the ocean in the Santa Maria, only we know exactly where we're headed.