November 20th, 2008

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Wax Paper Stained Glass

Thursday, November 20th, 2008

We have continued to enjoy fall nature projects here.  They are things that are easy to do and don’t take long.  We’ll have to move on to winter projects soon because the colorful fall leaves that were everywhere just a few days ago are now gone.  We have had a couple of bitter cold nights here and the leaves have turned dark and mostly fallen now.

I did find a few bright red and yellow leaves for our wax paper stained glass project today.  This idea is another one from Nature Crafts for Kids.

When I look up, I see what I think is my favorite tree: a crepe myrtle I planted a few years back.  Crepe myrtles grow fairly quickly, have wonderful bark, and the leaves and seeds are so pretty in the fall.

We took two pieces of wax paper, about 12 x 12 each.  First I layered a piece of newspaper over the ironing board.  Next I layered one piece of the wax paper.  Princess of the Universe then placed the leaves in the pattern she wanted on the wax paper, leaving enough space in between and around the edges for the wax paper layers to bond.  We layered the second sheet of wax paper on top.  With my iron on low, we gently ironed over the wax paper to fuse the two sheets.  Of course you must closely supervise this or do the ironing yourself since there’s a risk of burns.  Also, I suppose you’d want to wipe your iron off after it’s cooled down.

We ended up with a stained glass “pane” to hang in our living room window.  It’s pretty when the sun shines through.  This marks the last fall leaf project we’ll be doing this year.  Nature Crafts for Kids has a nice section on why trees lose their leaves.  We read it together and then Princess of the Universe wrote in her nature journal about it. 

Then It’s On To Math…

Our large white board has been one of the most handy things I have purchased for math.  It stands behind the armoir you see in the corner above.  When someone does not understand something, it’s so convenient to have our large white board to work on to show examples of whatever is causing grief.  Also, Princess of the Universe just thinks it’s fun.  If she has a worksheet with not enough space to do long problems, I let her do the problems on the white board and then just write the answer on the worksheet. 

Is there anything that makes math easier for you?

Lynn

Posted in Book Reviews, Charlotte Mason, Nature Study | 8 Responses »