stArt: Planes and How They Work

A Story + Art = A Great stART!

I stumbled across this book (along with the books on Ships, Trains, and Cars) at Books.A.Million on their reduced table and immediately fell in love with them. They were the answer to a long search for age appropriate books that explain how big machines work.

Will, age 7, has loved trains since we was 2. Not only does he play with his train tracks daily, he talks of boilers, domes, pistons and the like. These books are perfect for broadening his horizons to other machines while giving the younger boys an inside look into them as well.



These are flap books and pull-out books at the same time. Not all pages have flaps, but all pages have the side pull-out that goes into more detail about what is inside the machine. Above is a sample from the Plane book. (You should be able to click on the image to make it larger.) This page discusses the wings and tails. The pull-out page discusses what material the tail is made of and goes into a little more detail about the rudder and elevators. I love that these books use the real-life names for the parts, too.

Now for the ART PART!

Will constructed the following planes on his own without help or prompting from me. I just happen to have the camera nearby and was pleased to see that our first stART project in action!

I was informed that the first two are bi-planes and that the final is a jet that has the engines in the rear.

I was also informed that Witt (2 years old) was flying his jet backwards... the round blue pieces are the engines that should be in the rear. :)

For more StART participants, click HERE.

Unplugged Project: "J"

I love that the Unplugged Projects are so flexible!! This week's "assignment" was the Letter J. We painted this week "J"ust because I wanted to!

My inspiration came from Heart of the Matter Online: Paint It Like Pollock.

Basically, I gave the boys a small wooden ball, some paint, and a piece of paper inside a box. They dipped the ball in paint, dropped it on the paper, and rolled the ball around inside the box.


Forgive the dim pictures; it was a bright and windy day. We were under the carport and the shadows were not very forgiving... :)


Step 1: Pose for mommy while you are all clean. Start with colors red, yellow, blue, and white.



Step 2: Dip the little ball in as many colors as possible. :)



Step 3: Shake the box to roll the ball around.



Step 4: Show off pretty picture.



Step 5: Continue to mix paint until mommy says it's time to stop.


The boys really enjoyed this. It was a beautiful day and we needed to do something outside!

Visit Unplug Your Kids for more on the Letter J!

Go Flip a Rock: Results

So, we're a little late on the Rock Flip Day. We've had rainy day after rainy day after rainy day... However, it was beautiful today so we went out to find a rock to flip in our yard.

Would you believe there wasn't a single rock to flip?! My FIL mows our yard while my hubs is away on business and keeps the yard pretty immaculate. I had to find something to flip with the boys, though!

There is a small rose garden in the back yard with some sort of wooden siding that had fallen over. I thought that after all that rain there would be something exciting under it. When we flipped it over, the first thing I saw was some worms. Then Will screams, "ANTS!" Fire ants, to be specific. That was the end of the rock flipping and the end of playing in that part of the yard.

I doubt you can really see the ants or the worms in the picture, but we flipped it and had an experience doing it none-the-less.

Maybe next year we'll go out to the in-laws farm and see what we can flip. (No cow tippin', I promise!) :)