Ocean visit

We had to visit the ocean this week. I really enjoy going during the off season, we were practically the only people there. CG and SA love going, this time they made two small seats of sand and put shells all around them.  They sat on the "throne" and viewed the ocean. We also looked for shells and rocks. SA found two sand dollars.  After speaking with another lady on the beach we found out that if the sand dollar is grayish in color and has a whole in the middle of the bottom then it is dead. If it is brownish green, the hole is not there and it has little hairs covering it then it is alive. We looked and we had one of each so CG put the one that was alive back. Glad we learned this before we brought it home! SA was quite concerned that he had picked up something that was alive. He didn't want to touch it again.

It was nice to sit back and just watch as they explored the beach and created their little spot. No pencil, no notebook, no Mom pointing things out, just the two of them.

Homemade Chalk Pastels

I checked the craft stores and online to find some Chalk Pastels. They are quite expensive for what you get so I decided to look for ways of making them ourselves.  It would also be an exciting experiment. I found some information online about making pastels using oatmeal water as the binder.  hmmmm.....

The recipe that we tried was to boil 1/4 cup of rolled oats and 1 liter of water. Strain Use the water only, it is the binder.

Mix 1/2 cup talc powder (unscented, this is the filler) with 2 Tablespoons of powdered tempera paint (This is the pigment). I had a hard time finding this but it can be ordered online. This powder mixed with water makes the liquid paint so it can be used for that as well.

Add tablespoons of the oatmeal water and mix to the consistancy of clay but not sticky.  Roll it out onto newspaper into shapes like crayons. Cut the lengths that you want and let dry for twenty four hours.

 Now we did adjust our recipe a little.. We did blue first and it was too crumbly so with the next batch I used a little more oatmeal because the binder was too week. After you have your color, you can add a little white pigment to make it a lighter shade. We had fun with this and when It dries we hope that it works. We will update with a later post.


****UPDATE****

Some colors came out more crumbly than others and some were not very smooth. All were usable. I think perfecting the recipe would work, stronger binder etc. Fun project, great for the kids and ends with art supplies. I am not complaining.



Mixing the filler with the pigment.






Rolling out the shapes.

We did slightly different shades for the blue.

How does it work? Take it apart!

CG and SA wanted to take apart an old toy and see how things are built. 

This ended up being a really good science lesson. They learned about gears, motors, sound, soldering, battery power, electric power, the list goes on and on. They used some problem solving skills to take apart some of the toys. This led to discussions about how the toys were made.

Mom's lesson give a child an old toy and a small screwdriver and they will be happy for hours.