Safe Sites For Nature

Years ago when my 3 children were very small (babies in fact), we lived near Bozeman, MT. The weekly paper included a special section for kids. I saved a lot of them for my children to read and work the puzzles included on the pages. Thought I would scan them and share in this blog for others to get use out of them. Hope you enjoy. -- Happel Kids Mom (Alice)

Alexander Calder -- Art Exploration with Mobiles

Another art project from the Usborne Art Treasury book was tried by Wynston recently.

Alexander Calder created huge mobiles out of painted steel and wire. Our project was to make a miniature mobile out of pipe cleaners, cardboard and pictures.

Today mobiles are mass-produced and sold in stores around the world. But in the 1930's, they were a brand new idea. The inspirations came from an artist named Alexander Calder. He wanted to create sculptures that moved - but without machinery. The result was the first mobile.

He was born in America in 1898. He came from a family of artists and he set up his own workshop at the age of eight, making tiny moving animals out of metal. Although he studied to be an engineer, he soon returned to art.

One of his famous pieces is called The Star as shown here.

Art Exploration -- Foil Sculptures

I recently checked out of the library a book titled, The Usborne Art Treasury. The kids and I are having fun reading about all different kinds of art forms. The book is presented beautifully with information about the artist, an example of their work and then a project to try using simple materials to make your own interpretation of that type of art.



The first one we decided to work with was Alberto Giacometti born in Switzerland in 1901. He produced stick figures which became famous. People admired them for the way they seemed to capture the pain and uncertainty of modern life.


He made his sculptures of bronze, but we used pipe cleaners and aluminum foil for our sculptures.
Wynston decided to try to make a tall man like one of the examples in the book. His other figure is above and started out to be a giraffe, but we ended up deciding that it looks more like a dinosaur. He might be adding a tail onto his creature soon.



Savannah made this cute dog sculpture.

Fall Colors -- Leaf/Outdoor Art

Avery came in the house the other day from a pacing break when doing school work and brought me a green leaf.

He wanted to draw some leaves and I told him that we should try a fossil art type trick with them.

We then made another trip outside with Wynston tagging along and brought in a few twigs, different types of leaves, and blades of grass. The boys chose the colors they wanted on their pages. I think they did a good job and had fun exploring shapes. We finished Avery's page up by taking a plaque off the wall and using the "LOVE" in it to add to his creation.

Avery Illustration

After finishing reading his first Chapter Book from Hooked on Phonics, Avery Zefram asked for a drawing pad to create this illustration from the characters in the story. He looked at the cover of the book when drawing the main character, Detective Dog. I think he did a really good job for a 9 year old!

The Art of Having Fun -- Water Fun That IS

The kids got to enjoy the last event of Eagle Mount Summer Day Camp getting wet at a local swimming pool.

They visited with the staff and talked of video games, cartoons, fishing, and planning of activities with Eagle Mount in the future.



Avery made a successful head first down the slide into the water which I did not catch on camera, but was instructed that he could not do this again because of possible injury. When wanting to go down again feet first, both he and Wynston could not figure out how to coordinate their bodies onto the enclosed slide. The Eagle Mount instructor, Deb (Avery's favorite) tried to help them both, but it was agreed that next time at other pools locally maybe they could try the slides that have no top over them. These kinds of slides are easier to mount and go down.



Wynston had fun playing/spraying other kids from Eagle Mount as pictured here.

Happel Art -- Mid-Summer Ramblings

The days seem to fly by so quickly. Savannah got to go on a 4 hour float trip recently and then the next day she and Avery got to go on a two hour float trip on the Missouri River. They both had a very fun time and I am sure will want to go again in the future.





Avery got creative again late the other night and presented his version of Spiderman to adorn our refrigerator. He applied tape heavily so it won't fall off. Unfortunately, Spidey is getting water logged from people getting ice for their cups while in the freezer and it melting.



Wynston was playing on the computer the other day and started dabbling with a small piece of paper. Here is his happy looking fellow he presented to me. I gave him compliments and Wynston's smile was as bright as his drawing's smile.



Savannah has been using the light box and tracing one of my embroidery patterns I found on the computer as well as a troll from a recent drawing book I got for the kids from Michael's.




Fred has been doing something he loves recently which is refinishing a small table. The original finish on it was very thin and wearing badly. He thought I was going to donate the table to charity, but I suggested he refinish it and play moving a few pieces of furniture around. I like the end result.




I have been busy stitching some hand towels and have had the bright idea to maybe make a few into quilted table runners/centers. I love finding vintage transfer patterns and flickr.com has a wonderful group with more being added almost daily -- more than I could ever stitch!