November days

Since Millie started at a new school, I have been able to volunteer every Tuesday in her classroom.  Every other week, I also volunteer as an art docent for Millie's second grade class.  I love teaching the kids art and they are so excited for the lesson on those days.  The first week we did the above project on mixing primary colors to make green, orange and purple fish.  We used acrylic paint and they all came out great.

After that I decided it was time to celebrate Fall and the changing colors of the leaves.  So I taught the class about warm and cool colors.  They drew the leaves using oil pastels.  They had to use warm colors- yellow, pink, red and orange.  Then, the class painted the background with watercolors.  For this they had to use cool colors-purple, green or blue.  The results were stunning.

Of course, since Halloween was fast approaching, it was time to learn how to draw a pumpkin.  We used chalks to draw these and the kids all learned how to blend colors and add shade.  A little bit of detail was added, and they were worthy of framing!

For November's class, I thought it would be fun to put away the paints and papers and introduce weaving to the group.  I cut strips into ordinary paper bowls and using colorful yarn and some beads, the second graders weaved a thanksgiving bowl. The next project is a big one.  We will make fish and flower bowls out of clay and I will fire them in a kiln.  Then the class will get to glaze them and one last firing in a kiln.  Fingers crossed they will survive my first ever use of a kiln!  Pictures to follow in a week and a half if they are successful.

We've also continued to lose teeth here at the Coombes house.  I guess Millie can be singing, "All she wants for Xmas is her 2 front teeth."

Family picture after enjoying the Christmas tree lighting in Langley.

And our blog would not be complete without a November sunset...