Book of the Week: Color Dance

Usually I let my kids choose their library books, but Color Dance jumped out at me (isn't the cover beautiful?) and I had to check it out. I wish I had known about this book last year when we did a theme unit on color. It would have been a great resource!

In this book, dancers twirl about with different colored scarves making all kinds of beautiful new colors. Color mixing is introduced, but goes beyond the basic red + blue =purple. There's also aquamarine, vermillion, magenta, and chartreuse. (So that's what chartreuse is!)

After reading this book, you might feel a bit inspired, so have some paint on hand for some color-mixing experiments of your own.


See what else is being read this week at The Joyful Chaos. Happy Reading!

How to See Down Steven Tyler's Throat

Ever since we took a tour of a local hospital, Gracie has wanted to be a doctor and has been begging to study the human body. We're doing life science this year and our curriculum, R.E.A.L. Science, starts off with a human body unit.

While scouring Netflix for some good educational movies (one of my favorite homeschooling resources, by the way), I came across this little gem. Although it's not geared specifically for children, National Geographic - Incredible Human Machine had my kids spellbound. It uses some amazing technology to actually film inside the human body. We saw the inside of a stomach, lungs, and Steven Tyler's vocal cords! This is a great way to take your human body study to the next level and actually see the organs and systems you've learned about.

A few words of warning: There is definitely some blood seen during a surgery in progress. I had to turn away, but my kids were fine! The movie does talk about the reproductive system as well, which you might want to preview for your own children.

Inspired by Miss Potter

A few weeks ago I read about the movie Miss Potter over at Harmony Art Mom's blog. I assumed it was a brand new movie, since I had not heard of it. As soon as I found out that it was a few years old (how did I miss it?!) off to Netflix I went, popped it into the top of my queue, and watched it a few days later.

Such a delightful movie! And it captured the imagination of my daughters, as well. We dug out our copy of the Beatrix Potter The Complete Tales and reacquainted ourselves with Peter Rabbit, Squirrel Nutkin, and other little creatures.

Gracie was inspired in her own way. Last Thursday (our unschooling/masterly inactivity day) she decided to make her own picture book, with the help of many of Beatrix's characters.

So far she's drawn Jemima Puddleduck and Peter Rabbit (although he looks a bit foxy to me!) Can't wait to see who's next!