Watercolor Butterfly Tutorial

You may have noticed on the VBS post below the fun bug displays made my daughters and myself. Here are the project directions. This could be a fun science or art project to add to your homeschool lessons or even a summer project. 

Supplies: 

• Pictures of Butterflies out of books or magazines.
• Tracing Paper or Light Tracer or a bright window and tape. 
• Watercolor paper
• Pencil
• Good Quality watercolors
• Paint Brushes
• Jar of Clean Water
• Napkin (for cleaning and drying paint brush)
• Scissors

        

Step 1: First lightly trace pictures of butterflies out of books or magazines. You can do this using a light tracer. I have one and we use it all the time for projects. You can also tape your picture and your blank paper to a sunny window. It is harder to do this because of the angle, but doable. The third option is to just place tracing paper over your picture and copy. Then rub this image onto another paper by turning it over onto your clean paper and rubbing the back.

Step 2: Using your photos as a guide, begin painting your butterflies. Take your time and really examine the colors. Don't add to much water if you want brighter colors.

Step 3: When you are finished you can attach bobby pins to make hair pins, glue them to a board and frame them or come up with something else creative to do with them. How about a 3D birthday card? Link back with your completed butterflies!

Homeschooling for Beginners

Since I have been homeschooling since 1998, I often get asked by new homeschoolers what curricula that I recommend. There are so many good ones out there, but I'll give you a list of the basics that are my #1 choices.

Math: Christian Light Math is my top pick after years of trying to find a program that explained concepts well, had enough review, didn't require tons of additional purchases, was inexpensive, academically challenging and worked for all my kids. This program starts at 1st grade and goes through high school. Be sure to use the Sunrise editions. Most of the program has been updated, but the high school level books are currently in revision.

Grammar: Rod and Staff Grammar is easy to use, gets the job done, reusable, and prepares your child for college level work. It includes grammar & writing exercises. We tried other programs but they were often confusing, lacking in depth or too cutesie. I recommend this completely. Neither of these programs are flashy, but they are the best in my opinion. We save the flashy for other subjects. This program starts at 2nd grade (we skip this one) but you don't really need to start it until 3rd.

Handwriting: Pentime - This gem of a program is the best kept secret out there. The workbooks are inexpensive (around $5) but high quality paper and print. The content is excellent. I believe once the child gets to the 3rd book, every lesson has a copywork selection based on the books theme. My favorite themes were the bird book and the States book. Two books are available for 1st grade (use one in K?). After that it is one book per grade, no teachers manual. It goes up to grade 8.

History: Heart of Dakota - Starting in about 3rd grade, I highly recommend Heart of Dakota Preparing Hearts for His Glory. I am not a fan of the programs before this one, but I am a fan of all the ones that follow. Heart of Dakota includes all subjects but you can use any of the above easily in place of the scheduled ones. We have used nearly all of this company's programs.

Science: R.E.A.L. Science Odyssey If your not using Heart of Dakota, you may want to check out the fun science programs offered by Pandia Press. We used the Earth and Space one along with Apologia's Astronomy book which was a great combination. The experiments are easy, fun and educational. My kids loved it when we had science each week.  To make things easier, I purchased a kit from Home Training Tools with most of the supplies needed to complete the experiments.

This list is not exhaustive and I post more favorite programs in upcoming posts. Happy curricula shopping!