Art Camp still has a few spots for Juniors this summer

Quoting WB MUD Manager Matt: "You blew up skittles!" We made a fountain of suds and fizzing with vinegar, baking soda, and powder paints, placed inside out film canisters! 2 spots still open for this year's sciency art camp Aug 2-4. Call 512-251-9814 to enroll. Age 8-12

Registration open for remaining summer Art Mini-Camps

Art Mini-camp Give your child a week of intense creativity and the freedom to do art “their way”.

Juniors:  12-3:30 Tue/Wed/Thurs  Age 7 1/2 - 12 

July 12-14  Drawing & painting - We are going to draw cartoon dogs, a cat, paint a guitar, learn to create clouds and waterfalls,  and a martian or winged fairies.  They will do a Georgia O’Keefe landscape and glass painting. We’ll pull out charcoals, pastels, great paints and have fun with them. FULL
Photos of our art guitars

August 2-4  Lets imagine it/ lets make it (Our version WACKY science) we will explore our creativity and make things that move and interact like the rolling thunder explosion and structures that bend, kaleidoscopes, spinning things, pouring things. 2 spots

August 9-11 Design it and make it--bags and mosaics and jewelry and more. We’ll create our own designs and decorate the results 

Beginners: 9-11:30 Tue/Wed/Thurs Age 4 1/2 - 7

July 19-21  Artistic fun with Foods-FULL  would it be more fun to eat a salad if it were a train or a skeleton? we will eat some of our art at the end of each day—fruit pizza, train salad, make a recipe book, decorated plates for lunch.  

August 2-4  Wild n Waacky Arty science We will make our own fossils, investigate colorful chemical interactions, create crystals, make our own clays, and explore color. 2 spots

Join us for the art mini-camp program held in Wells  Branch and sponsored by the  Wells Branch MUD.   We pack lots of activities into each week of three 1/2 day sessions: painting,  drawing, 3-D art,  fabric painting, mosaics, clay sculpture, murals, art discussions, and stories. 

$45 per week per child. All materials included. 

Each week has its own theme. Enroll for one or several. Registration in person or by phone at the WB MUD  at 512-251-9814 or visit them at 3000 Shoreline Dr. http://www.wellsbranchmud.com/parks-a-recreation/youth-programs    Online registration is open with active net.

We are at the WB Rec center,  3000 Shoreline dr so it is easy to coordinate with swim team and lessons.

Camp is taught by Dianne Koehler

 Join us for the art mini-camp program held in Wells  Branch and sponsored by the  Wells Branch MUD.   We pack lots of activities into each week of three 1/2 day sessions: painting,  drawing, 3-D art,  fabric painting, mosaics, clay sculpture, murals, art discussions, and stories. 

$45 per week per child. All materials included. 

Each week has its own theme. Enroll for one or several. Registration in person or by phone at the WB MUD  at 512-251-9814 or visit them at 3000 Shoreline Dr. http://www.wellsbranchmud.com/parks-a-recreation/youth-programs    Online registration is open with active net.

We are at the WB Rec center so it is easy to coordinate with swim team and lessons.

Camp is taught by Dianne Koehler

Wild & Wacky Science art for Juniors WOW

We took a new direction and did some experiments, some art process, added an architectural project and did a rolling waterfall of color as our exploding paint. We started with a crystal painting project using epsom salt in super solution. Once everyone understood that heaving painting was required it really worked well. RECIPE [ 1 cup very HOT water, 1 cup+ epsom salts, food color or tempera paints] 

We did a project experimenting with how to use oil pastels and talked about why they reactions occurred then created a small picture. we used baby oil as our medium as it is more kid friendly than mineral oil or some other solvents. 
Clay is always popular at camp and we used plain polymer clay to make medians then imprinted them using small pinecones, shells and other natural items. The camper made them into necklaces, mobile hangers and more by painting them after we baked them  and stringing them onto cording. 
We tried out the chemical reaction between permanent markers and alcohol on a CD and although the kids were pretty pleased, I felt it should have worked better. The marker ink does spread and is fun to watch the changes. 
We also got to use stretchy clay to make critters. It was a bit older and does not really work well to stretch and pose. the critters they made pleased them though. It is much smellier than regular polymer clay. 

Wednesday we looked at structural items made from crafts sticks and talked about and looked at ones like the Eiffel tower. The kids then created some pretty impressive projects using the sticks and some other small wood pieces. Some spent most of the day working on it, others finished early and went on to complete other projects or lend a hand on one of the projects still under construction. 

We spent some of the last day creating airplanes from clothes pins, crafts sticks and helicopters from folded construction paper helicopters so we could fly them. flying helicopter http://babbledabbledo.com/diy-toy-paper-helicopter/  

The junior councellors went all out to get a project working to explode the paint. We tried film canisters of two kinds with their own tops and with corks to no avail. Then they lined up all the canisters and had the kids put in baking soda and tempera powder and slowly went down the line pouring vinegar into all of them. It is between a colored rolling waterfall and a skittles fountain. skittles fountain The kids love the reaction between vinegar and baking soda but without a larger bottle to blow due to the gas nothing blows up. 

Our last 2 projects were to use the styrofoam eggs and balls with ping pong balls and create an alien and make bouncing balls from borax and glue. Not sure which one was more fun but getting the large amount of food dye off the kids requires baby oil, dishwashing detergent and lots  of scrubbing plus some color theory on complimentary colors and why that helped get the color off more quickly, i.e. red on green. 

We have an album on Facebook with many more pictures for you to view. 

Wild and Wacky science art for beginners better than ever

We really stretched out this time to include new and different things for the kids and let them do many experiments with artistic involvement. You have to think about art being more than drawing and painting as we usually do. We included all kinds of home made potions and still managed to create quite a number of projects to send home.
The beginners got to do food color and celery changing color and loved it. We mixed homemade salt clay then made creations from them. The kids loved adding in the color and kneading the dough until it was ready to use. They were less sure about sharing their clay even to get a second color.
 
 RECIPE [ 1cup flour, 1/2 cup salt, 1/2 cup water, 1 tsp oil, a little tempera powder]  

We drew hot air balloons and colored them by layering on tissue paper and spraying it with rubbing  alcohol. Turns out nice too. 


I brought leaves from my Turks cap to paint on the veined side and do color stamping with. Once the kids got enough paint on it really took off as they could stamp repeatedly with one leaf. The erupting paint was much more fun to make as everyone got to stir some of it up and add colors to it. It only foams for a few seconds but those were good seconds. RECIPE [ 1/2 cup flour, 1/2 cup baking soda, 1/2 cup or so water, food coloring]  


Our crystal painting got mixed without their help as it involved very hot water. RECIPE [1 cup HOT water, 1 cup+ epsom salts, food color or tempera paints] 
We tried out hand at making our own crayon scratch-outs and did not get them dry before the end of camp but the kid learned how to do it: RECIPE [heavily applied crayon on paper, tempera paint with dish soap applied heavily and let dry] 

we also did a magic milk experiment but thinned it a bit too much so we could not take prints RECIPE [milk, drops of food color, toothpick with dish soap on it] and lastly we made kaleidoscopes and straw airplanes that flew very well. Wish I'd cut the helicopters for the younger kids that we did in the older kids' camp. 

Planning for wild and wacky art camp gets complicated

I always want something new and different to excite and entice but keep getting asked "what about the volcano? are we doing a milk thing?" Guess there is a desire to do the familiar and fun too. We are going to try some new stuff this year like building a structure with crafts sticks to see how well we engineer and some old stuff like making a kaleidoscope, using materials in a new way painting with crystals in solution, and experimenting with the movement of color through materials. The younger set gets to explode paint and make a new kind of clay and everyone gets a try at luminescent paints. Just my thoughts.

2 science camps keep everyone very busy and excited

fluid migration and color mixing

What explain we had this week. Both groups made all kinds of crystals, and delved in earth science, space science, and using household items to create a lot of fun. The kids were amazed that we were using table salt, Epsom salts, baking soda and vinegar, shaving cream, cornstarch, and water for so many of of their creations. I have links to many of the recipes I use this week and I will post them below. I will also add a link to all of the pictures that we took at camp in addition to some small selection here.

borax crystals

 http://chemistry.about.com/od/crystalsforbeginners/tp/Easy-Crystal-Growing-Recipes.htm --borax crystals on chenille stems

epson salt crystals

 http://www.hometrainingtools.com/quick-crystal-project/a/1687/--epsom salt crystals

http://candy.about.com/od/hardcandyrecipes/r/rock_candy.htm--rock candy-- thin wood sticks in test tubes

making goop or oobleck

snowball fight outside
http://www.playcreateexplore.com/2012/08/summer-snowball-fight-with-fluffy-stuff.html
goop--http://www.exploratorium.edu/science_explorer/ooze.html

clay landform and sand

clay #3 http://chemistry.about.com/od/chemistryactivities/a/modeling_clay_recipes.htm

erupting volcano

solution to launch corks--soda bottle 12oz works well, 4-6 oz vinegar, 1Tbs baking soda wrapped in tissue, cork, plastic wrap

erupting volcano--soda bottle 12oz works well, 4-6 oz vinegar, 1Tbs baking soda, 2-3 drops Dawn detergent, food colors
colored water experiment (jr)  http://wemadethat.blogspot.com/2013/03/water-transfer-experiment.html

Paper casting using white envelopes

snowball fight

space ship from tomato container

Pictures from camps:

imploding a can 

Day 1   Day 2
Day 3 jr
Day 3

Wild Wacky science n art for Juniors

Talk about a wild and crazy idea-bring the sciencey camp to the younger kids. It worked except many 5 year-olds do no know what a robot is or appreciate the speed that pennies change color but they certainly had fun, learned some things and changed my perspective on what kids this age are intrigued by. It also helped to have a few of the 6-8 yr-old campers too.






Some of the projects were ones in motion--spinning tops and jumping bits - magnetic attractions between chenille stems and magnets or magnets and other magnets, milk and coloring, and water action on filter paper. You can click on any of the following pictures to view the video clips of the activity. 

Magnets

Magnet dance

working with color and colloids   

Fun with tops

Wild & Wacky Science art mini-camp volcanos and more

 We started the week making crystals and had fun mixing up each concoction. We made crystals from Epsom salt which makes needles in the fridge, salt that blooms on a sponge, borax over chenille stems, and geodes from alum. Most take days to make although the Epsom salt ones show growth within 24 hours--lots of fun to look at.

We spent part of the afternoon crafting a space station or future place from plastic recyclables. I filled a bin with item and the campers got to choose items and configure a project working in groups.  They used CDs, plastic tubs, aluminum pans, caps, and lots more that I collected and a lot of hot glue. Part of the project teaches creativity and group work, part is safety in using hot glue guns,  pliers and scissors, and part of it is encouraging them to describe the project and tell the story behind their work. Someday we'll get that on film too. We are so lucky to have 2-3 volunteers to help the kids out doing the projects.

Although it is not strictly natural science the mechanics of catapults seemed a natural fit and as in the first week of science camp creation caused a lot of concern about their fingers but once the first ball was launched on one seemed concerned about anything except how far their ball would go and who they could hit with it. Check out the video: catapults1 and catapults 2

Paper making is messy but is something not very many kids have done. I started with cardboard egg cartons and ground them in the blender before class to create the pulp. We talked about use of deckles (the frame for straining the paper) and the process to press the water out and turn out a page of paper with bits of paper or shred in the surface. We did not dye the paper this time although we have in the past. 

 Fossils are interesting and investigating ways to examine them teaches the kids something about archaeological methods too. I have been keeping a fossil box for a couple of years and collecting things that make good impressions to look at; small pinecones, shells, bones, twigs, and odd shaped other items are great to press into clay or in this case damp sand to make the beginnings of the project. Once the pressings are complete we mixed plaster to make castings of them. The kids got to learn about the right consistency to pour plaster.

It takes a day or so to set up well enough to unearth the fossils from the sand. We used large tubs to support the castings and catch the sand. They brushed off sand with stiff brushes until they could see their cast fossil copy then let it dry a bit more and rebrushed. Once the sand was off the results were pretty amazing--the kids were picking out things on the surface that they recognized from the pressing part and were pretty impressed.

We began and ended our week with volcanoes. We watched films of volcanoes erupting and discussed some of the volcanoes and how big they get, how far the magma is thrown into the air and other topics. We looked at Kilauea in Hawaii and Mt. St. Helens in various states of eruption. We talked about Pompeii but I wasn't able to find a short video for them on that.
Constructing a volcano from a juice bottle is easy using rigid wrap and newspaper. Everyone shaped one and set it out to dry. On Thursday they
just looked too white to this group so everyone painted theirs before the eruption. (click on picture to view)   From art camp 2012
The results were satisfying but more to come on that as we invite the younger kids to the eruption.                                                 

Incredible insects at art mini-camp

 The group began the week creating books to capture some of the projects for the week. I pulled art work from Pixar's Antz and Bugz for them to use as examples. They then colored their drawings with colored pencils. We worked on shading some of the edges.




Most of the group saw the egg critters the younger kids made earlier in the day and had to create one. It was good learning on use of glue guns and design.




 For the next project we used milk cartons and a variety of woody items, pine cones and glue to create a bug habitat. This group did not want bugs to inhabit these and were generally not into insects--hard crowd on this but the trip to look for bugs turned into more of a science project as they discovered their magnifying glasses could concentrate light and ignite leaves and wood fuzz. 

Edible projects are fun to do and usually intrigue most of the kids. I secured kits from the Smithsonian to make gummy bugs. They had to measure and mix and use pipettes to fill the forms. A day's wait and removing the gummy bugs was a bit hard but we got it done. Apparently they didn't taste too bad as they were all gone.

 We worked with clay a lot over the last 2 days and a couple of kinds of clay and processes. The cornstarch clay was a bust for sculpting but we made it thinner and layered it onto cards to do a puffy project. Into the microwave for 20-30 seconds and they were amazed to have puffed bugs to paint. The flour/salt clay made up well and each of the campers has a tray full of creations--penguins, computers, sofas, pizza--no insects but great work with the palette knives and shaping. So much so that we made a 2nd batch to work with in class.

Kat thought they would like to draw the Tracker Jacker from Hunger Games and the Mockingjay so led them in the drawing project. The drawings are really good and the coloring and shading are coming along.








We discussed scarab beetles and their place in Egyptian culture then used Fimo clay to create one for our last project. Our favorite example was the brightly colored beetle with metallic blue, green and gold. some painted their this way but most went for bits of gold. They learned how to soften and manipulate this clay and make legs and eyes stick.