Historyetc – Nazca and Olmecs

Today was a historyetc day with Nazca and Olmecs. TBH, as we discussed this, i admit to feeling a bit under-resourced for crafts, but after some brainstorming on our discussion group, and google searching we came up with some good ideas. Today they worked brilliantly [mostly!]

You may notice a lack of photos currently on the blog, and that is because i am currently having a hitch putting photos onto flickr due to adobe , and the wordpress upgrade seems to have caused a problem with the flickr plug in. Argh!!

SO, back a bit, Monday was a pretty good getting HE done kind of day, with various of the maths, english, music etc being done by both girls quite happily. SB also had ballet. Tues was a tidying house kind of day, and in the afternoon djembe drumming, much enjoyed by the girls, and then swimming. The manor borns came back to stay at our house. SB had an unfortunate accident on the climbing frame and has a v sore looking arm now. Her swimming teacher also suggested she had got wheezy, so she spent a while googling asthma – argh!

Today BB should have had a hospital appointment, so said the card. unfortunately, the card was wrong. it was monday . rung, apologised and rearranged.

However, i woke up with a migraine so had a bit of a lie in, but when i came downstairs the girls were all watching a programme about Nazca lines, and I found a book so that we read up a bit more about Olmecs and Nazca with each of the bigger girls taking turns to read, and then deependers and le ciel rouge arrived, we had a cup of tea and then got stuck in!! so, crafts:

Olmec papier mache heads

we looked at olmec heads and then using papier mache aimed to recreate. the younger ones didn’t put facial features on, planning to paint in grey, the older ones did. Unfortunately not a scorching day today, so not quite hot enough to dry them enough to then paint, but hopefully ppl will paint at home and we will get some pics.

Olmec Fish

We had a go at replicating this Olmec Fish out of fimo. It worked pretty well with all the kids both young and old doing a really good job. We didn’t quite do what merry intended with it, and I had wondered what the acrylic paints were for, and think her idea def better, but it was still fun and enjoyable, and we did a fair bit of talking about diff fish types!

Mesoamerican Weaving

We made sylvanian families rugs out of wool woven around cardboard. Lovely craft that all the children again concentrated v hard on and did a great job. They looked really effective. Zoe tweaked the weaving on this site and it worked brilliantly. SB hasn’t finished hers having chosen a rather big design… hopefully she will do tomorrow. BB did a fab job concentrating on hers and is v proud of it

Cornmeal cooking

K made cornbread and mini corn tortillas with many of the children, all without any other flour so gluten free, and also baked some sweet potatoes to go with them. V Yummy I do like the addition of food to historyetc

Nazca lines in sand

M organised sand pictures, with the children looking at a variety of nazca lines and then drawing their own pattern, following that in glue and then sprinkling sand on. SB didn’t get round to doing this one, but BB did. SHe did a beach scene rather than a mazca line, but C’s spider recreation was utterly fab.

Nazca lines with string in the garden

This was rather brilliant, but could have done with brighter string to show up against the grass. various children took a spider pic and then walked with the string to ‘trace’ the lines out on the grass. Have taken a pic from an upstairs window tho [when can download and upload!]

pegdolls

This also worked well [trying not to overuse the word fab, tho it was!] Jax had looked up the materials, and they often had embroidered birds, 2 headed snakes or anthropomorphic characters on there. SO everyone had a go at embroidering something. BB embroidered a 2 headed snake, and SB an anthropomorphic character of a rabbit-man. They also worked well.

SO in the end, i think we did a rather good job of nazca crafts and olmec crafts . The children also had lots of opportunity to bounce on the trampoline, play together and giggle lots, and as well as the usual snack options, there was also popcorn . grad ppl left, I did some sewing for kentwell costumes for a friend [and she left them behind so i finished off all the sewing!] and showed off the veg patch . Ended with a lovely soup for dinner,  SB had judo, the kids are still awake, i am going to shower, take some more migraine tabs and go to bed. Night all