Summer Fun #10 ~ Learning and Painting!

As promised, we did another painting project after our sun catchers were such a success.  I found some cute little wooden painting crafts in the cheap bins at Target.  They were $3 each.  Brody wanted to build and paint a car, and Evan wanted to paint a birdhouse.  It was a simple and fun project.  Of course, Brody was not happy with Mommy's help, but he did get to do more painting on his own this time.

Brody's car project

He's ready to paint.

It came with everything we needed including some glue to glue the wooden pieces together.  

Brody wanted a blue car of course.

Mommy added the number 3 to his race car because he is 3 although some may know that the number 3 race car was driven by the best NASCAR driver of all time, Dale Earnhardt.  

Evan painting his birdhouse carefully.

We had planned for Brody to nap while Evan painted so that he could be free to paint in peace, but little brother woke up before he finished.

He painted the house in bright, beautiful colors.  

I only helped him with some of the trim and the inside of the house.  Daddy sprayed it all over with clear coat to help protect it from the elements and then we hung it outside with some bird seed in it.  The next day, we guessed that a heavy squirrel must have climbed on it because it was lying broken on the ground.  We need Daddy to put it back together with some sturdier glue, and I need to take a picture of his finished product. 

The kids also enjoy doing their learning activities regularly.  Evan is supposed to read and write everyday and also does some math worksheets or a math app on his kindle for practice.  He has read several Magic Treehouse books and writes in a journal either about the books he reads or about something we have done.  I actually found a neat little book in the Target dollar bins that helps with reading comprehension and writing.  It has excerpts from several classic books and then has questions to answer about the writings.  Evan has read excerpts from Tom Sawyer and from Little Women so far.  Brody has been attempting to get better at recognizing his letters as well as his colors and shapes.  I tried out another Pinterest activity for him with some little letter magnets from Target and one of my metal baking sheets.  He did a great job matching the magnet letters to the letters I wrote.

Playing a letter matching game.

He got many letters right away and then he would act silly and put random letters in the wrong spots and laugh.

Concentrating on his task.

Proudly showing off his work.

Evan had finished his latest book so I prepared questions for him to answer about the story.