Satori Smiles

On this lazy Saturday, Papa David read Papa Piccolo today for Satori. It was her third time hearing it, so she interrupted a few times to gloat about knowing what happens on the next page, and told Daddy his “voices” for Sophia the cat were all wrong (I said them in a soft, high voice). But both David and I gave an Italian accent to the Venetian cat voices.

Papa reading to his little kitten

For art, we took this two page spread and tried to replicate its colors. I took our medium with the most colors, this Crayola crayon set, quickly sketched out the scene, and had Satori pick the matching colors.

Replicating this beautiful page

It ended up being a family art project! We all pitched in and colored the page.

Family Art!

And the finished artwork now hangs up on our inspiration wire for all to see! (Check out the cute decorated miniature clothespins I found at Michaels the other day!)

Our finished artwork

There is *more* art lessons I want to show Satori from this book, but I probably won’t make a part 3 blog post out of it. Part 1 was the color wheel (primary and secondary colors). Part 2 was color matching and examining the artwork in the book (beautiful watercolors). Part 3 is complementary color, highlights in eyes, and windows on houses in the dark (yellow windows upon dark houses).

Another snow storm today, and I’m a little bummed because we wanted to go to our Italian dinner down in Boulder at the Gondolier (appropriately named for this week’s FIAR book). But both David and I were in awe at how beautiful the snow was.

The snow was so light and fluffy, this time we could actually SEE the snowflake detail, and the 6 points

Fluffy snow

Snowflake detail

So we stayed in as a family, took relaxing family nap, and then played some learning games. I quizzed Satori again on her lower case alphabet, this time she knew all the letters, but saved the b, d, u, and n for last, as they’re the same letter, just turned upside-down. (Last time we did this, not too long ago, she had no clue what about 8-10 letters were.)

lower case alphabet

Satori had no problem with this alphabet puzzle.

Alphabet letter puzzle

Papa Piccolo’s pages are filled with color, and there are examples in its pages of complementary color. I was looking forward to the many art lessons this book offers…

Today we made our own color wheel, starting with just 3 colors:

Primary Colors - Red, Yellow, and Green

I explained that these 3 colors are the Primary colors and from these we can make others.

Primary Colors on color wheel

Satori chose 2 colors and combined them to see what they made. We ended up with 3 secondary colors – muddy violet, dark green, and vibrant orange!

Yellow and Blue make Green

It was a great introduction to colors, and although she doesn’t have her colors memorized on what red and orange make (she said purple right after we did this), every time in the future she is presented with this topic, or sees it while she’s painting, it will be an easier concept to understand. Same with almost everything we learn with our Five in a Row lessons. Some things she gets immediately, some take a few times.

Finished Color Wheel

After this, she was antsy to paint her own picture, so I let her at it, using only the three primary colors, and asked her to blend two of them in a few places. Here she is in red, with a purple swimsuit, swimming in the ocean, colorful beach balls on the beach, on a sunny day!

Satori at the Beach