Ordovician Sea Life

Once again taking inspiration from Nigel Marven, Leif asked to do a project with orthocones and sea scorpions that he saw during Nigel's travels to the ordovician period. In this episode, he swam with chain mail and a scuba suit and encountered these creatures. Leif painted the background, traced the orthocone pattern, then cut and pasted black coral. I traced, cut, and detailed the animals so he could paste them on. Great fun!

Dinosaur Breeding Grounds

This multimedia dinosaur project features breeding pairs of stegosaurus, triceratops, allosaurus, ultrasaurus, parasaurolophus, quetzalcoatlus, and one macroplatus which was caught and is being eaten by the allosaurus pair. Leif painted the background, traced the animals, and I detailed them so he could glue them on. Notice that each female is guarding an egg clutch. Yet another fun and very successful art project at Leif's suggestion.

Triceratops Pumpkin

Leif and I carved a pumpkin this morning, and he wanted it to be a triceratops. We scooped out the guts of the pumpkin, then Leif traced and cut the triceratops from his dinosaur book. I traced his cutout onto the pumpkin and carved the details of the dinosaur. Then we put a candle in it and took a picture. Although it isn't visible in this picture, there are pumpkin seeds glued on, lining the curve of the triceratops' plated skull.

Cuttlefish Project

Still taking inspiration from the IMAX film, Leif wanted to do a project with cuttlefish. Note the cuttlefish eating the crab, just like in the film. Also a sea turtle eating a jellyfish, a swordfish eating a porcupine fish and a crab dining on a limpet. My favorite is the giant clam; Leif traced, cut and colored it all himself, all I did was outline with black marker. He also colored the highlights in the turtle's shell with various shades of green. He also traced the swordfish and the limpet; I am impressed at how much he is doing on his own without help since we started doing projects together in January!

Chambered nautilus

Leif saw these magnificent creatures in the IMAX film "Under the Sea" and also in his Zoology book. He painted a background while I traced the nautiluses, then he wanted red kelp like in the movie, so I cut some tissue paper which he glued onto the paper once the paint dried. I detailed the natiluses and Leif put them onto the painting. These are really cool animals!

Shark Project

This was a multi-day project; first we went to the library to find a couple of books on sharks, then Leif picked out the ones he wanted. I traced them, then we glued the tracing paper onto cardstock to make patterns. While I was cutting out and detailing the sharks and swordfish, Leif mixed blue and green paint, then painted the deep ocean. He also cut some rocks for the sharks to hide behind. Emma Kate and her Mom also helped us with his project. In this project are great white sharks, reef sharks, hammerhead sharks, basking sharks, leopard sharks, zebra sharks, whale sharks, tiger sharks swordfish, and a mosaic shark I can't name.

Dragon Project

Leif decided he wanted to do a dragon project. This actually took a couple of days. He painted the background and cut trees and rivers, then picked a dragon from google images and decided he wanted rainbow colors. He then chose three colors per dragon to fill in details. Then, he wanted to make fish for the dragons to eat, and lastly, he used tissue paper to create the fire for the dragons' breath.