This day In History - Pablo Picasso

I thought it would be interesting to teach my children about history by finding out what happened this day in history and thinking of some activities we can do to relate to what we find.

Our first instalment takes us to 1901.  On the 24th June Pablo Picasso had his first exhibition in Paris at the age of 19.

Self Portrait 1901

 

 The Blue Period 1901 - 1904

As the blue period started in 1901 I thought it was apt to concentrate on this era of Picasso's life. I explained to my children that Picasso was a famous painter from Spain who spent most of his grown up life in France. I let my children find these places on the globe.

Picasso was born in Spain

Picasso spent most of his life in France

 We searched Google images for paintings and watched a youtube video showing paintings from this period and explained to them that Picasso was very sad because his friend Carlos Casagemas died. I explained to them that Picasso used mainly blue and green to paint and we talked about the expressions on the peoples faces and how it made them feel.

" Mammy it makes me feel sad, like when I get hurt. That makes me sad " - Macey age 4  

 Blue Collage

We dug around in our arts and crafts box to find blue materials to make our very own blue artwork.
My daughter drew a picture of Picasso and used blue and green crayons, paint, glitter, tissue and magazine cuttings. My son is too young to understand but he had lots of fun making a blue collage :)

Macey - age 4

Cardboard Dalek

I try to teach my children about helping the environment and recycling on a daily basis. My children help sort out what things we can reuse or throw into the recycle bin.

On this particular occasion we had just bought bedroom furniture which was packed in lots of cardboard. After pondering for a few moments on what we could possibly do with it I decided it would be pretty awesome to make a cardboard Dalek.

Recycle! Recycle!

Usbournes very first reading

As a child reading was a passion from a very early age. My childhood was consumed by books and the dream of becoming an author. Although this dream did not go beyond the shed in the garden, where I sat with my little type writer typing stories about giant blob monsters and magical worlds I still have a special place for books.
My love for books is shared with my 2 year old son and my 4 year old daughter. My daughter loves listening to Roald Dahl, and Enid Blytons Faraway Tree stories. There is nothing I like more then to enlighten their imagination with the books I loved as a child

Bearing this in mind I believe the best gift you can give your children is the ability to read and after a bit of research I found the perfect set of books to help with early reading: Usbournes very first reading.
They are a set of fifteen books designed to introduce younger children to read together with a parent.  Parents and children take turns to read from the page (the text clearly marked for who should be reading) and as the books progress in the series the adults read less and less and the child more and more. Here is a video of Peter Usbourne the company founder introducing the range and explaining how they work.

Dream English

My sister quite often jokes around with me saying I am like a walking children's TV presenter. I would like to defend myself and say I'm not but I guess if anyone observed our morning ritual of filling in our magnetic calender, looking at flashcards, and singing songs then my goofy educational techniques may be frowned upon in the same manner.

Thanks to Dream English kids a youtube channel  I found that is dedicated to teaching children through music, we have found some great songs to fit into our morning ritual. My children's favourite is a song called The Sun Comes Up which also has really cute actions to go along with it .