K is for Kapok: The South American Alphabet Project

Today, Phi Bensa Zoe Academy's junior class resumed its study of the alphabet via South America, to go along with the Spanish studies they are pursuing with Veronica.

Here are the new pages for the South America workbooks:

Junior:



Senior:



Here's our Kapok tree lesson!

1) We read these two books.



2) We painted Kapok trees with no leaves on it, but lots of animals inhabiting them! I drew the tree outlines with pencil and during the painting we concentrated on doing brush-brush-brush instead of scrubbing the brushes around. Both of them did very well filling in their areas, and we had three different watercolor shades of brown to help them get the feel for shading.



3) Cut out lots and lots of big broad leaves for the animals to hide under. Phillip did GREAT with the scissors. Sadie needs me to be her left hand, turning the paper while she operates the scissors.



4) Tape the leaves onto the trees like little flaps, so that you can lift them up and see the hidden animals inside.

What is WRONG with me that I didn't take pictures of the final products! Imagine the trees above with a whole bunch more leaves stuck all over the place.

We concentrated on learning the names of the animals in the book, and on getting that brush technique down, and on precision cutting. A good day.