Ocean Week - Day 1

We're going to start this week out with an easy activity! Well, because Mondays are Mondays and for some reason even though I'm a stay-at-home mom, I'm always dragging on Mondays! So let's make an...

Ocean Coloring Book!

I found these excellent printable coloring pages at http://www.educationalcoloringpages.com/. Simply print them out and use construction paper to create a front and back cover, and staple! Or if you have a hole-puncher and some extra yarn lying around, you can punch holes along the left edge and tie together with yarn. I'm also planning to cut fish and sea shapes out of different colors of construction paper, and let my daughter glue them to the front cover. I've never let her use glue before... so I guess we'll see how it all turns out!

Also on the agenda for today:

Movie: Finding Nemo

Lesson: Whales

I printed out these whale facts from Whale-World.

1. Whales are mammals.

This means that whale calves grow inside their mothers until they are born. Besides, they are nursed and taken care by their mothers until they reach certain age.

2. Whales breathe air as we do.

Therefore, they need to reach the surface of the ocean to breathe because they cannot breathe underwater.

3. To breathe, whales have a blowhole in the top of their heads.

When they reach the surface, they take air in through this blowhole.

4. There are two types of whales, Baleen Whales and Toothed Whales.

There are several species of whales out there, but they are classified according to the way they feed in two types, baleen whales and toothed whales.


5. Baleen whales feed from krill and plankton.

Krill are shrimp-like creatures which are very important ocean creatures.


6. Toothed whales feed from fish and small mammals.

Toothed whales eat several kind of fish, like tuna, cod and salmon among others and some small mammals like seals.

7. The Blue whale is the largest animal in the world.

Even more, it is the largest animal that has ever existed, even larger than the largest dinosour ever found. The blue whale is a baleen whale.

8. Some baleen whales sing.

Particularly the blue whales and the humpback whales are well known for singing.

9. Whales can swim as fast as 30 miles per hour.

10. Some Whales can stay underwater for as long as 90 minutes.

This applies mainly for the sperm whale which can stay underwater for as long as 90 minutes, although a typical dive for other species is around 35 minutes.

11. Whales do not sleep as we do.

To rest, whales sleep only half brain so they remember to take air in, otherwise they would drown.

12. The most famous story about whales is Moby Dick.

Moby Dick is a novel released in 1851 by Herman Melville.

A few pictures from today:

I never even realized that our craft tablecloth goes so well with ocean week, how fun! Don't forget to come back tomorrow to see Tuesday's activity!

Tutorial : Turn a photo into a coloring sheet with Photoshop

Keep reading to learn how to convert an ordinary photo into a coloring sheet like this one!

How do all birthdays and holidays ALWAYS sneak up so fast?

I just realized today that my father-in-law's birthday AND father's day are coming up, and to mail it in time I pretty much needed to mail it, well, today. I always like to include something made by my kids, which can be a little difficult with a two year old and 5 month old. I usually make something involving painted handprints or fingerprints, but I wanted to try something a little different this time, especially since I was so short on time. So I thought... maybe I'll just have Millie color something, so I googled "grandpa coloring sheets" and all I could find were a bunch of pictures of balding old men. My father-in-law might find that a little offensive since he still has a full head of hair, he might think I'm trying to call him old! Then I suddenly remembered playing around in photoshop several months ago and discovering all of the fun and exciting filters. After a lot of trial and error, I finally figured out how to turn a photo into a coloring sheet using photoshop. As an afterthought, I'm sure I could have just googled it and found detailed instructions within seconds, but it's too late for that now!

Instructions:

Find or take a digital photograph with a simple background (most of mine were either a bare wall or a solid couch) with very few shadows on your subject's face.

Open the photo in photoshop and resize it to fit whatever size you're wanting to print (my coloring pages are all 8 1/2 x 11)

Go to Filter ->Sketch->Photocopy and adjust the detail and darkness settings to your liking. I kept most of mine both around 7. And don't worry, if you're not liking how it looks, remember we're not finished yet!

Click Layer->New Adjustment Layer->Levels

In the Adjustments tab under Levels, slide the arrows to adjust the different levels. There should be something that looks kind of like a graph, with three arrows underneath. The left arrow can be used to increase the shadow levels, this will give you darker, thicker lines. The right arrow can be used to decrease the highlight levels, which will clean up some of the noise in your picture. Play around with the levels until you're satisfied.

If you're a perfectionist like me, and want to clean up some of the background and a few splotchy areas, then just make sure that your photo layer is selected (not the level adjustments layer) and use a white brush to color over some of that unwanted noise.

Ta-da! You are finished! Hopefully your kids will have lots of fun coloring pictures of themselves, I know my daughter will!