We've been into art projects lately. You saw the sea life stencils. Then I found some fun turkey art on a homeschool blog (http://minnesotahomeschoolersalliance.wordpress.com/) that we tried out with reasonable success.
Samples and Eliana's projects
William's turkeys
Either my kids aren't quite ready for scratch art or they needed a little more help with technique. They tended to rub the scratched off bits of oil pastel back into their picture while scratching. Teaching them to remove the scratched off bits would have turned out a better finished product, I think. Plus it would have made much less of a mess! But they loved the oil pastels and did some of their best coloring, so that may contribute to my disappointment with the scratching. It's always hard to color over a beautiful picture with black. [Edited to add: After looking at the demo piece again, we should have outlined the picture with Sharpie first. I think coloring the background would've helped, too. Noted for next time.]
The turkey drawing project, on the other hand, was a huge success! I decided I need to do more drawing projects. The step-by-step process turned out the best drawing I have ever seen from my 3-year-old and the 7-year-old was happy with his results as well. The 3-year-old could hardly mess up the watercoloring. I did the sharpie over the top with her input on colors. The 7-year-old completed the entire project on his own and the results were awesome!
My personal project for the week was sorting through our extensive picture book library. I amassed quite a book collection during my years of teaching and the kids have continued to add to it. I hadn't done a complete overhaul of the kids' bookshelves in several years. I realized this when I could not find a Thanksgiving book to save my life. Now the books are in their age-appropriate rooms and I have a better idea of where to start when looking for books on specific themes or by certain authors. Don't ask "how" I sorted them, like my husband did. Just know that I did. Because realistically, the kids' bookshelves are never going to get put back exactly the way they found them. And that is just fine for my abstract-randomness.