Catching up with lessons, excursions & other minutia

After we learned about the Ojibwe and their homes and land it was time for day of the dead. We did the typical day of the dead activities. We made pan de meurto. I liked the recipe we used this year better than any I had ever tried. It was easier than the others, and when you added the glaze it smelled & tasted like fresh doughnuts. I think I will make it again soon, but call it something else. We decorated with simple fold & cut papel picado. I still have not taken them down. I think I will make some red & green ones for Christmas. I thought it would be a good time to start learning spanish. We already knew some basic phrases, colors, numbers, and things like that, we need to learn more so that we can speak it conversationally. We are learning it through songs & movement. We take the words & phrases from the songs & make large cards with the words on them and hang them up. We try to use the new words in everyday life.   I decided since it was day of the dead that we would learn about the mud houses of the Aztecs. Day of the dead has it’s roots in Aztec culture. The Aztec commoners lived in simple one room homes make of pole frames covered in mud or mud bricks. They usually had a thatched roof.   The Aztecs used cocoa beans as money we discussed this very briefly, as we will be going back to it deeper when we do a measurement block on money. Th Mexicolore  website has a really wonderful page about cocoa as money. 3 cocoa beans would have been worth one avocado. I told my daughter the story of how the little blue frog brought cocoa to the people. We made a hot chocolate whisk called a “molinillo” from a piece of dowel & copper wire. All you do to make one is coil about 4 feet of wire around a dowel that is smaller than the one you are using for the handle. This will make your wire look like a spring. You need at least 3 of them. Then you just wrap the coils around the dowel/handle and wire on tightly. 

To make hot chocolate in the traditional way you rotate the molinillo between your two hands placed palm-sides together.  The twisting motion frothes the chocolate. We made hot chocolate in this way while singing a  traditional chant..

Spanish	English
Bate, bate, chocolate,	Stir, stir, chocolate,
Tu nariz de cacahuate	Your nose is a peanut.
Uno, dos, tres, CHO!	One, two, three, CHO!
Uno, dos, tres, CO!	One, two, three, CO!
Uno, dos, tres, LA!	One, two, three, LA!
Uno, dos, tres, TE!	One, two, three, TE!
Chocolate, chocolate!	Chocolate, chocolate!
Bate, bate, chocolate!	Stir, stir, the chocolate!
Bate, bate, bate, bate,	Stir, stir, stir, stir,
Bate, bate, CHOCOLATE!	Stir, stir, CHOCOLATE!

You can hear this chant & others for free at the Texas State Library Archives website.

“Chocolate”  is about 1/3 down the page. This is a great resource for anyone wanting to add spanish to your curriculum or circle time.

We made some easy ojo de dios, or God’s eyes. The Caron website has a nice tutorial if you would like to see how to make them.

My daughter kept asking me “where” these different people we are learning about live. This continued to be an issue. She could not reconcile what their  natural environment & climate was with where they were located. To me this was a huge issue that needed to be addressed.  I decided we needed a map. I printed out a map of North America, or “Turtle Island”  as many indigenous people called it. It was a completely blank map that we could color & fill in as we like. When we study a group of people and their homes we draw their house on the map where they live/d. You can print out a map in just about any size up to 7ft (I think). The one here is 3ft x 4ft. It prints out on regular printer paper & you just tape or glue it together.

The next people we studied were the Cherokee. We did not do any traditional school work with this group. Instead we went to where they lived (and still live & thrive). We went to the north Georgia Mountains. I love it there. We went to many little areas and saw the amazing sites. We went to Tallulah Gorge. This gorge is HUGE. I think they said 950ft. We were lucky enough to be there when they let the water loose. There was some really nice white water, and the kayakers were taking full advantage of it.  They have a small, but very nice museum, and info center. They had a great deal of information on the Cherokee inside, as well as some myths & legends you could read next to pictures & displays.  Outside they had a wonderful blacksmith by the name of David Little doing demonstrations for visitors.  David is a man of many talents. He does black smith demos, makes unbelievable lighting fixtures, rehabilitates birds of prey and works at the Hike Inn at Amicalola Falls, an Inn you have to hike 5 miles on foot to get to. While driving around we discovered a beautiful old water powered mill right outside of Helen, Ga on the Chattahoochee River call the Nora Mill Garnary Grist Mill. It has been there since 1876. They grind all kinds of grain with very old french burr stones that are powered by the river you see in the pic below. This was a perfect thing for a 3rd grader to see as it ties into so many of our lessons.

 While we were up there we went to a great little music festival called Hemlockfest. It is a 3 day camp out festival  put on every year to raise money to help save the hemlock trees which are being utterly devastated by a beetle. The proceeds go to university labs trying to save the Hemlocks. It was a great little festival. This was the view as we walked down the drive toward the festival.

Once we were in the festival it was alive with music & good cheer. The weather could not have been better. This festival is wonderful. They even had canoes you could take out onto the lake for free.  They had a tepee set up at the far end of the lake that you could go inside of.  That’s my husband playing violin on a rock by the lake.The sign read “western plains tepee lodge..come in, sit down, tell stories.” 

They let you bring your dog.  I have been to many music festivals, and this is the only one that is dog friendly. We heard Col. Bruce Hampton, and the Quark Alliance play on Saturday night, and all I can say is wow!! Great show…..I really loved this little festival. I will definitely be back next year.

Shortly after we came home we went on a field trip to Cypress Gardens in Moncks Corner, SC. This was a nice field trip. We all went out into the black water swamp on boats. They have a buttefly pavillion, and aquarium too. I managed to capture this wierd little butterfly with my camera.

Here’s another of the same species in larva form….

That is what we have been up to the past few weeks. We are still working on our shelters block. Right now we are learning about tepees of the plains.

Life goes on….and so will this little blog

After a great deal of consideration, and reading the kind, and supportive comments some folks have left, I have decided that I will continue to post about our homeschool journey. I had no idea so many of you were getting something out of our blog. Most of my adult life I have only wanted to help, whether it be animals, friends, the earth, or children… and if my posting about things that we do can be useful and helpful, then I will continue. I may go a week without posting, maybe even 2 weeks, but I will continue.  At the time when I had decided to end this blog I was feeling very run down….I felt like there was just no point in it. I suppose I am a perfectionist who tends to be melancholic, and that makes me have a very all or nothing attitude. It is not healthy, or constructive, and is something I definitely have to work on. I also had some cyber swiping with a nameless website swiping content, and that was very upsetting. I over re-acted to the situation when I let that incident defeat me. So, I will be posting. I hope many of you will continue to read. I do feel a little silly about the last post. While I was considering what I should do in regards to this blog a quote by James Keller continued to come up ”A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle”. There are so many people who served as a source of light for me, who have shared their knowledge, skill, and kindness. If I can use this blog as a way to return even a fraction of what I have received then it is worth the effort.

Love & light to all of you, Jenn

Last post

This will be the last post I write on this blog. It as been wonderful reading comments & well wishes from readers. I am just having a difficult time maintaining it, and keeping up with my responsibilities as a mother, and wife. I will leave the content that is here up so that it is still available for anyone who needs it.

Love & light, Jenn

Martinmas links & info: Lanterns, poems, songs, & stories

Martinmas/Lantern Walk

St. Martin of Tours was born in 316 and died on November 11, 397. He is known as a deeply religious man who shared his cloak with a beggar and represents the attitude of brotherliness. According to old customs at this time, as the days become shorter and the stars appear earlier, children would walk with lanterns through the streets singing. As the world grows darker, the inner light of man wants to shine forth – from Shepherd Valley Waldorf School

Golden light is turning grey,
Mists begin to rule the day.
Bare the trees, their branches lift;
Clouds of dead leaves earthward drift.

Through the field the farmer goes,
Seeds of ripened corn he sows’
Trusts the earth will hold it warm,
Shelter it from cold and harm.

For he knows that warmth and light
Live there, hidden from our sight;
And beneath a sheltering wing,
Deep below, new life will spring!

Deep below, deep below, new life will spring!

Martinmas stories

Martin & the Poor Man- http://herbnites.tripod.com/waldorfinspiredschool/id15.html

A Golden Lantern- http://www.waldorflibrary.org/Journal_Articles/GW3808.pdf

This is the story I will use for a mixed age group. I will tell my daughter the story of Saint Martin while we make our lanterns.

The Lantern

There was once a boy called George who had been outside in the garden all through the Summer running after the butterflies, jumping like a grasshopper, singing like a bird, and trying to catch the sunlight. One day when he was lying on his back in the meadow gazing up into the sun-filled sky, he said, “Dear Brother Sun, soon the Autumn winds will blow and wail, and Jack Frost will come and make us all freeze, and the nights will be long and cold.”  Brother Sun pushed the clouds aside and said, “Yes, it will be dark and cold. In the deep midwinter, warmth and light live deep within, hidden from sight. In the time of dark and cold, you will tend the Light Within.” “But,” said George, “How will I tend this Light when it’s dark everywhere around me?”“I will give you a spark of my last Autumn rays once you have made a little house for it, for this spark must be guarded well. It will light the way for you to tend the Light Within throughout the time of dark and cold.” And then Brother Sun once hid again behind a cloud. George went home and wondered how best he could make a little house for the spark of the sun. He took a thick piece of paper and painted a beautiful blue and yellow watercolor upon it. When it was dry, he cut windows into his painting. Then he placed colored tissue paper on the back of his watercolor – and – he formed it into a lantern. He took a candle and put it into the middle of his lantern. And, as it was growing dark, he went outside with it. George held the lantern up above him and said, “Brother Sun, I have made a little home for one of your golden sparks. Please may I have one? I will guard it well.” Then Brother Sun looked out from behind a cloud and said, “You have made a beautiful home. I shall give you one of my golden sparks.” And suddenly, George saw how the windows of his lantern were lit up, and as he looked into the lantern, he saw a spark happily dancing on top of the candle. Oh, how happy the light was in his lovely lantern! It shone and shone so brightly. “Thank you, Brother Sun,” George called out, “Thank you.” And he took his lantern and carried it carefully home singing:

 The sunlight fast is dwindling,

My little lamp needs kindling.

Its beam shines far in darkest night,

Dear Lantern, guard me with your light
~ from Autumn, Wynstones Press, originally by M Meyerkort and revised by L Sutter.

Martinmas lanterns

Paper mache globe lanterns http://maymomvt.blogspot.com/2007/11/making-lanterns-for-martinmas.html

turnip lanterns- http://resurrectionfern.typepad.com/resurrection_fern/2008/10/how-to-make-a-lantern-out-of-a-rhutabaga-or-turnip-a-seasonal-tutorial.html

water color lanterns- http://naturenest.wordpress.com/2009/11/05/watercolor-paper-lantern-tutorial/

glass jar lanterns-  http://ourhomeschooljourney.co.za/wordpress/142/how-to-make-a-lantern-for-waldorf-festivals-or-waldorf-inspired-gifts/

folded construction paper lantern (only for older childern) http://www.pacon.com/projects/PaperLanterns.htm

For 3 songs you can hear go to http://astorytellingofcrows.blogspot.com/

Aricles about Martinmas

http://chicmommyusa.com/martinmas-lantern-walk/

http://www.waldorfwithoutwalls.com/newsletter/39 -halloween & Martinmas

Craft worry dolls to help Amnesty International fight for womens rights

 While searching the web for a worry doll tutorial I came across Amnesty International’s website. I had never heard of CEDAW, nor did I know the US was one of the only countries not to have yet ratified CEDAW. Instead of making worry dolls for ourselves we will make them, and send them to Amnesty International before december 10th, and take part in helping other women, and mothers around the world who are not as lucky as we are. Below is excerpted from Amnesty Internationals website. Please go there for more details,  how to make the worry dolls, and to learn more about CEDAW.

Amnesty International USA activists around the country are crafting worry dolls to send a symbolic message to the Senate. We’re urging them to help protect women’s human rights by ratifying the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).

Throughout the world, discrimination against women and girls is pervasive, and its impact is devastating. Of the world’s 1.3 billion poorest people, 70 percent are female. Violence against women is prevalent: one in three women worldwide will experience assault, rape or other abuse during her lifetime. Two-thirds of the world’s 771 million illiterate adults are women. Due to lack of adequate health care, more than 530,000 women die each year from pregnancy-related complications – one every minute.

CEDAW establishes international protections against these abuses: it offers women redress against violence, guarantees equal access to education, and commits nations to fighting maternal mortality. Yes the United States remains one of the only countries that has not ratified CEDAW.

One woman lost to pregnancy-related complications every minute means more than 10,000 maternal deaths every week — and those statistics are cause for urgent concern and attention. In Mayan tradition (and in some other indigenous communities around the world) one way to deal with worry is to make a “worry doll” — a simple doll made with a few popsicle sticks or a clothes-pin and some yarn or thread.

AIUSA members around the country are crafting these worry dolls. Join us in crafting 10,000 worry dolls to symbolize the 10,000 mothers we lose every week! Next year, we’ll deliver them to the Senate to push them to finally ratify CEDAW and protect women’s human rights.

Amnesty International USA activists around the country are crafting worry dolls to send a symbolic message to the Senate. We’re urging them to help protect women’s human rights by ratifying the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).

Throughout the world, discrimination against women and girls is pervasive, and its impact is devastating. Of the world’s 1.3 billion poorest people, 70 percent are female. Violence against women is prevalent: one in three women worldwide will experience assault, rape or other abuse during her lifetime. Two-thirds of the world’s 771 million illiterate adults are women. Due to lack of adequate health care, more than 530,000 women die each year from pregnancy-related complications – one every minute.

CEDAW establishes international protections against these abuses: it offers women redress against violence, guarantees equal access to education, and commits nations to fighting maternal mortality. Yes the United States remains one of the only countries that has not ratified CEDAW.

One woman lost to pregnancy-related complications every minute means more than 10,000 maternal deaths every week — and those statistics are cause for urgent concern and attention. In Mayan tradition (and in some other indigenous communities around the world) one way to deal with worry is to make a “worry doll” — a simple doll made with a few popsicle sticks or a clothes-pin and some yarn or thread.

AIUSA members around the country are crafting these worry dolls. Join us in crafting 10,000 worry dolls to symbolize the 10,000 mothers we lose every week! Next year, we’ll deliver them to the Senate to push them to finally ratify CEDAW and protect women’s human rights.

This weeks lessons: the Ojibwe

This weeks lessons focused on the Ojibwe people of the great lakes region. I could have easily taken a month or two on them. I began with the story of Turtle Island, modern day north america. I told this story http://www.gct3.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/creation_story.pdf . It was a wonderful transition story to use to create a bridge from old testament legends  into our native american block. The Ojibwe creation story of Turtle Island is similar to the Noah story in that the earth is flooded by the creator because people had become wicked. Instead of a chalkboard illustration I decided to do a watercolor. I wish I could have taken more time on it, but it served it’s purpose. My DD put the story in  her new native stories main lesson  book.

We learned about how the pre-contact Ojibwe lived. We learned about birch trees that grow where they live/d, and how the bark is removed in sheets and used to create shelters called wigwams, canoes to travel through the lakes on, and buckets for harvesting things. My DD put a paragraph about wigwams, and an illustration in her shelters main lesson book. I put an Ojibwe prayer on the board, and we recited it throughout the week.

We talked very briefly about wild rice, a staple of the Ojibwe. We will return to it when we do our small block on the grains.

We had a great time making a dome shaped hut from newspapers. This was the part of our lessons that was enjoyed the most. It reminded me of the dome shape of a wigwam. It was pretty simple to make, not to mention the bonus of it being absolutely free! You can find a great tutorial at pepper paints blog . Throw a lightweight sheet on, and you have a cosy little hide away ready for hours of play.

We worked on the number 8, and it’s times table through rhymes & tossing a beanbag.  Since it’s halloween we made a spider mobile, and put the 8 times table numbers of the spiders bodies.

We also learned the story of the dream catcher, and Ojibwe legend. We made a dream catcher from things we had around the house. We went outside, and cut some vines that were growing around a tree to make the hoop, and used hemp string for the web. I used a combination of this story & this story to make one smooth Dream Catcher story. 

I also checked out a few picture books about Ojibwe legends from the library.

Windigo’s Return- Great story about a monster from Ojibwe legend who eats people. It’s kind of scary, but has a humorous ending.

The Legend of The Lady Slipper-Beautiful tale about a brave girl who ventures into the night to save her people from a sickness that has stricken her entire village. Were were going to make mocassins in conjunction to this story, but ran out of time.

Ladder To The Sky- Another Ojibwe story with similarities to an Old testament legend. In this story the people lived in peace without sickness, or death, until someone disobeys the creator, and consequence ensues.

On friday we went to Brookgreen Gardens, about 30 minutes from our house. The most amazing trees east of the Redwood Forests are here at Brookgreen. If I were to move from here it would be the trees my heart would ache for.

The trees in the pics are magnificent by any standards, but are not the most amazing in the gardens. These were all in the native species zoo. My camera battery went dead before we got into the gardens, which are just completely enchanted. If you are ever near the mid-South Carolina coast, Brookgreen is a must see.

 

This week’s lessons: houses

We moved further into our housebuilding block with shelters from the old testament stories. We learned about Jabal, Jubal, and Tubal-Cain, descendants of Cain who made the first dwelling on Earth. This was a nice story, and a very good one that represented the archetypal first house. We used the story from Jakob  Streit’s “And There Was Light” which I purchased through Bob & Nancy’s bookstore. 

My dd put these stories in her old testament book even though they are lessons that are transitioning us into our houses block. She is making great strides in her writing, and illustrating. She is very careful, and makes very few mistakes. This is a huge improvement from the end of last year. Now, I just help her start the story summary, and she writes the body of it herself, in her words, with only a few suggestions from me.

 

I had planned on making, and painting hamsa hands for our own home, and reciting  Jubal’s song of consecration as we hung them up, but as usual we were running behind, and only got as far as tracing the template onto the wood. Hopefully we can make them soon, and if we do I will post it here.

The next old testament dwelling is the story of Noah and the Ark. I told her the story, and we started making animals from beeswax for a scene about the story. This is my incomplete chalkboard drawing. I plan on adding more animals over the weekend. I am not feeling this drawing much. We will finish up the Noah lesson on Monday.

I used “clouds of Glory” by Miriam Chaikin for the Noah story. I like her retellings better than any I have read. They are written in  an accessible way that makes them perfect for children. They are not dark, or dry like so many others, but full of life & color. Most libraries have her books, all of them are wonderful. I bought a copy on Ebay for $5.  

The story of Noah also gave way to a wonderful language lesson. This lesson was born from the notes in Eric Fairman’s Path of Discovery grade 3 book. In the Garden if Eden Adam named the animals & told what they did. With that we learned naming(nouns) & doing(verbs) words. In this lesson we learned color words (adjectives) & how words (adverbs). I began this lesson with a short little story about Noah & his wife Naamah needing to write down and create a record of the animals that made it off of the ark and onto the new earth . They began with the name, then the name & what the animal does, then what it looked like, how it does what it does, and  finally making a complete sentence about the animal by adding the helping word(article) and a period. We did 5 of these. One animal from each of the 5 groups…mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians. We kept the theme of each type of word having a specific color so that our words would form rainbows of words when complete. We thought and acted these out together before she wrote and illustrated them on paper.  This exercise helped her to see that with words we breathe life, moods, and color into our writing.

We also worked on form drawing, and knitting a headband. I usually read to her while she knits. This week I read a beautiful book called “A Prayer for the Earth: The Story of Naamah, Noah’s Wife”.   I highly recommend this book if you enjoy picture books. The pictures are done in a soft, but very vibrant watercolor. In the story Naamah is given the task by god to collect and save the seeds of all the plants on earth.

Next week we will continue the houses block, but will transition in dwellings of native peoples.

Weekly math game: Bean Dip

We are trying to make & play a different math game every week. This is this week’s. It’s called Bean Dip. It is simple, inexpensive, and most importantly, very fun. We had more fun than I thought we would with this one. It was a huge success.

 

Materials needed:

• a bowl
• a scooper (we used one that came with a can of coffee)
• biggest dried beans you can find ( we used large limas $1.29)
• sharpie fine tip pen

How to make it & play it:

• Take your dried beans & write a number on each side at random. You will have to repeat each numerous times to get enough for your bowl. We added “wild beans” too. They can be used as any number you choose. Go light on the zeros. They do  nothing for the game, but a few are nice.
• When you have enough beans in the bowl to get a good scoop, take turns scooping out beans
• each player has to add up the beans they scooped onto the table. You can make it a competition if you like, but we just take turns and do not keep score.

My daughter wanted to take a turn again & again, with each turn trying to scoop up more beans than the previous time. At first she took very light scoops only scooping up 5 or six beans to add together, but after a few goes she was scooping as much as the scoop could hold.

This game was great at allowing her to see the relationship between numbers. She could sort them out into groups that equaled 10, then easily add the remaining beans, or she could group by number, and use her growing multiplication skills to add alot of numbers quickly. We made this game strictly for mental math. No gems or counters allowed, and no paper either.

Littler children can “play along” by taking scoops and just sorting into groups

 

 You can even have then work out multiplication problems with the beans

 

How I spent my weekend: lazure painting

We have been working for a while on finishing what is our school & craft room. This weekend we finally came to the painting portion of the job. We tried to lazure paint it. I think it looks pretty nice. This is just half of the room. Hopefully we can do the other side next weekend. When complete the room will be one huge rainbow. I’m glad we did it, but I will definitely think twice about doing another room. We have 11 ft ceilings, and I don’t enjoy working on top of the ladder. I picked up alot of info from tht teaching handwork blog. She did a post complete with video to show others how they do it at her school. She demystified the process a bit.

This weeks lessons:mostly water color painting

When we arrived home Monday after being on vacation for 5 days everyone was wiped out. Tuesday my daughter came down with a 102 fever, and was not up for “school work”.

When she was better on Wednesday we did some catching up in our main lesson book writing out Cain & Abels’ story and drawing illustrations. We also worked on our times tables, and started learning a new word family through our weekly silly sentence, which she copies, illustrates, and puts in her book of word families. We have been gearing up for learning cursive writing by doing running forms. First we begin with a warm up where she draws a lemniscate over & over for a couple of minutes with both her right & left hand, then she draws circles with both hands simultaneously going up & out from the center. After the warm up we begin with the forms. First she draws them in the air, then I let her trace mine on the board, then practice them on scratch paper, and finally put them in her form drawing book. I also have been writing things on the board in cursive to familiarize her with the script. I am not a cursive person, so it is a challenge for me as well to write neatly in cursive.

 

We officially began our block on houses on Friday. We started with a story which told of how the first house on earth was a human. It was a story from Live Ed’s 3rd grade curriculum, so I can not share it here. This lead to a discussion of how our body is the house of our soul, and the earth is the home to all of us. We learned (or I should say we are learning) a beautiful poem by master Waldorf teacher Clifford Monks that perfectly honors the idea. You can find it here http://www.waldorflibrary.org/Clearing%20House/Spring%201977a.pdf it is on page 6 of the PDF file which is all on 3rd grade.

After we recited the poem we did a painting which brought the poem, and story into the visual realm.

This was the first painting session we did with our new batch of 6 paints. Up until now we were only using the 3 circle colors. Now that we are into 3rd grade we will have the option to use 6 colors, prussian blue, ultramarine, vermillion, carmine, golden yellow, and lemon yellow. Theses are our “mother jars”.  I like to use “better than bouillon” for cooking broth, and the jars it comes in are perfect for mother jars. We paint from the smaller jars with the black lids that are in the bottom of the pic.

This is a big deal!! All new feelings & moods can be created with these new additions. Before we did our guided painting about the poem we just experimented & played with the new colors. Here are some my daughter did just for fun.

 A note about stockmar paints: These are concentrated pigments. You have to dilute them. It is best to dilute them into “mother jars”. These jars will not be painted from. Into your mother jars you will empty out the entire bottle of paint.  You will then pour small amounts of your already mixed paints from your mother jars into your little painting jars when it is painting time. Some people like to use baby food jars. Use what you like. Buying fancy jars will not make your paintings better, or worse.  Those little glass mise en place cups work nicely as well, but of course with those you have no lids. When you mix down the paint into your mother jars you should fill the paint bottles with water and shake them to loosen the remaining paint. It is precious gold, and you want every little bit of it to go into your mother jar, however I can not stress this enough… DO NOT OVER DILUTE YOUR PAINTS.  Just like when cooking , you can always add, but you can never take away. The goal is a rich color, not pastels. If you want pastels use a wetter brush, not over diluted paints. You will never be able to get a pure red, or vibrant blue if the paint is too diluted, even if you apply 10 layers. Remember, it dries lighter than it looks when it is wet. When you are done DO NOT POUR YOUR LEFTOVER PAINTS BACK INTO THE MOTHER JARS.  If you do you will possibly taint your entire jar. It only takes a tiny amount to alter the colors in your jars.  If you have paint leftover in your painting cups/jars, cover them, and use them later, but do not mix back into the mother jars. All paint should be refrigerated. If kept cool, it will stay good for months.