handbook of nature study hard copy - January nature journal

I've had the Comstock book on my kindle for years, but never imagined what a hard copy of the text would mean to me. Barb McCoy challenged me personally, well-not really b/c I've never met the woman in my life, to try a nature journal this year.  So, even though it was in the negative cold category the week the Gs did these drawings, we enjoyed practicing a skill we'd tried a couple times before with our painted leaf friends from the previous post.  These are their winter blind contour sketches of the fading crabapple with no leaves.

Extended Holiday Blogging Break

SO, we've been to visit friends working near Paris, got back to do more school and reading preparing for SOTW4 chapters about World War One, celebrated a 14th birthday, built gingerbread houses which will be decorated today - maybe, tween/teen-agers sewed their own pajama bottoms and celebrated their first white elephant gift party. We've also done a 3 Hobbit-movie-spree over the past week when our subjects were complete for the month. It's been a little busy, but there were pictures that just haven't been collaged quite yet in order to place here on the world wide web.

There was an art project done after a nature hike in a warm valley somewhere in France.

 There are lots of books available from fiction, nonfiction, juvenile or adult stacks about The Great War.  Let me know here what books you recommend about WWI.  Otherwise, we'll catch up with y'all asap.  HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

Pastel Art: Takes Us to the Beach...

... and Away from Snowy Winter

Top left shows G3 playing ball in the water with Dad.
Middle shows G1 digging in the sand to where ever.
Bottom right shows G2 playing ball with her friend.

So wonderful to see their stories in Chalk Pastel Art.

Enjoying Art

What a difference it makes when the Mommy gets the correct materials to use for art. Above is G3's beautiful attempt with oil pastels. Below is his masterpiece with the chalk according to directions in A Simple Start in Chalk Pastels.

Practical Changes in Art

As much as I love using the "open-and-go" formula in Artistic Pursuits, it was fun to transition to a different medium, that is pastels, from the pencils we'd used in the first half of this year.  The Mommy, however, didn't pay close enough attention to the materials needed to accomplish the change and didn't have the CHALK PASTELS.  My 3Gs did persevere, with the oil pastel crayons at hand, and created "a path to the beach" from directions in A Simple Start in Chalk Pastels.  I did subsequently pick up the needed materials last night, and we'll continue to post more of their work going forward (cheers from the Grandparent section of the blog auditorium).  The work above is done by G1 who adores TobyMac and shows that in his December pencil sketch.

Logic Stage Chemistry Study Week 14

So, we've finished reading all of the story about Uncle Paul, Jules and Emile from Jean Henri Fabre.  We've also finished the free upper level notebooking package from Hands of a Child about Metals. All this just in time to start studying more about nonmetals and other groups on the periodic table.  As a last assignment in HOAC, the 3Gs were asked to draw a poster supporting recycling. Today happens to be National Recycling Day! So, how about some art to support recycling and being good stewards of the Earth's resources? G#1's poster included a picture off the Internet that wasn't annotated, so I didn't include it here, but it was of a cola can made into a craft car.

Along with a wrap up of our READ and SKETCHaRESPONSE
Tiner, Exploring the World of ChemistryChapter 8: The Electron Shows the Way     62
Kindle:  Wonder Book of Chemistry, Chap 25 (Chlorin) and Chap 26 (Nitrogen Compounds)
HOAC Metals:  Read * Recycling Metal
Activity 14 – Recycling Craft
Activity 15 – Recycling
Describe NONMETALS on the Periodic Table
DK Chemistry pages p 28-29

 

Art Wins This Week - Self Portraits



G#3 loves his wrist bands & I love his bent finger

History History Everywhere

Just as the Cat of Bubastes captivated their attention a few months ago while studying ancient Egypt, Jim Weiss's voice reading The Young Carthaginian is brilliant for telling us this story.  We get to follow along on the Kindle and the cloud reader on the computer in order to keep up on this story.

We are using the Harmony Arts Mom plans for Ancient art.
The pages assigned for my 3Gs are easily completed while reading this DK Ancient Rome book.


Find all kinds of teaching wisdom at http://harmonyartmom.blogspot.com/

BTW, this isn't an advert, it's what we used and it worked for us!

Egypt in Ancient History

Ok, I tried to encourage the children to read this book by Mrs. McGraw, but the language wasn't very easy to get past.  It's not King James Version, but it is different from their normal historical fiction reading.  So, I've been reading it and narrating the story to the kids. They are listening to the Cat of Bubastes by Henty and are enjoying the tale, but they also like my telling the what is happening to Ranofer too.

We've read about the deciphering of the Rosetta Stone also. There are many notebook pages with photographs from our field trips to the British Museum to see the ancient relics up close and personal. But more about their notebook pages later (mommy does the happy dance).  I've not built the Nile River suggested activity from Story of the World, but it may still happen over the long weekend.

Everyone is getting along better with brief sentences about our history sources.  On the Shores of the Great Sea is a favorite.  Story of Mankind is ok for them.  Of course, SOTW is a repeat, but they still are getting a well rounded perspective. A Little History of the World may be lagging behind, but it may be because I scheduled the chapters in the wrong order. Mine is not an exact science, but I did try to keep everything coordinated.

The book called Prehistoric Art by Susie Hodges was a good add for us and we look forward to a later one of her books, but the Eyewitness book on Ancient Egypt is scheduled by the Harmony Fine Arts plans and that's what we use to discuss the next phase of ancient art.

Trying to get to the end of http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/menu.html and the challenges involved.

Ok, time to read more about the Golden Goblet.

More Cave Paintings

Ancient cave art and a hippo

Chapter One SOTW Logic Stage Ancients

This link to study about Catalhoyuk is cool.  I promised to take them there someday.   I've been missing Turkiye and desperately need practice in making kofte.

Synge is more interesting that vanLoon or Gombrich. Even listening to Dr. Bauer's SOTW chapter was better to G#2 than the evolution from vanLoon or Gombrich. I told her it'd get better when we got to more interesting stuff about Ancient Egypt in Tales of Ancient Egypt.

Mapwork for this chapter was fun because we got to add physical features to the trip that Abraham took along the Euphrates with Synge. Again, Librivox.org saves these people from having to work too hard on history.

Art history with Mrs. McCoy at Harmony Fine Arts is good for us because we got to check out Susie Hodge's book from the library. We visited the Lascaux cave website to learn more about the art. The project for last week was to draw on brown paper bags. This week we spray paint over our hands onto a brown surface. Somebody said that this kind of art resembles my directions to do stuff.

Art Study

Kandinsky, O'Keeffe, Picasso

Futuristic horse art by g#3



  As we prepare to go skiing later this week, many items on the weekly planner checklist are being completed.  This one of my g's in the picture finished 2 grammar lessons from First Language Lessons level 3, so I asked him to complete the next lesson in Artistic Pursuits after Cubism and Picasso. There was an initial struggle with the rational realist that he is.  Then he moved into the surreal of the possibility that a horse structure could become evident in the aluminum foil and tape.  Although, as you can see, he still isn't quite sure. 

Mind boggling that someone who can create all kinds of planes and shapes with zillions of Legos, and can't imagine that a horse shape can be made in aluminum foil. I wonder if I'm creating a monster who may keep "borrowing" my box of foil every time my back is turned. 

Science AND Art: Balance along with Calder mobiles

Yes, that is a hockey puck.

Physic notebooking along with blue artist pages for Mr. Calder

Music Lessons

As home educated kids, these 3Gs can practice as much or as little as I will manage. The kids are in 3rd and 4th grade and play at imaginative efforts a great deal of the time, but must be managed to study and pursue wisdom. Two Gs study piano and the third, violin. However, the third received a guitar for Christmas. He is interested, more interested than he has been with the violin in the past year. It's a new stage of music learning. Music study, right along with Latin and art are essential subjects that I'm not afraid of anymore. Mostly, I'm not afraid, because the Daddy handles Latin and the piano teacher handles my "otter-ish" two quite well, and art is a step-by-step, pick-up-and-go process from the book I chose to invest in last fall.

But what would it be like here if they didn't study the mechanics of music, Latin and art? It's not just an excuse to get them active and thinking, it's a way of thinking that we hope they choose to process choices and discern in life. And, an outlet for creativity is essential here. One might think that the Daddy wasn't creative, but that would be incorrect based upon how he solves problems in his work. And, of course, I'm a bit on the far side of creative, which can be reigned in sufficiently based upon reality. Is it Einstein who said that imagination is more important than knowledge? Maybe he did, but based upon how the kids use their imagination to pursue wisdom, I think we're on the right track.

Air Dried Clay Scuptures via my 3Gs

More Sculpting for Art

Once you sculpt it, then you paint it.

Sculpting for Art

clay penguin and ivory soap penguin

all of G#2's sculpture projects so far. Did you know that you could carve an Ivory soap hippo too?

clay cardinal, hippo and penguin

ivory tree



Complexions and Proportions

    

Have you ever thought about how to draw a face with the correct proportions. THEN, there is also a challenge to paint a face with a different complexion than yours (ie. camouflage, African American or Native American). Our Artistic Pursuits lesson described Mary Cassatt's work as well as how to paint people in everyday life. Cassatt was an American Impressionist painter who was not allowed to do her work in public. So, she painted the everyday life of people she knew, women and children.