I Kinda like Kindle.

So a friend of mine recently showed me how to check e-books out from the library and read them in my Kindle app! But if you can't find anything via your local library, do you have any idea how many titles are FREE for Kindle on the Amazon store?! Yah, a bumload. So you can make your iphone or ipad have the same functionality as a Kindle. All for free. Did I mention it's free?

Liberty Kids!

I was so excited to see this was on sale on Amazon. Not sure how long it will last, but it's only $5 right now. This is going to tie in perfectly with our US HISTORY emphasis this year in Classical Conversations, Cycle 3. NOT that I EVER let my children watch the TELEVISION.

(affiliate link)

Summer School | Art | Henri Rousseau

Finally got into the swing of our summer schedule. Only took me half the summer! Okay granted, we did VBS and swimming lessons have been kicking our bums. But still.

Here we are doing our second art project of the summer - inspired by Henri Rousseau. He was a pretty fantastic painter - of jungle scenes! Even though many art critics in his day didn't think much of his work, he did.

I love it when people are confident like that. Not the "I'm so awesome (even though I'm kind of a jerk about it)" kind of confidence but the "just know what I like and I like my art" kind of confidence. 

We ventured outside in the sweltering desert for some leaves to make these prints. Which turned out to be harder than I thought, considering most the plants around us look like ... um... cactus.

All you need: paper, green paint(s), plate/flat bowl, brayer (it's a foamy paint roller, basically).

Pretty fantastic.

#2 kid went right ahead and drew some animals in her jungle scene. #1 kid is planning to draw some monkeys (with help from here) and glue them in later.

Art Study - Impress Strangers!

So, we've been doing more Art Study now that our CC community is taking a break for the summer. It's nice to be able to find the extra time to do things like this!

Art (history) Study, at least how I do it, involves looking at beautiful paintings [or in our case, reprints], I mean really looking and observing. The idea is to help you and your kids develop a relationship with the painting. The longer you look, the more you see!

I tell my kids (and I'm sure this wasn't my idea) that the goal is to create an art museum in your mind. When you want to, you can recall paintings and enjoy them even when you don't have them in front of you! It's the same goal when you memorize Scripture, inspiring quotes, and poetry! We take several minutes observing as many things as we can in each picture. Then  we put the pictures away and try to describe them to each other.

For a change, I've been having the kids make a drawing of the picture while they observe. It's amazing the little details they pick out. I didn't even notice people in one of the paintings by Ruisdael, but Bubba did! (This term we are studying 3 pieces each by Jacob van Ruisdael (1628/9-1682) and Pieter de Hooch (1629-1684)).

If you'd like more tips and ideas and the philosophy about Art Study in this way, you can find it over here at AmblesideOnline.

Another reason Art Study is useful?

A while back we went out to breakfast and my daughter, then 4,  looks at a painting on the wall and says to me, "Mom! That painting reminds me of The Falls of Tivoli by Fragonard."

This kind of comment is extremely useful for when you're trying to impress strangers.

playclay earth!

One of the things I really enjoy about Classical Conversations is that it encourages me to homeschool on topics that I might be tempted to skip. Like earth science. It seems crazy to me that a science major would be so apt to skip these all important subjects! I think it's the MOM in me that skips science though - who needs another mess to clean up?

Anyone?

[Crickets chirping in background.]

That's what I thought.

As I was saying, the fact that my kids get to learn about different science topics and do hands-on experiments each week is a huge bonus.

This semester we are working on earth science. Time to learn about the layers of the earth! Each kiddo got to make their own earth complete with inner core, outer core, mantle, crust and hydrosphere! It was a fun class, as you can see.

I definitely liked that this project was very tactile. Everyone learns in different ways, so I hope these helped the layers of the earth 'stick' in their little brains.

For next time: I think it would've worked better with more contrasting colors of playclay. Also, I used homemade - which was a great consistency but the colors were too similar and tended to run together.

Not surprisingly, there was quite a bit of earth-mashing going on during this science project. I'm surprised some of these globes turned out even remotely spherical!

Paint Like a Master: EL GRECO

So, El Greco ('that Greek guy') was named Domenikos Theotokopoulos. While he was from Greece, he made it big in Spain. Which reminds me a lot of how David Hasselhoff was a popular singer in Germany for awhile. I'm not kidding.

That was a tangent. A big one. Sorry.

Back to El Greco. Just another one of your basic, multi-talented, famous painter/sculptor dudes who started humbly and finished big.




Known for his stretched out solemn people (foreshadowing the elves in that one big trilogy?). And his big forehead, apparently.

Anyhow, this was a fun project. Using a sketch of Mona Lisa borrowed from somewhere else (like here), my class of 5 & 6 year olds cut through the sketch horizontally several times and then glued down the pieces..stretching vertically as they went. Then we just played connect-the-dots.







Areas I do not suggest cutting through: eyeballs, hands, nose. That's just weird.

I wish we'd had more time to color these pieces. But little fingers take longer with those kid scissors than you might think! And the glue sticks. Don't even get me started on the glue sticks!










I wasn't sure about using the other-colored paper under our pieces, but I actually kind of like how it turned out. It would've been nice to have time to paint, though.

Here's an example of another class' technique - they used tracing paper for their finished piece.

Next time, I think it'd be fun to turn a picture of my kids into a pencil line drawing (here's how) and then use that to do the same El Greco project.

Another idea - for those kids who like cars and trucks. Cut your picture vertically and stretch it out horizontally. You can turn anything into a limo! Tractor, helicoptor, ambulance, cow, etc.

architecture class : George Pearl Hall

Today our homeschool architecture class got to tour George Pearl Hall (School of Architecture and Planning) at the University of New Mexico. It was pretty amazing how INTO-IT the kids were.

And it is a pretty cool building.

Not that I know that much about buildings.

Here are a few pictures of things that caught my eye on the tour. You can tell that I like the inner workings - pipes, trusses, patterns and etc. I completely forgot to take a picture of the outside!

Enjoy.

Paint Like a Master: MICHELANGELO

We talked about Michelangelo in class today. It took that poor man 4 years to paint the ceiling of the Sistene Chapel (which I have never seen, but boy would I love to)! Scaffolding, upside down paint brushes, and painting to perspective sound awfully uncomfortable and difficult to me. But he did it. No wonder he's the most famous artist of the Renaissance.

My class got a taste of what he went through as we colored with oil pastels under our tables today! Luckily, Michelangelo was not 5 or 6 when he started his masterpiece... there was quite a bit of 'this is hard' and 'my back hurts' and 'do I have to color the whole thing?' But they were pretty good sports especially considering I didn't even give them a choice about which colors they could use. (sheepish grin - insert here)

Some of the kids did their whole piece upside down and others chose to finish sitting in their seats.

An added bonus was that each student in our whole community colored one piece of a large communion-themed mural. A friend of mine, also a tutor, got the idea at Art Projects for Kids and printed everything out for us - so all the classes did their sections and we will assemble them all to see what they accomplished as a group. I'm so glad she had the idea because I'm always too cheap to buy things I think I might be able to do myself (like make a huge mural) - but this was totally worth it. $5? Um, yah.



Next time I plan to bring more oil pastels - as I forgot mine and had to borrow. Our 30 minute time slot was a little too short. What with all the backbends and everything.

And, next time I'll have a bigger print out of what the finished piece will look like so the kids have a better idea of what they are working toward.

S., Age 2, lipstick, ice cream, and mascara on face

This last picture is sort of related. It's a 'masterpiece' that my littlest little created on the way home from class. I look back to hand her a little baby ice cream cone only to find she's been in my purse. (I forgot to wonder why she wanted to hold it.) So I figured, "What the heck, have at it, kid!"

Print Like a Master: DURER

{This idea was pretty much straight out of Discovering Great Artists. The woman is a genius.}

The art portion of class today was enormously fun. It was many of the kids' favorite project so far.








Who did we talk about? Albrecht Durer. Self-portrait to the left.

A German, so right there you know he's probably cool.

Albrecht is especially known for his Renaissance wood cuts/prints, his attention to detail, and his amazing hair.

We used small 4"x4" pieces of balsa wood, available at, you guessed it, Hobby Lobby. Rather than hand the littles a bunch of sharp wood carving tools, we used hammers, nails, coins, nuts, bolts, screws and other metal doodads. Balsa wood is so soft, that some of the kids just used the back end of a paint brush to make their indentations. And, you don't necessarily even need the hammers. If you just push hard enough, the balsa wood will take an impression.

However, the hammers were a big hit anyway.

Especially with the boys.

We used a brayer (a paint roller, in the vernacular) to apply the tempera paint (not egg tempera, though, thank goodness). Then you just flip your 'wood cut' over onto paper and be careful not to jiggle it while you apply pressure to the back.

Easy Breezy. Perfect wood prints for little artists.

To improve this project, I would bring a larger variety of doodads (springs? cookie cutters? fridge magnets for letter shapes?) and leave more time at the end for the actual printing. Most of the kids only got to make one or two prints. IF I was a pre-planning kind of person, we could've printed cards for mommies for Valentine's Day!

I'm going to try to remember this idea next fall when we're thinking about Christmas cards. I love the very organic vintage feel of these prints.

Paint Like a Master: ANGELICO

S., Age 6

This week in class we talked about Fra Giovanni Angelico - a brother (like a monk) with some serious gold leaf skills.

I couldn't find any gold leaf at Target last night, so we improvised with aluminum foil. (Again, inspired by Discovering Great Artists.)

I don't have a whole lot to say about this project, as my 2 year old starting puking in the nursery right before we started! So, I will just share a few snapshots of some of my students' work...

M., Age 6

J., Age 6

I wanted to pick something relatively easy to draw so the kids could spend more time with cutting and gluing the foil to their artwork. We also skipped the paints I brought for accents this week - to make everything quicker and simpler for the mommies helping out while I tended the aforementioned puking baby.

One thing I really liked about this week's project was that the robot theme was a big hit with the boys!

One little guy said, "I'm going to take this home and work on it all day until it's done!"

Sculpt Like a Master : GHIBERTI

Lorenzo Ghiberti - so in the early 1400s he wins this contest to be commissioned to design the baptistry doors for a big church in Florence, Italy (Battistero di San Giovanni). Apparently, he dazzled the judges with his gold leaf technique and his green chile stew (I made that last part up).




And with skads of people working under him, it took 20 years to finish those doors.

Michelangelo (yes, THAT Michelangelo) said that they deserved to be displayed at the Gates of Paradise. They were that good!

I'd like to see those doors.

Also I'd like to contemplate taking 20 years on one art project.

Or any project for that matter. [I don't think it counts when you take 2 years before you even start it.]


Today, my class and I did a Ghiberti inspired, easy breezy project.

Take some cardboard. Glue a bunch of stuff on it. The more varied the texture the better. We used wiki-sticks, yarn, pipe cleaners, cardboard pieces where the corrugation was showing, and fabric leaves.

Cover the entire piece with foil wrapping around the edges to the back. Then have the kids use all those little fingers to smooth, pat, and form the foil around each texture.  Next, paint the whole front with black tempura paint. After it's dry, go over the texture with steel wool. The foil shines through on the raised portions!

 
I liked this project because littler kids can just glue stuff on to their hearts' content while older kids can focus on creating a 3D scene. I think the kids liked seeing how it turned out after the steel wool step. Next time I'll try to give them more time to create and also bring a sample so they can see where things are going. The only girl in the class would really have preferred pink paint.

you know this, right?

I thought maybe I'd let you in on what seems to be a secret. When you are a book addict, like me, it's nice to have a more frugal way to feed the habit. Now, let me preface this next part by saying that I really prefer real books. You know, the kind made out of paper? With real covers? And pages? But...I'm out of shelf space (making #3 very helpful). So, I admit turning to eBooks (#1 & #2)

FREE (or basically free) BOOKS

Here are my favorite sources...

1 ) Gutenberg.org [Over 100,000 free ebooks...public domain - so very many classics. I downloaded the complete works of Jane Austen...for free! Yah, baby.]

2) Free Kindle eBooks for anyone with the free Kindle app
Or for those of you with Kindles: Kindle Owners' Lending Library

3) And last but not least:

(Online book swap. I've swapped books 61 times, so I feel good about referring this to you! Just pay a couple bucks for shipping (when you send from your library) and receive the books you order for free. You get a free credit when you first sign up - so you can try it out. What a great way to let someone else enjoy the books you don't want anymore. Don't let the name throw ya, you can swap hardcovers, too.)

Paint Like a Master : GIOTTO

I borrowed heavily from Discovering Great Artists to introduce Giotto (di Bondone c.1266-1337) to the kids in my Classical Conversations class today. I was nervous about eight 5 year olds and raw egg all over the place!

{Raw eggs? Oh. Yes. And the salmonella was just LOOKING for someone to infect. Let me tell you.}




Anyway, Giotto was a shepherd kid who liked to draw...
And then he got discovered and became a painter...
And then he became the chief master of public art in Florence, Italy!

It's like a So You Think You Can Paint, circa the Late Middle Ages!

Which all just goes to show, again, that Someone likes shepherds.

And since you can't just go to Hobby Lobby with your 40% off coupon during the Late Middle Ages (or Early Renaissance for that matter), he had to make his own paints. Ground up minerals. Rocks. Berries. Even insects! Mix with a little egg yolk and water and viola, Egg Tempera!

A., Age 5, Egg Tempera

For our version, we ground up chalk and mixed it with the egg yolk/water mixture. (1 egg yolk plus 2 tsp of water is the ratio.) It ended up like a thickish watercolor. The kids thought it was pretty cool to make our own paint and they did a great job painting St. Paul, Giotto style. (I had pre-drawn St. Paul to save time - but he wasn't supposed to turn out looking like Santa Claus with a turban on.)

Egg tempera is long-lasting, makes colors really bright, and dries with a nice sheen. Not something I would've chosen to do without prompting, but I'm definitely glad we tried this.

Next time, I will let the kids draw their template first, and make sure to crush the chalk more thoroughly. And bring more disinfectant wipes.

You should try this project with your kids. It really was fun.

Just please remember the mantra for doing art with your kids:
I can clean up when they're done.
I can clean up when they're done.
I can clean up when they're done.

curriculum.

Lest you think all I do is crafts and making up surveys, I thought I'd tell you about what I mostly do when the kids and hubby aren't on break. Homeschooling! I've had a few people ask what I use for curriculum so I thought I'd lay that out here. Exciting, right?

Let me preface by saying that 1) I really dislike shopping for curriculum and 2) I'm extremely frugal. BUT, I love being able to choose what to use to teach my kids. {And...considering these things, it all might change in the next few days. At least the volume.}


Overall Philosophy:
Mostly Charlotte Mason (read about her and her method) with a rather large portion of Classical Conversations thrown in.

Spelling/Grammar/Phonics 
(covers years of spelling and grammar and the phonics are great)
Spell to Write and Read

Math 
Mathematics Enhancement Programme
(free downloadable curriculum out of the UK from K-12. we've really liked it. it goes about things in a slightly different progression than U.S. curricula* I've looked into but seems very comprehensive. plus it's british. that's just cool.)

Life of Fred
(a fun story about a 5 year old math professor which is very comprehensive mathematically speaking and fun to do alongside your kid. we use it as a supplement about once every two weeks.)

Foreign Language - a conversational approach
German Pimsleur Method (CD)

Music
piano (lessons and Simply Music), tin whistle

Bible
The Bible. (I really crack myself up.)

Art
Drawing With Children: A Creative Method for Adult Beginners, Too by Mona Brookes.
Discovering Great Artists by MaryAnn Kohl.
 
The following subjects are all outlined for me week by week, for free, on AmblesideOnline. Using mostly public domain texts (which I love - on so many levels) and depending on the topic, we do these together as a family more often than not...and usually only once a week.

History (World, US), lots of history
including Our Island Story (here for free) and The Little Duke

Geography
including Tree in the Trail by Holling C. Holling. (How many of you have kids with the same first and last name?)

Literature, loads of literature
including Shakespeare rewritten for kids, Pilgrim's Progress, and The Wind in the Willows
 
Science/Nature Study 
including The Burgess Animal Book (available for free here) 

Folksongs, Hymns, & Poetry
Oh how fun it is to hear my kids singing this folksong!

Handicrafts
things like Soap Carving: For Children of All Ages  

Art History & Appreciation 
we basically look at great classic art and share what we notice about each piece. 6 pieces per term.

Copywork (from the history or literature readings)

So, looking over this list, even though most of it is NOT every day by any means, I just think to myself, "No wonder. There could be a reason I'm not getting everything done!"

*i don't think i've ever used this word before

homeschool burnout?

Two people in the last two days have told me I try to do too much in our homeschool. They can see I'm slightly overwhelmed, I guess!

So, I got to thinking. How many people feel overwhelmed in their homeschool? And why? Will you take my 10 question survey?

Take survey here!  (@www.surveymonkey.com.)





I'd like 100 homeschool parents to answer this survey, so please forward this if you or anyone you know homeschools their kids. Thanks!

I'll post the results here in a few days. Maybe the results will help me (and anyone else in this boat) solve some problems.

Creative Locationing - Homeschool Style

I homeschool. Please don't ask me why. Some days I can't remember!

Today I thought I'd confess my creative locationing, when it comes to homeschool...because I like home, but sometimes I just have to get out of here.

Here are the places we've 'home'schooled.

Krispy Kreme
(Answer the ? of the day for a free doughnut, okay coffee)
Flying Star restaurant
(Best coffee, with refills, the hummus rocks)
Satellite Coffee
(Comfy couches, kids like the petit fours, great coffee)
Borders Cafe
(Books & Coffee. Need I say more?)
Starbucks, outdoors
(Nearby, kids like the fruit snacks, okay coffee)

[I'm noticing a theme here.]

Out Back [the yard, not the restaurant]
(especially in the summer, in the shade. It's fab.)
Honda Odyssey
(read literature from my iPad - it's like a mobile living room back there)

And today...

Living Room Fort
(built by kids - yeah team building skills!)

I need to see if I can fit under there; we've got some spelling to work on!

kinderdoodle : idea 9 : slime!

TIME FOR SLIME!

This recipe makes a real fun and interesting 'slime' for your kids to play with.

1/2 cup Elmer's glue (this is a 4 oz. school sized bottle)
1 cup water

Mix.

In a separate bowl, mix:
1/4 tsp Borax
1/2 cup water
(The Borax won't dissolve but do the best you can.)

Add the borax mixture to the glue mixture and stir. It will thicken quickly at first, and then gradually.

Flop the stuff out on a table and let the kids go at it! It's pretty easy to clean up, too.

kinderdoodle : idea 8 : stage kid art show

A friend of mine had a great idea for her hallway.

STAGE AN ART SHOW

She took a piece of artwork from each of her (little!) kids and placed them in simple frames. Then she wrote up a 'bio' and printed them out along with a photo of each kiddo. She displayed these next to the artwork of each child - just like in a real art gallery! So cute. (You could even add prices and sell the pieces to unsuspecting grandparents!)

Here is an example:

Artist: Caleb, Age 2


Preferred Mediums: Watercolor, tempera,
crayons, color wonder markers, sidewalk chalk,
as well as Doodle pro. He also likes the paint with
water books, and coloring Sesame Street Characters.


His current trend of design seems to be circular
in nature. He drew his first face in January, 2009.
He especially likes to color with oranges, browns,
and sometimes pink.


Caleb learned his colors at 19 months. His proud parents
are Mark and Jodi.

kinderdoodle : idea 4 : art smock

One thing that keeps us from letting our kids explore art is ... well ... the art supplies! They are crazy colors and they do tend to get um, how do I say this - ALL OVER THE PLACE.

I've found that an old short sleeved t-shirt, preferably adult sized, makes a great smock. It's nice and long and if the shoulders are too wide, you can cinch it up in the back with a clothespin. Easy Breezy.

Look at this girl go!

kinderdoodle : idea 3 : tape the edges

We've talked about taping down the paper as your kids are painting or drawing to make the whole experience easier for little hands. I've used masking tape loops on the back of paper, but there's another tricky thing you can do.

If you use thick paper (like watercolor paper or card stock), tape down the paper all the way around the edge by using masking tape on the front. Try to get these pieces semi-straight and uniform.

When the artwork is all done and DRY, carefully peel the masking tape off. It creates a nice white space around the edge of the artwork and really makes it pop.

Have your kiddo sign their work along with their age. Voila!