A Homeschooling Review

We've been doing approximately a letter a week since Lily turned four in January. The A's above were pictures from quite a while back because she just got to "O"!!! I've had a few little incentives along the way for her. Back and Christmas time I bought this horse (since it was so cheap then) and she got the horse for after she got to the letter "H"... we work on the sounds the letters make and what words start with that sound and also the shape. Recognition and drawing. She can match the letters much easier than she can write them herself, but writing them helps her to really look at the shapes and thus helps her recognize them. Better penmanship will come later when she's older. :]
For some of the "trouble" letters I make up little things to help her remember them. For instance B's are pretty easy because to make a lower case be you just take of the top bump right? Well, D's often throw kids off with the lower case ones... SO I said something like this, "The capital D is the DADDY D and the lower case D is the little dude D and they like to talk together." Putting the smiles on them helps her see that they are supposed to face each other. She loves to turn the letters she makes into pictures and I encourage her as much with that as possible. When she started with her A's she had fun making it into a house and drawing doors for the different floors.

After doing this sort of thing with all her letters. Working on the sounds they make and the shapes and some penmanship we finally got to the "O" that she'd been looking forward to for a while and here is the puzzle! Lily absolutely loves putting puzzles together. She's great at spacial relations and seems to be a auditory and kinetic learner. She follows instructions quite well (even when she was just two years old I could give her instructions for getting something for me and she could follow them.)
I love having the incentive for her to work harder as something that is yet again teaching her or instilling a love of learning. This ocean puzzle has a picture with all the names of the different fish so we can talk about them as we put the puzzle together.


Now to my two year olds "school" she's at the age where she's learning shapes and color names and so forth and in general just learning how to talk. I got the girls this "HiHo Cherry-O" game at Christmas time and Lily doesn't like it that well because it's all luck and no strategy (she's like me in that way I guess!) but Renna just loves to put the fruit on the trees and then into the barrels! Perhaps you are wondering what good that does? But of course, the creative parent can use a time like this to work on counting or colors or just fine motor skills for a two year old. Plus, it's such a special thing for them to get to enjoy the tiny pieces that they normally don't get to touch.While Lily does some more advanced school Renna gets to play with playdough. The picture above is special play dough scissors and is a really great tool to help her learn how to use scissors in general and again.. fine motor skills.
I got this Mighty Mind activity that helps children combine shapes (if I bought this again I'd choose the magnetic Mighty Mind set! Just a heads up if any of you want to look into it and buy one as well.) When Lily and I got it in the mail she kept thanking me over and over and said how much she loved school and so on. This is what homeschooling is to me. Instilling a love of learning and teaching without it feeling "teachy" and doing things as a family! Building the shapes becomes progressively harder and she really enjoyed doing this. It goes right along with the sorts of things she naturally loves to do, hands on, building, puzzles.. all that stuff.

Here's Renna again working on the playdough. The pictures are somewhat out of order, but this is often what school feels like when I'm bouncing from one to the other as they do their projects.

Another part of Renna's "school" is using these Mix and Match Teddy's she and I can talk about what the bears are wearing and the colors and the expressions along with matching them or pretending that they are talking. The teddy's pictures bellow are Renna's favorite. She calls them "Dye's" I think she's trying to say "guys" but for some reason she just adores these little grumpy bears and always searches for them among all the other bears.

The Teddy game and the Mighty Mind were from "Sonlight" homeschooling that uses "real" books rather than work books. I went to their site and got the list of books and bought almost all of them used or cheaper on Amazon. It's been like Christmas each day when we get a bunch of packages of books and school stuff in the mail! Each day we read a few new stories as well and that's such a great time for both girls because they love to be read to and it's great for me because I love to read to them! It's nice to have a few different "project" type things to rotate for them to do for their school and also some new stories to mix in with the old favorites that I have memorized from four years straight of reading.


So far I really like the Sonlight curriculum the best. Especially at this age, but as they get older I want to combine a few other things into the basic stuff of Sonlight. Here's a few other homeschool curriculum's that I really liked and that some friends recommended and used -- "My Father's World" had a great kindergarten curriculum, but I wasn't as impressed with the first grade. I loved some of the project ideas that they had... getting an ant farm or raising butterflies, I also thought these little rods that go with the Alphabet book would be neat teaching tool (also from "My Father's World")

The other school (Camrose Classical Academy) I was really impressed with combines a classical education with a strong literature base of "real" books and especially the reading program that they used was quite impressive. I have to be careful how I teach my eldest daughter because she's never been one to do something if you push too hard. If anyone who she doesn't know tries to do a "quiz" with her (you know how that goes, "what color is this?" and asking them all these teachy questions about everything.) I can ask her questions like that and know what she's learning and what she knows, but I also know HER and when the best times are to ask those questions. Even when she was just over a year old I'd hear her say a word and I'd try to get her to say it again. She's just not one to perform. Anyway, if I choose a reading program that is too pushy or something it wouldn't work for her. This one seemed fun yet advanced at the same time. I'll be getting the program later and just stick with teaching her her letters right now and reading a lot. It's not like she's going to "get behind" at this point while we do more things that work with Renna.

This last picture is Renna asleep. I opened her door so that she could wake up from her nap and then went back to exercising on the Wii step and she comes toddling out all sleepy like and lays down. Well, a few minutes later when I look back at her she'd fallen asleep again! Right on the floor. So so sweet. I let her sleep there until she woke up on her own because I figured she needed it. I am having so much fun teaching the girls and experiencing special moments with them. I might not stay with "Sonlight" through highschool... by then we might want to do a private school or go to a more classical style of homeschooling, but for now I'm really enjoying it and as I get more into it I'll probably be relying more on the library so that I don't have to buy ALL the books (I actually did skip two things that they recommended because I'm not into nursery rhymes and lame songs... no.. I got a few GREAT cd's that I loved as a kid and still do.)
Here's a picture of all the "school" books we are getting. Don't bother getting the "20th century children's book treasury" they ruin the essence of the picture books and it's better to get the originals used or from the library or something. The "HarperCollins of Treasury classics" is fabulous however and I'd buy for people as a gift. The "Flip Flap Body Book" is one of Lily's favorites and is a great "science" type book for this age. She keeps bringing it to me and wanting to do school. Speaking of which. We just got another four or so books in the mail and Lily wants to do more school! I've got to go read "Horten Hatches the Egg" .. LOVE IT! :]

It's FINALLY done

From start ---- to finish! (This first picture was my original drawing before I cut it all out of the black poster board, and I work from the back side so the picture below is flipped to the front of course.)
(The quote from Stephanie Meyer's Midnight Sun -- "My life was an unending, unchanging midnight. It must, by necessity, always be midnight for me. So how was it possible that the sun was rising now, in the middle of my midnight?" was added digitally and is not on the original picture.)

I've been working on and off on this since about last September and it's finally done! It's called "Opposites" ...At the slanted angle you can sort of see the layers of paper, but the depth that this has is mostly lost in a picture rather than in person... so.. you'll just have to imagine that you can see the depth of the layers of paper... This is the hardest one that I've ever made so far and I had to draw all the lines and detail on a different sheet of paper before laying it over the black paper and cutting it all out with a razor blade.
They are quite white, but what you can't see in this picture is the shadows and variance of color to their skin. Bella's cheeks are slightly pink as well, her headband is Edwards favorite color and I tried to make everything about her look slightly warmer and his coloring is all slightly cooler than hers, but they also both look just like people (not a vampire and human) so even if someone didn't know the story they would still enjoy the picture of a man and woman and the opposites represented in the sun that is intertwined in her hair and the moon and stars behind him.
This is what I see since 95% of the work is all done from the back side as I layer (tediously) each little piece of paper that I have to cut just right to fit and then turn it over to make sure I didn't do something weird since I can't quite see what I'm doing. Or I turn it over to try to orient myself to know which direction I need to lay the papers or what color to use in any given place.

And there you have it. From the story and quote I was inspired to make the sun intertwine with her hair. "Midnight Sun" also talks about the red highlights in her hair when she's in the sun (which doesn't happen very often in the books) Also, the books say that Edward's hair is "bronze" which is pretty close to what I have here except that there's a bit more blond to the "bronze" color (closer to the color of the actor) and that's mainly to get the contrast of the brown/red of her hair. The moon is slightly grayish and the stars have a very light blue hint to them, and Edward's shirt is varying shades of gray (hard to see in the pictures) and that was to emphasize his coldness and the coldness of night compared to the warmth of the sun and a human as well. The perspective that I took on this art was to go at it from Edwards point of view... how he sees himself and how he sees her... this is why she (and her hair) are in the majority of the picture and why his colors (except the hair) is blander than hers. My dad asked me about the expressions, and no they are not meant to look "happy" .. the expressions are exactly what I was meaning to do - that being that they are full of restrained desire. The magnetic pull and yet the polar opposites. A tug of war with emotions if you will. The expressions were based off of the actors in "Twilight" only in that scene Bella was on the left side (I reversed it because I wanted it to look like it was all from Edward's perspective, just like "Midnight Sun")

This piece of art will be starting at $800 in case anyone is interested. I'm going to be matting it and putting it in a frame pretty soon. The matting sort of becomes part of the art in how I do it (because I use black paper to matte it) Anyway, the owner of the gallery that housed my art (before he retired) said that he liked the matting the way I did it because it was an extension of the art. He also said that I needed to keep doing this because it was so unique that I'd be depriving the world if I didn't continue. I might put up more (better) pictures of it later, but I'm so tired from doing this (it's been a long road) that I wanted to post right when I finished to encourage myself to do the final little details and to sell it. ... I don't really "like" to sell my art because I put so much into them, but I suppose that's the irony of turning art into a business. ;]

Oh, and with all of my art... even though I have some definite ideas of what I was thinking when I made it all I also like to make them in such a way to let the viewer make up their own interpretations. If you see more or less or something totally different than what I was thinking when I made it THAT'S WONDERFUL! Really, art is meant to be enjoyed by everyone. I love how people can see things that I didn't even intend to put into something... and, I'm happy to share what I was thinking when I did something, but I don't want people to try to figure out what *I* intended. Rather, look for your own meaning in it and enjoy it in the way that fits with where you are.

In my opinion art that allows for this freedom while simultaneously having a deeper meaning that was intended is what makes it great.

((My next paper artwork will be a burning money tree... many deeper meanings to that one as well. It will be fun.)) ;]

Profundity in few words...

I am not enough.



"Who then can be saved?" And Jesus answered him saying, "With men it is impossible, but with God, all things are possible..."

FoooooooooD!

I've been feeling pretty uncreative in the kitchen lately and have wanted to make some healthier things that the kids like as much as we do. Renna (who is two) is pretty sensitive to any kind of spice or sauce and since I was the same as a kid I really understand. Certain things would make my tongue feel like it was burning, like.. on fire. Cinnamon gum was completely out for me.

I got an idea on Sunday at potluck when I had a stir-fry veggie/sausage dish made by Heather Shaver (so I was told) and it was just so fresh and flavorful it made me feel good. So when I got my own ingredients the basic idea was to cook some meat and then throw veggies in (lots of color!) and let the veggies just cook in a little water and the juice from the cooked meat. Hence, the kids would like the "no spiceness" of it and actually, it didn't need anything more. (The meat that I used was turkey ham and then turkey bacon... the turkey bacon was cheaper and I didn't have to bother with tons of hot grease to pour out of the pan, but you could use any meat or mushrooms instead or just veggies... or more meat.. you get the idea.)

I'd picked up a few things at Walmart for just such a mean when I saw the "Mandarin sauce" for not very much and it didn't have MSG or High Fructose corn syrup. (It does have sugar, but a little sugar isn't a big deal and the drizzle over the veggies was probably much less than the amount of sugar I'd put in a cup of tea.)
The other thing that is super yummy for this meal is the whole wheat linguine to act as the chow mein noodles... I picked up that idea from Rachel Ray.

I call this quick and easy recipe the "Rainbow-veggie whatever-kind-of-meat steamed stir-fry with whole-wheat-linguine and mandarin-sauce drizzle" OR the RVWKMSSFWWLMSD.

That's right folks! AND it's so quick that you can make it even before you say it's name.

Definitely a winner. I should write a cookbook. ;]

Art work...

This was a commission from last February 2009... I couldn't remember if I'd posted pictures.. or could find them and I have a hard time explaining what my art IS. Of course, even if people see this in person they often still don't know how I'm doing it. Which.. of course is perfectly fine! I like being original. :]

The lady that bought this wanted a floral arrangement that was Victorian in essence. I pulled out my old books from school when I took a quarter of floral design and "arranged" the flowers in an asymmetric design. Victorian floral arrangements liked to have arrange the flowers in a very overflowing way. The Peony and status and Lilies and old fashioned baby's breathe are all pretty appropriate for the period as well.

The colors that she wanted were a gold (hence the Lilies) and rose pink and sage green... the purple I just added because I liked it.

As you can see, the black poster-board paper is the closest thing to the viewer. First I cut all the shapes from the black and then layer the strips of paper on the back side. And this next picture is what the back looks like. Yes, this is what I see the whole time I'm working. I do sections at a time and then flip it over to make sure I didn't make a mistake (as in let the raw edge of any of the paper show... just the folded edges are supposed to show) and if what I was envisioning actually worked.



I use photo safe tape over the paper strips after I've glued each one down one at a time. Sometimes I have to take out a section if it is totally weird looking and other times I turn it over to check and it's different than what I've planned but it still looks good. In that way the art sometimes has a mind of it's own which is pretty fun for me. :]


And there it is... not as impressive as seeing a giant version in all it's dimensions on the wall, but you get the general idea. :] Some day these are going to be worth a lot more than I'm able to sell them for right now.... why are artists usually only appreciated after they are dead?