We decided to make Eric Carle style art with the homeschool club today. To prepare, we asked each family to paint 5 pieces of tissue paper with tempera paint, using different textures and color combinations and bring the dry tissues to class. We followed the same techniques that Eric Carle taught during a Mr. Rogers episode. You can see the clip here. (Start at minute 16.)
I have to admit that I was a little worried how it would turn out. The individual tissue papers we made were not very attractive.
Once we got to class, we shared the painted tissue paper to make some wonderful collages.
Hannah’s fruit art was so cute I had to post it. She’s playing at our house so I’m claiming the right to share her beautiful art.
We had dozens of patterns from which we could choose. I came home with a sample of each so I can do my own artwork/therapy this weekend.
Anyone can do this. And it is beautiful and simple and very inexpensive.
There have been many homeschool group activities this week. Daniel began golf lessons. Some of us attended a play on Thursday. We took part in a homeschool valentine exchange and Mark addressed his first set of valentines. Timothy received a love note from his friend that I had to show you.
Yesterday we went to the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show because we got in free for School Day. The boys felt like kings, buying crystals and petrified wood. The older kids had a delicious taste of independence from me as they joined with a group of friends to move through the exhibits. Paige and two friends traversed the floor and found matching charms and tiny carvings to please the female spirit. Daniel, independent as always, brought his own money and spent it on some carefully selected minerals. Timothy and Mark were my buddies. They were adored by the old ladies and given nervous looks by the uptight jewelry vendors. I heard accents from Russia, Germany, and China. We saw an enormous gold nugget. We ate nachos from El Charro with friends on the patio and the kids carefully lined up all of their rocks on the tables for us to admire. It was a great adventure for all of us.
Wouldn’t it be nice if you could spend the day making sure that people know that you love them? Mark spends his days composing notes for people. Here I caught him putting *another* note on Dad’s bedside table… with duct tape… which he cut himself with his new scissor skills.
Wouldn’t it be nice if all science experiments matched my blender from the 1960’s? Maybe not.
Paige extracted the DNA from split peas this afternoon. I may be the only one who was moved by the sight, but I’m o.k. with that.
Believe it or not, my worst fear is that I am messing up my children’s lives by educating them at home (and other places). There is no homespun superiority complex being taught or felt at this home school. I run an over-achieving-so-no-one-will-question-us kind of home school.
Sometimes in my efforts to prove we’re providing a great education, I ask too much of my children. High school brought a new level of fear and worry for me and an accompanying workload for Paige that left her exhausted. She stopped doing many things that she loved. There was no reading for fun, no sewing, and no painting.
This semester we made sure Paige isn’t overbooked. It’s good to see her doing the things that she loves again. She is a great student, but there is more to life than school.
Paige is decorated for her accomplishment in December.
…all of this for her American History class:
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
On Friday we went to the Tucson Botanical Gardens to see the Butterfly Magic exhibit. We did this last year in December and loved it. This year I decided to organize a fieldtrip for one of our homeschool clubs. This way, we were able to get in at discount and see our friends.
When we walked in to the butterfly house, we were immediately aware of the tropical conditions. The cold camera lens fogged up for a while. A butterfly quickly decided to camp out on Paige’s head.
Daniel took most of the pictures of this exhibit.
Here we learned about a Citrus Swallowtail caterpillar. Its strategy for staying alive is to look like bird dung and when you touch it, it rears its head and shoots out reddish orange tentacles and an odor that will curl your hair (imagine an odor as you note the reddish orange “tentacles” on the head).
As we finished our visit, a butterfly finally landed on me. Yes, it’s on my rear end.
My friend brought this back to me from France. It’s a complete reproduction (scale 1:7) of the Bayeux Tapestry. She brought it just in time because the boys began studying this part of history last week.
The book is made of one long paper, folded into 11-inch sections.
I don’t know why it’s called a tapestry. It’s an enormous embroidery project that tells the story Harold, William, and the Battle of Hastings where the Normans conquered the Saxons.
The book reaches across the length of our back patio, which is as wide as our house.
I decided that the boys needed to gain an appreciation for the magnitude of this tapestry, so they are doing an art history project this week. We traced the portion of the tapestry where Harold is killed. (If you’re going to ask boys to work with thread and fabric, it had better be something violent.)
They work a little bit each day.
Real men must learn appreciation for beauty and history and gain practical skills.
What can we say? We love them. They are our ancestors (Danes, Finns, Swedes) but we try to overcome violent and plundering tendencies in our own lives.
