homeschool--cultural arts D27

Week D27.

Topic Artists: Norman Rockwell, Bev Doolittle, James Christenson

Students don't need an in depth knowledge of the artist and their life, just some basic facts. More important is to introduce them to the art work. Have them look at a picture and then describe it to you. They can pick their favorite piece and do their own version of it.

These artists are very interesting to students. Rockwell usually injects humor into everyday scenes, Doolittle camouflages figures into the painting for the viewer to find, and Christenson depicts magical worlds that appeal to the young imagination.

Rockwell: http://www.normanrockwell.com/

Doolittle: http://www.bevdoolittle.net/

Christenson: http://www.jameschristensen.com/

He did it!

Two months ago hubby gave me an IOU for my bday, well his bday was this week, last Sat I gave him a scope for his hunting rifle, but told him he couldn't use until he made good on the bookshelves he'd promised. By midnight that very day, I had my shelves. Men are funny critters.

Yay! Worth the wait. And you can see the floor in there, no more piles of books!

Let's see, since the last time I blogged:

Baseball is over, it's nice to have evenings free, although they had become sort of habit and hubby and I called them date night.

Hubby was in a motorcycle hill climb, took fifth in one class and fourth in another.

Oldest son went to scout camp for a week, he's almost Star rank now.

Second son played in the all-star baseball game.

Two neighbors found rattle snakes, Ewwww!!!!

Daughter had a sleepover bday party with ten girls, one went home the first hour with a broken ankle from stepping in a hole. They had fun though with water-balloons, tubing at the lake, and the usual nutty sleepover activities:

Champion of the "How-Many-Pretzels-Can-You-Fit-In-Your-Mouth" contest. Twenty-one I believe.

Make-overs, kind of. Beauty, eh?

homeschool--science D25

Week D25
Topic Reptiles

For science, go to the junior section of the library and check out all the interesting books on reptiles.

Here are worksheets on various reptiles: http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/reptiles/printouts.shtml

homeschool--cultural geography D24

Week D24
Topic: Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia

Once you have learned several countries, a fun game is to put the names on slips of paper in a hat and take turns picking them out and finding the country on an unlabeled map (you can print one off at http://www.eduplace.com/ss/maps/pdf/world_country.pdf).

sleep deprived and more racing

Saturday was another endurocross. At the one last month we got sunburns, this time we wrapped in sleeping bags to watch. Oldest son got a first place, hubby rode in pro class and finished somewhere in the middle. He rode too big of a bike, a YZ 450 was not made to go slow and enduro tracks are slow.

Matthew moves in for the pass.

Hubby on the rocks.

Little boys pretending to be big.

Little boys tired of sitting on the bleachers watching the race.

In between races.

Earlier in the week:

Tuesday: End of year soccer party. We ate pizza and played volleyball in the rain.

My 5yo asked me why some mothers are nice and let their children do whatever they want. I told him that if a mom lets her child do whatever they want they turn out bad. So I overheard him telling his older sis, “Nice moms have bad kids.” I know where I fall in his mind.

Wednesday: Started out as a typical day, cleaning, teaching, taking kids to baseball and scouts, at 9PM I thought I was done for the day. Then hubby got off the phone and said, "Let's go." One of hubby’s crews had poured a basement floor and after they did all the finish work and left, the rain pounded it into a mess. So hubby and I and one of the guys went up and fixed it up. They did all the hard work, I helped sprinkle water and cement where it was needed, replaced the rope on a power trowel (didn’t do it 100% correctly, although it was good enough to get it going), cleaned stuff, finally at 3:30 they didn’t need me and I tried to sleep in the truck for an hour (I get too cold when I sleep though, so didn't really sleep). As we did final clean up and turned off the work lights, we noticed how bright the sky was getting. We got home after 5AM.

Thursday: Thought I’d be sleeping all day, but only slept from six AM to ten AM, then a one hour nap a little later. The all-nighter messed up my sleep schedule, so although I have big black circles under my eyes, cannot sleep. Planted some of the garden. Took Matthew to get baseball pictures and watched a couple innings of the Babe Ruth game.

Friday: Finally fell asleep late last night and slept in, much better now. At tonight’s baseball game, Matthew popped a fly ball right into someone’s windshield, CRASH. Then he got a triple. They played in the rain, brrrrr. A high school friend came over to the game and invited us to the Mexican restaurant afterward. Most of the kids had stayed home, so it was just hubby and I and Matthew. Sometimes it is nice to give the kids one-on-one time.

no pictures this week

My digital camera went on the fritz, so no pictures of anything like the BBQ last Sunday with some people from NY hubby built a house for, or the visit with my brother and his family later that evening (the five year olds always have to have a wrestling match, my bro is a wrestler so his kid knows the moves, but my ds has three older bros, so it's an even match), or the hours of post hole digging the kids and I put in last weekend (in dirt as hard as concrete and full of rocks), or putting in the posts this weekend with hubby for the deer fence around the new garden, or sludgy black hands when I pulled off the power steering hose that went out in my vehicle (a teaching moment with my oldest ds--"Be sure to disconnect the negative terminal when working near the fan so you don't lose fingers or hands," "Dad would use a ratchet to twist this torque pulley up and get off the belt, but see, a broom handle leverages it just fine.")

Maybe next week.

homeschool--cultural arts D23

Week D23
Topic Modern Orchestra Music

http://library.thinkquest.org/22673/orchestra.html

If you have iTunes, click on iTunes store and search for "movie orchestra" to hear some theme songs played by different orchestras, then you can look up that orchestra and sample some of their other music (like Cincinnati Pops Orchestra). Soundtracks are often by orchestras, like the Braveheart soundtrack by the London Symphony Orchestra.