Monday, February 27, 2012

A Day in the Life

This day I decided to only focus on art and geography.   That is a bit unusual for us, but one of the perks of homeschooling is being able to have an unusual day every once in a while.
 
5:45  Woken up by teens leaving for seminary.  Went back to sleep after they left at 6:05.

6:45   Wake up , check emails, and start this blog post!

7:00  Wake up E-R and I-E

7:15 Wake up E-R and I-E.   It sticks this time. 

7:15—7:45  E-R and I-E eat breakfast of popcorn and herb tea while I lounged around—a morning person I am not!

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7:45—8:00  I put in a load of laundry and fold and put away two other loads that have been sitting on my bed for a few days.    A friend from church has been considering homeschooling her daughter.  One of her concerns –when will I do the laundry?   I don’t have any answers!   That’s not something I’m on top of by any means.
 
8:05—We are all in the living room ready to start our school week.  (Yesterday was a holiday).   E-R discovers I will be taking pictures and decides more grooming is in order.   While she does that I get lunch started by toasting the rice and putting it in the rice cooker.

8:10—We are again in the living room ready for the day.   With planners in hand, we plan out our week.

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Doesn’t she look ready to go?


8:25—9:10   We are reviewing our geography we’ve done so far.  The girls work during this time on drawing maps.  These are the maps they’ve reviewed enough times to draw from memory.

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Arrggg!  We forgot to put out the trash bins, so a two minute break while we run them out to the alley .  I look up our art websites to make sure they were still there as well as run out to pick up our Abundant Harvest box while the girls finish drawing their maps.

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9:10-9:20—The girls fool around while I put away our food.

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9:20-9:45—We read about the textile art of the Kuna Indian, mola,  on several online sites.
 
9:45—10:50 Girls gather their supplies and set to work creating their own molas.  As the girls work with their art projects, I wipe down the kitchen, wash some dishes, switch out laundry, cook lunch, chop veggies for supper, and help our oldest son, N, locate the tape measure so he could hang a curtain rod. 

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10:50—11:20 I sit down to work on art with E-R and I-E.  We all finish our projects and clean up. (Read more about the process here.)

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11:20—12:30 Lunch. I eat, take a quick shower, read my scriptures, and clean up from lunch while,   I-E and E-R eat and then head outside to check on the butterflies, jump rope,  and run around.

12:30—1:00  Read about Picasso’s life and look at examples of his different periods of painting.
 
1:00—The girls sit down to work on their own cubism project while I make a weekly menu and shopping list. 

1:45—4:00 I leave to pick up my oldest daughter, A-M, run some errands, and go grocery shopping before returning home to find art projects completed and supper started! 

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E-R's cubism project

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 I-E's cubism project


A day in our homeschool life.  

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Saturday, February 25, 2012

Week 21


We had a short week because of our President Day’s holiday.

Tuesday we reviewed geography and then worked on art for the rest of the day.   Art has recently gone by the wayside, so I decided it would be a great way to kick off our week.    Our Molas projects turned out quite well. 

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E-R’s Molas

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My Molas
and
I-E’s Molas

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On Wednesday we started the last book in the Singapore Primary math series.   (I’m going to miss Singapore—It has served us well). And in true Singapore style, it started off with an awesome exploration exercise.

First, measure the perimeter of  a circular object. 

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Then trace that same perimeter on a piece of paper.

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Cut out the tracing.
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Fold in half.
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Measure the fold line. 
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Repeat with various sized circular objects.
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While keeping track of perimeters and fold lines.
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After measuring and comparing the perimeters and fold lines, E-R and I-E determined the perimeters were about 3 times as long as the fold lines thus discovering pi.  Our new vocabulary radius, diameter, circumference, and pi. 

Thursday we focused on the Hapsburg Family enjoying this awesome website.  E-R also had her engineering lego class.  This week the focus was on center of gravity.

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Friday was a short day.  After Shakespeare class, we took the afternoon off to get ready for A-M’s 16th birthday party.  

We celebrated on Saturday with some fancy food and fancy dresses.

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Friday, February 24, 2012

Family Culture

 

It’s a funny thing to think about how different everyone’s family appears.  I use to think that there was only one right way to be a family—of course that would have been my way!   Now I realize a family’s dynamic is based on their own individual culture rather than how right or wrong they are.   Read my article about family culture over at Latterday Homeschooling.

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Molas, the Textile Art of the Kuna People of Panama


Molas is a textile art of a group of native people of Panama called the Kuna.   It involves reverse applique.  Two or more layers of cloth are sewn together after the top layer is cut away to show the under layers of fabric.   Molas are also often embroidered.  Each piece is unique and may depict everyday nature, legends, or even political stories.  
I found several sites online to get us started on our study of molas.
This first one from the Museum of Anthropology in Missouri has a brief overview of molas, and the National Museum of the American Indian’s  website shows pictures of traditional molas created at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
This travel site has excellent pictures of molas being created today along with an interesting article suitable for kids all about this art form.
We used paper to create our molas.   First decide how many layers your molas will have and which colors you will use.  

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Next plan your design. 
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Cut, layer, and glue. 
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We found a hole punch made an interesting pattern.
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  Molas!

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