Bison Paintings

 Banana Boy

 Pepper

 Sunshine

We got this fun idea from this blog.  I thought they were so cute, and the kids are always begging to do art. 

I did some sample bison and then the kids did theirs.  When they went to put their paintings together, I shared some of my bison with them.  BB's two front bison are his own.  BB decided to add a bison skull and a rock to his, as well.  He was initially very frustrated at his bison drawings, but once we got to the painting and gluing part, he took off.  I love how he cut one in half to make it walking into the scene.

Pepper's bison are all her own.  She hates drawing animals, but I think her little bison turned out really well.  Better than my childish stick calves!  Her lying-down bison is also really well done.

Sunshine's two HUGE bison are his own.  I like his sun and how he remembered to tuck the feet of the back bison behind the head of the front one.

Friday Art

We are studying world history this year.  Daisy and Pepper are doing Mystery of History and Banana Boy is doing Sonlight's Core 1.

Along with Core 1, I have added a craft/art package called Hands-On History for Core 1 from Handle on the Arts.  The first week's project was to do a cave painting.  The curriculum came with a printable art print of a cave painting with which you do a mini art-study.  We talked about the animals we saw in the painting and some of the elements the artist used when making the painting.

Then we got to make our own cave paintings!

Banana Boy and Pepper are here in the cave.  The wall is not very smooth, nor is it even. It slopes downward and has some big bumps. They brought along a hide to sit on and two torches so they could see.

Pepper's painting

Banana Boy's painting

One of the wonderful things about Mystery of History is how it ties Bible history in with world history so you get the whole picture.  We've been reading about Jubal and Tubal-Cain.  Their story illustrates that early man was not just a grunting caveman, but and intelligent being who lived in a civilization with the leisure time for music and the skills and wisdom for metal-work.

So while we study cave art, we don't by any means believe that all early people lived in caves.  Certainly, some of them did.  This project at least gave us an appreciation for how uncomfortable it is to draw in a cave in the dark!  Early man was a determined guy!

Just Like That, She's Multiplying

So Pepper, who cried all morning (and for the last 3 months, for that matter) showed her multiplication pictures to her dad.  And because explaining something to someone else is the surest way to know it yourself, she now KNOWS all the facts for which we drew pictures.

From the kitchen, where they are rolling truffles, she calls to me, "Mom?  What's 8 x 8?"

"You know that one!"

"Oh, 64!  I made 66 mint truffles!"

And she's cracking up because I caught her KNOWING her multiplication facts.

Just like that, she's multiplying AND using it in real life.

Pepper Gets Excited About School

Pepper is cavorting about this morning doing her math. Why? She is measuring.

She started out rustling through the broom closet for a meter stick. Strangely, our meter stick is 91 cm long.

Next she found some shiny gold ribbon and made a meter string.

She had to check whether she (her height), her armspan, her desk (this one was funny because it's our dining room table) all were longer or shorter than a meter.

Then she had to estimate the length of the chalkboard (our whiteboard) and the classroom and measure.

The next page switched over to centimeters and she had to estimate and then measure her math book, her pencil, eraser, a drinking straw.

She studied each item carefully and studied the ruler. She's a good estimator! She was within a centimeter each time.

Next she needed a glass of water to drink with her straw.

Next she had to drink with her straw through each of her fangs.

Next she had to find her meter string. "Oh, Meter String, where are you??? Where have you gone??" she sang.

She's currently working on her 4th or 5th page, cheerfully.

"I'm going to measure things that are a meter when I'm done!" she just informed me.

Go, Pepper.

Lest You Think About Calling CPS on Pepper...

She and Banana Boy are examining our presidents poster. She's quizzing him on presidents. He found George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, as any good American child should.

Next, she's giving him clues. "Find James Buck an an. He has fives by his name. Warmer....Colder.....Warmer... Warmer!!!! YETH!"

"Find Calvin Coolidge. It starts with a C. Two C's."

Banana Boy wants to see that Marak Obama's picture, but then he reasons to himself, "I guess he's not on there yet because he didn't get there yet and they (all the other presidents) were there for lots of times."

Then they are talking about Theodore Roosevelt. BB asks why there are mountains in the background of his picture and Pepper explains,

"He loved animals and he made lots of parks because people were shooting the animals and then they had a place to live."

*I* didn't teach her that! We haven't even gotten to TR yet. She picks all that up from reading books.

Also this week, in Pepper's world:

She colored her December calendar (and filed all the rest of them in her binder), filled out the dates and announced there were STILL 35 days until Christmas! All with no help from me.

She quizzed BB on sight words. We have a bunch of them hanging on the kitchen cabinet.

She opened the Penguin set and had an Antarctic penguin party.

She worked on discovering whether sums and products of numbers were odd or even. This is in her Miquon Blue book. So for example, she works
2+2, 4+6, 12+30 and so on, a whole column of them and determines whether the sum is odd or even. Eventually, it asks her to decide whether ANY even + even combination will always be even (yes, it will) and then she has to make up 3 or 4 of her own problems following the pattern. She followed this same pattern for odd + even, even + odd and odd + odd, then odd x odd, odd x even, even x odd and even x even. Because of my head cold, it makes even ME dizzy thinking about it.

She and I also played Bananagrams together, making just one puzzle instead of each our own.

If you have grade schoolers and you have not yet purchased this game, PUT IT ON YOUR CHRISTMAS LIST! We LOVE this game.
It's fast to play and anyone can join in. You turn all the tiles face down in the middle of the table and each person picks 21 tiles (for 2-5 players, fewer if there are more players). Someone says "split" and everyone turns over all their tiles in front of them. You each begin building your own Scrabble/Crossword style puzzle using just your tiles. If you get stuck with a bad tile, you can "dump" and exchange it for 3 new ones. Whenever anyone has used all their tiles, they say "peel" and everyone picks one new tile. The first one to use up all their tiles after the middle tiles have been used up says, "bananas" and wins.

Banana Boy gets his own set of 21 tiles and makes 3 letter words, but he's not required to connect them together. It's great for his beginning reading and spelling. Pepper and Daisy are pretty evenly matched, since Pepper is a natural speller and Daisy is not. I am fast at using my tiles, but rather than using my last tile and calling "peel" right away, I stop and help out whomever looks stuck. I spend as much time helping the kids as I do making my own puzzle, but we don't play competitively anyway.

The girls got out their Hands & Hearts Early American kit this week and made pomanders. The skewer, the cloves and the string and ribbon were all included. We just had to supply the apples.

We also discussed the importance of correct spelling and how changing the spelling of a word changes the vowel sound from long to short or vice versa. We explored the difference between exploding the CODE and exploding a COD, being sure you are eating a SNACK and not a SNAKE, and SCRAPPING, not SCRAPING your photographs.

She also colored a picture of Lewis and Clark and read about 4 million books about Sacagawea.

So there you have it. A week in Pepper's unschooling world.

A Few More Catch Up Photos

Teaching Sunshine about the color red

From SCHOOL SEPT OCT

Helping Banana Boy with math

From SCHOOL SEPT OCT

I hate math blocks (unless I am not using them for math)

From SCHOOL SEPT OCT

I love math blocks when they are not for math!!!!

From SCHOOL SEPT OCT

And One More

Unedited (because I think their spellings are cute). By Pepper.

Hi! I'm Spider and this is My Adventure.

Last night I found an open window with no sceen so I jumped out. After I got out I started to wander around. First I explored the woods and then I went to the front yard. I was walking along then I saw catnip and I started to walk towards it. I was trotting across the lawn when suddenly I heard Dad calling my name. I ignored him. But then I remembered: the love, my food, Pepper's Bed. And I went to the door and said, "meow."

More Unschooling with Pepper

Got a box from Timberdoodle in the mail today.  LOVE Timberdoodle!  I find the best treasures there.

 

Here is today's treasure:

 

Pepper and I have a lovely few moments together today.  The two big girls were off at Take Your Daughter to Work day with Dad.  Banana Boy was at preschool and Sunshine was napping.  Pepper and I got to break into the new puzzles. 

 

This human body puzzle is cool!  It's two-sided, nice and thick and not too easy, but not too hard, to put together.  Pepper spent a few minutes, once it was completed, matching the numbered body parts to their names at the bottom.  Ta Da!  Science!  Yay, Me!

 

 

Further Adventures of my Unschooler

The best way to motivate Pepper, I'm finding, is to assign something to Daisy.   Suddenly Pepper is all interested in the project and takes off on her own, doing way more than I would have asked of her or she would have done for me had I asked.

 

Daisy and I have been exploring colors in art.  We've moved on to the secondary colors and our first project was a symmetrical string painting.  The idea was to dip two strings in two different primary colors, lay them in a sheet of paper, fold the paper in half and pull the strings out.  The two primary colors would mix together, creating a secondary color.  And we could talk about symmetry as the halves were mirror images.

 

Of course, as soon as the paint came out, so did every kid in the house from Rosebud on down to Sunshine.  So everyone did the project.  Unfortunately, the red and the blue did NOT make a lovely shade of purple, but rather an ugly blackish color, so Daisy and Rose Bud will not get their paintings displayed here.

 

However, here are Pepper (yellow and blue make green) and Banana Boy's (yellow and red make orange) paintings:

 

Over the weekend, Pepper took it upon herself to do further work with secondaries after she found 3 primary paint pens in the paint drawer.  Here are her results (of which she was very proud!)

As I said, had I set before her the task of mixing and painting a picture using the secondary colors, it would have been like pulling teeth.  "I can't!  It's too hard.  I can't think of anything to paint!"  Left to her own devices, she did a beautiful job!  (That's an orange and a bunch of grapes near the top there)

 

 

Pepper Perseverance

 

I gave Daisy a test today on the states.  We've studied 12 so far, so I had her name them on a map, match the states and their postal abbreviations and write down their capitals.  She did fine, btw.

 

I didn't give Pepper anything.  I figure that at 7, if she is familiar with the names and has a vague idea of where they are, she's good.  Daisy, at age 9 should know all those things I mentioned above.

 

So Daisy took her test. 

 

Pepper, all on her own, copied from Daisy's test the state names and their capitals, counted them all and figured out their postal abbreviations (with some help) and noted them on her white board.

 

Now, had I assigned this, she would have pitched a glorious fit!  But because I didn't ask her to do anything, she did way more than I expected of her.

 

Sometimes less is more.