Before I Check Out for the Night

Okay, that's about all the updating I can do for now. I have more coming, hopefully sooner rather than later. Before I go, though, I thought I'd do some update cheating and give you links to personal posts I wrote for my America Jane blog. Since these are more personal, I'll share them here too.

The first link is to my book review of Tear Soup, an amazing book on grieving for kids. This was given to us by a friend. If you follow the link, you can read what this book has meant for the boys.

The second isn't really about the boys, but since you guys are my friends too you might be interested. :) Thanks to my dear hubby, I've now tried my hand at painting and drawing. This post is about my first painting workshop. There will be a drawing post forthcoming. Eventually. Here's a sneak peek at one of my drawings in progress:

Lastly, I want to give a big plug for Ben.

Chances are, most of you have already been contacted by Ben about this. If you haven't, or if you just need a reminder (hint hint, LOL), please follow the link to learn about Ben's upcoming trip to Washington, D.C. and how you can help him raise the funds for his tuition. (It ain't cheap.)

We have a week to go and every little bit helps, truly!

You can sponsor (100% of the donation goes to his tuition) or you can buy raffle tickets for the 70/30 raffle where 70% of funds raised goes to his tuition and the remaining 30% goes to three winners.

Even if you can't make a donation, please do check out his page anyway. It's a pretty neat experience he's going to have. :)

School is in Session

Sort of.

This summer we're doing something a little different. Even though I'm pretty big on keeping summers unstructured, every Tuesday for a little more than half the day, the kids and I are playing school.

That might sound like a big project, but other than the initial preparation, it's been easy and fun. Since the kids and I enjoy it, it's been a good bonding experience. And since I feel like my kids are already getting a great education at their schools, anything else I add onto it is just a bonus, so there's no pressure there either.

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Dirty faces are acceptable:

Hmmm, I guess it's hard to see, but trust me, his face was dirty.

Dry hair is optional:

Tomorrow is the third time we'll be doing it, so here's a little snippet about the first two Tuesdays.

The goal is to start school at 8:30. (The first week we were a little late, but last week we did better.)

We start with the pledge, putting out the flag, and a prayer. (At the end of our first day, I asked the kids how they liked it. John and Chris both gave me an "Awesome!" but Ben said "So, so." "Uh oh," I thought. "Which parts didn't you like?" I asked. "The pledge," he said. For Pete's Sake. Chris seconded that, but I think he was just saying that because Ben was saying it. So we only do the Pledge every other week. If I were really homeschooling them, the Pledge would not be an option. But for this, I really don't care.)

They each have a folder, a small notebook that we use for journal prompts, and a three subject notebook for work. Here they are, ready to go:



They do "seatwork" which I've put in their folders ahead of time, while I pull them aside one at a time to go over the goal charts:

The charts are one of the things I planned we're not following through on like I'd hoped, but that's okay. We're keeping what works and letting the rest go. Another thing I planned was a "Person of the Week" lesson, but by the time I get to that part of the schedule, I'm feeling done.

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Anyway, after seat work we have 10 minutes for journaling. When we're finished they can share if they like, but they don't have to. (So far, they've been excited to share.)

Then we do a Geography lesson. Academically, this is the only area I'd say I have goals in. But since my goal is "I want them to have a mental picture of the world before they hit high school," there's really not a lot of pressure. So far they know the continents, oceans and seas, (I actually taught them this last September, so this was just review the first week) and we've discussed basic geography stuff like longitude, latitude, the equator, arctic/anarctic circles, etc. My plan is to study countries one region at a time, not moving on until we've mastered where we're at.

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Right now we're working on North America. I expect we'll be in North America for awhile. Tomorrow I plan on reading them a couple children's books about Canada and Mexico, and watching a children's video about the Caribbean. I want them to have some sense of what these places are like, in addition to knowing their place on a map.

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They also each get a filled in map and corrresponding blank map which they put in different sections in their 3-section notebooks. They're building their own atlases which they can also use as a study tool as we progress.

Following the Geography lesson, we do some sort of active game, followed by recess. Here's a pic from a game we played last week. I put numbers 1-20 around the yard, and then several strips of paper in a bowl with a series of numbers on them (i.e. "8 - 17 - 3") and they'd have to race to those numbers. It was good sequencing work for Chris and just fun for John and Ben. I've kept the cards and plan on creating variations of this. (I'm thinking math equations, where they have to run to the answer, or questions like, how many continents are there, etc.)

After recess I let them have a snack while we play the table top game. They LOVE this. This is their chance to test their geography knowledge, and earn points. Earn enough points, get a "book buck." Later this summer I'll take them to the used book store to "spend" their bucks.

After this it's usually lunch time. After lunch we'll work a logic problem together, and then do some sort of activity. Last week we did a fun art project using prompts.

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I separated the kids so they couldn't see what the others were doing, then I gave instructions like "draw four lines from one edge to any other edge" and "draw four circles" etc. It was fun to see how different the finished products were:

When Daddy got home, he wanted to do it too before he saw what theirs looked like.

We enjoyed this project so much, we're doing it again tomorrow. I collected two "prompts" from everybody, so it will be different. This time I'm playing too.

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We're generally done around 1:00 or so. I've told the kids to plan on 3:00, just in case. Last week we took a "field trip" to the library after school. I originally had more ambitious field trips in mind, but we'll see if we actually do them or not. :)

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Anyway, getting ready from week to week doesn't really take me that long. Less than an hour, I'd say. So it's just been a fun thing for us to do. Once school starts, I'll still give them a 30 minute geography lesson and do a table top game (which they're very excited about). Me too. I'd like my kids to really know their geography. I'm refreshing my knowledge too, while we're at it. :)

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So that's our big activity this summer. A LOT more than we usually do (which is nothing). ;)

Jackson Pollack Inspired Art Project

One of the art projects I wanted to do this summer was inspired by Jackson Pollack. It wasn't until we were actualy doing it that I realized we weren't doing it the Pollack way at all, LOL. (Yes, I do realize that I'm a WEE bit late in posting this - it's been sitting in draft form forever.) Anyway, Pollack was the guy who drizzled paint on the canvas, walked all over his canvas, splattered paint on the canvas, flicked his cigarette ashes onto the canvas, and just about every other unorthodox thing you can think of.

His art isn't my favorite, let's get that straight right off the bat. But I can appreciate his skill in color, movement, and composition. People who don't like this stuff tend to say "it's just a big mess." But really, it was Pollack's understanding of artistic elements that keeps it from being a mess. I may not be crazy about the style, but he really did know what he was doing.
Anyway, this was the project I needed the marbles for. We also used balls of various sizes for variety. While I was setting everything up, this is what Ben painted...

...using not a paintbrush, but a ball...



Hee hee. Anyway, here's our paint trays and marbles...




The marbles didn't roll around as easily as I anticipated. That was when I realized Pollack didn't use marbles, he drizzled. Oh well. Anyway, this did get a little messy:








Christopher's final product:

Ben's:

John's:

Mine:


It turned out this was the only art project we did all summer, which makes me sad. Especially since it wasn't as fun as I thought it would be. The kids seemed to like it, but I wanted my marble to roll better. Maybe I should have thinned out the paint or something. Hmm. Anyway, there were so many more projects I wanted to do with the kids, and still do. Maybe over Christmas break.
Want to try your hand at creating a Pollack inspired work of art? Click here for the virtual version. Seriously, do it. The entire screen is a blank canvas, and as you roll your mouse around, paint "drips" onto the canvas. Click to change colors. Whether you're into art or not, this is fun. My kids had a blast with it.

Here it is...

I really like this one. Consider it added to the collection. :) They are learning the sight word "the" so Chris wrote "the" on top.

And I'm pretty wiped from helping my mom unpack, so that's the extent of my blogging today.

Creatures, Beetles, and Boys, Oh My!

Between Julie's post about pink bows and shoelaces for the girls' soccer team, and Amy's post about sisters (including the clip for a song I've never even heard before) I thought I'd share what
my life is like.

One morning, John discovers a beetle on the back patio. It's on it's back, little legs flailing. Does John scream or come running to me that there's a bug? No, he does what any little boy would logically do. He grabs a piece of chalk and draws a circle around it.

Then he notices another beetle (I have no idea where these things came from) likewise on it's back, and he draws a circle around that one. He writes the word "one" next to the first circle, and "two" next to the other circle.

(These pictures were taken after the beetles were long gone.)

This sets off a coloring spree on my back patio. All three boys were happily drawing pictures and writing words, completely unpeturbed by the gross beetles in their midst. In fact, they drew a picture of a beetle:

Chris drew a picture of a "creature."

This is a favorite pasttime of his lately. He has a notebook filled with more than a dozen different drawings of creatures. For each, it is apparently my motherly duty to assure him that these creatures are "awesome" and "freaky."

You can tell this kid has older brothers. When John was his age, it was all Sesame Street and Clifford, play-doh and Little People castles. Not so for the younger brother of a nine-year-old. Ah well.

In school, Christopher's class had to draw a picture of an animal. The teacher then wrote underneath it the word for what they drew, and posted these on the bulletin board outside the classroom door.

I see why she labeled them, because with kids this young sometimes you can tell that's a picture of a "fish" but other times, you'd never know you were looking at a "lion."

There were lots of fish, dogs, rainbows, etc. There were two drawings of "Transformers" and I'd wager a guess that those artists have older brothers as well. But I'd say Chris had them all beat in the "I'm a BOY" department. What was the label underneath his picture?

"Creature with many arms."

And nary a pink bow to be found.

More Mandalas

I'm a little late in posting this, but I was inspired by that Mandala Madness site (see my mandala post from August) and decided to fill in one of their coloring pages. I started in the center, with no real plan, and just built it a layer at a time. It was fun and I want to do more.

I just went back to the Mandala Madness site, and it's now closed. You can still see all the old posts and download coloring pages, but she's not maintaining it anymore. I also found another cool mandala site. This lady uses a CD to trace the initial circle, and I like the idea of starting with something small. My mandalas are twice that size. She also has an easygoing, encouraging post about how to create your own mandala.

Fun!

Brian's Pig

Years and years and years ago, back when Brian was finishing up culinary school, he was given the opportunity to restart a restaurant inside the Lexington hotel in downtown Phoenix. The old restaurant had been closed down and was being refurbished by the owners. Brian was hired as Executive Chef and got to plan everything for the new restaurant, from establishing the menu to selecting the salt shakers (we bought an extra set for ourselves and still use them).

As I was going through old pictures, looking in vain for the soon-to-be-described pig, I found a bunch of pictures he took of their menu items. Honey, I'm hungry. Consider my order placed for the following items:




Thank you.

Anyway, one day Brian was taking a walk through the old restaurant while it was still being stripped down and refurbished. They were tossing a lot of junk, including one huge ceramic pig wearing a chef's outfit. Imagine those plain ceramic figurines you can buy at craft stores to paint, but a couple of feet tall. It was dirty, unpainted, and, well, a pig. Brian instantly fell in love with this pig - don't ask me why - and brought it home with him - don't ask me why.

Despite my dismay at our new "decoration," he made it clear that he loved the pig and intended to keep it. I made it clear it was never going to occupy any area of our home where people might actually see it. It lived on our back porch for many years. Periodically I'd point out the new dirt it had been collecting and suggest we pitch it, but he was adament. The pig stayed.

Can I just interrupt my narrative long enough to say that Brian is so rarely "adament" about anything. He's one of the most easy-going guys I know. What, I ask you, was the deal with this pig???

Anyway, about two years ago, he talked to my mom about having her paint it. They discussed what he wanted done and off she went with the pig. He was nervous. I was relieved. (Afterall, the blasted pig was gone, even if only temporarily.)

Brian waited. And waited. And waited. Every few months he would remind my mom about the pig, and they would talk again about what he wanted. They seemed to be discussing the same things each time, which always made him nervous about whether or not she'd remember exactly how he wanted it.

At last, at long last, just when he was ready to take the pig back unpainted and say "nevermind," she shows up one day and it's done!

Behold the glorious pig:

Check out that tail, hee hee.

If you can't tell, Brian really likes it. Me too. That's something I could actually live with in my kitchen. If only we could figure out where to put it.

Well, maybe in two more years...

Mandalas and Such

One day, while looking for something else online, I came across a blog called Mandala Madness. Even though it's a bit on the "fluffy" side for my taste, I still like it because I think Mandalas are really cool.

Check out one of the mandalas featured on the blog (Titled Peace, by an artist named Shirley Gibson):

Wow. That's just cool. Here's another one:




As a bonus, they also have stuff on labyrinths, which I also really like. (In fact, there's a labyrinth in the book I wrote.) Here's a few neat labyrinth pictures from the blog:

Rock Valley Labyrinth near Tintagel

Land's End Labyrinth near San Francisco

Chartres Cathedral Labyrinth, created around 1200 AD

Boston College Memorial Labyrinth, created in memory of those from BCM who died in the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Many claim that creating mandalas is psychologically healing and soothing. I don't know how scientifically based that is, but I know it's been really calming whenever I've tried it. There's no one right way to make a mandala. Here are some examples of mandalas created by regular people (not by an artist, as in the ones above):

A mandala can be detailed:




Or loose:







Basically, you start with a circle (or the intent of a circle) and go from there. You never know what you're going to get, which is half the fun. Here are a few of my own:





I haven't done this in years, but after finding this site, I'm itching to do it again. Since I don't have the patience for creating super detailed mandalas, I'm thinking of "cheating" and using one of the Mandala Madness coloring pages for that. Should be fun. :)