September’s Adventures in Homeschooling

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Last year we began homeschooling Lucy (8), Hattie (6), Beatrice (3), and Arlo (10 months). We’re including this on our Giants & Pilgrims blog as all our family adventures seem to impact our art & music so much! Also, we just like sharing the stories. So we’ll be sharing posts on the themes we’ve been covering each month and calling the adventure “ABACUS”! Our hope is that these posts will help spark creative direction and inspiration for your family as well as giving us somewhere to be document and record our experiences.

I am a little behind and trying to get caught up (four kids man…) so this month is mostly just a picture journal. Enjoy the show!

School and ABCs:

One day a week homeschool enrichment program started up for Lucy and Harriet (her first time!)

Baby schooling for Arlo ha ha –

Letter play for Beatrice

Front porch reading/tea time

Beautiful new alphabet tracing board from Treasures from Jennifer

All sorts of alphabet play (An Artist’s Alphabet by Messenger, Animalia by Graeme Base)

Animal name alphabet matching

Such a weird and silly book!

Africa/Geography/History:

Did a little general Africa study this month

Building sand and rock maps as part of our history study.

Architecture:

We read several fun books about famous building and then made our own popsicle stick houses – which turned into troll houses and led to endless play with their tiny troll dolls (“Branch” and “Lily”)

 

The girls also built some epic block structures

Art:

Buzzy created her first paintings.

Lucy had a great time drawing fairies

They also visited me at the Children’s museum and had a great time exploring all the cool things there. Here is Lucy trying out my stage art piece

A little “Greeley Gothic”

I sorted all my old jewelry making supplies which led to several days of jewelry making for the girls.

And lastly, we found a really cool velvet embossing kit at the thrift store. Such a fun and easy process!

Kansas and the State Fair:

We took a mid month trip back to Kansas and spent the week having a blast at the State Fair there.

Riding all the rides –

The beautiful quilts on display in the Domestic Arts Building –

Experiencing what it is like to milk a cow –

Sunflowers!

Fun on the giant slide

Arlo meeting Daisy the sheep

Math:

Our very favorite math books – Beast Academy. So So fun.

In Beast Academy we are learning all about shapes, so we played with Tangrams

and some Teddy Bear math –

Music:

Piano lessons started up – although practicing is made a little more difficult by younger siblings.

So that is when we have to get out the tiny piano

Listening to a marching band parade in KS

We listened to Classical Kids “Vivaldi: Ring of Mystery” and learned about different instruments in the orchestra and also learned about the Recycled Orchestra of Cateura – so neat!!

PE:

Playing mini golf in Hutchinson, KS!

Dance classes kicked off and somebody is finally old enough to have her own class!

Autumn Fun Outside:

Learning how to fish with Grandpa Ed

Picking apples

Enjoying the animals at a petting zoo in downtown Greeley during Ag Fest

Poudre river trail races

We read My Side of the Mountain which led to all kinds of nature collecting, learning about eating in the wild, and tree walks to find edible nature finds.

Lucy also picked up whittling

Seed Study:

I love this series of books by Aston/Long – This month we focused on A Seed is Sleepy and had a lovely afternoon collecting all different kinds of seeds.

Garden Gathering:

We enjoyed the last fruits and veggies of the garden.

Birthdays:

We have two important birthdays in September. Buzzy turned 3 and Harriet turned 6!

 

My Time as “Artist in Residence” at the Denver Children’s Museum, Fall 2017

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Today is my last official Open Studio as the artist in residence at the Children’s Museum in Denver! (If you are in the area, please come say hello!)

The three months have flown by! I still have some finishing touches to do on my leave behind art piece and get to finish off my stay at the museum with a party on the 25th of October. But, I wanted to write this post and share a few of my favorite moments from the past three months with you and also invite you to the closing reception. Getting to be part of the magic that the Children’s Museum staff creates on a daily basis was such a gift and getting to play alongside kids and families and create art together was a dream. I’m still pinching myself that I got the job. Enjoy flipping through these photos!

I’ll see you Wednesday, October 25th at 6 PM! Here’s the info for the event.

__________

A giant color collage we made on my first open studio day.

Making mountains out of words –

Painting eclipses the day before the great American eclipse with visitors from around the world getting ready to head to Wyoming.

Museum goers’ tiny contributions to my leave behind piece

Painting stars –

Here is a nice little write up they did about me –

Creating a blue zoo –

Working on my “leave behind art” piece

   

A particularly adorable visitor testing out my stage for me

A little corner of the studio –

Planning for my family workshop where we made little table top paper theaters

One of the kid’s finished theaters

A workshop with Kindergarteners making shadow puppet monsters inspired by “In the Hall of the Mountain King”

And more work on the leave behind piece…

August Homeschooling Journal Catch up…

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This is a homeschooling photo journal of Lucy (8), Hattie (5), Beatrice (2), and Arlo (8 months). We’re including this on our Giants & Pilgrims blog as all our family adventures seem to impact our art & music so much! Also, we just like sharing the stories. So we’ll be sharing posts on the themes we’ve been covering each month and calling the adventure “ABACUS”! Our hope is that these posts will help spark creative direction and inspiration for your family as well as giving us somewhere to be document and record our experiences.

Escape to the Lake:

Photos from “camp” at Under the Radar’s Escape to the Lake – a festival Tim and I get to play at in late August.

Rock climbing wall –

Lucy helped Tim lead “Rootbeer & Hymns” on her little red ukelele

Kayaking on the lake –

Playing in the sand –

A stop off on the way home to visit Mark Twain’s boyhood home

And a little bakery education –

First Day of Homeschool and ABC’s:

The night before our first day of homeschool. I got the kids each a new library bag from Out of Print Books.

Making a set of felt alphabet cards together –

A first day of school picture on the front porch – can’t win them all 🙂

Harriet practicing her letter sounds

Farmyard:

One of our themes for August was everything Farm! We kicked it off with a really fun visit to Deanna Rose Farmstead Park in Overland Park Kansas.

Pony rides –

Bottle feeding baby goats –

Tractor racing –

Picking grapes at our own tiny farm –

Homemade farmers market –

Making their own play farm (complete with bunny pen)

Sneaky farm math –

Pig pancakes to kick off our Charlottes Web read-aloud –

Cutting practice –

“Milking” a cow –

Play at our own farm park in Greeley –

Eclipse:

All sorts of wonderful Eclipse fun since we were very close to the zone of Totality –

Eclipse paintings –

A piece of artwork I painted live at a house concert –

Viewing the eclipse –

crescent shaped shadows

Eerie light mid day –

Art/Art History:

Amazing art installation at UNC gallery –

“Cave explorers” discovering the cave paintings at Lascaux

   

History:

Before digging into our fun new history book we did a little looking back at the kids histories in their keepsake albums.

And we did an interview of Grandma Didi to look at our own family history –

Geography:

For Geography we tried out a TopMunch box (snacks, music, and history curated from somewhere in the world) – this month was all about Paris

Reading and Robots:

More robot building for this little engineer –

And SO SO many books read –

All of us enjoyed getting back to our morning tea time on the front porch with stories –

October 2017 Free Calendar Desktop and iPhone Wallpaper

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Happy October friends! Goodbye summer!

I been enjoying reading this Mary Oliver Poem called Song for Autumn

In the deep fall
don’t you imagine the leaves think how
comfortable it will be to touch
the earth instead of the
nothingness of air and the endless
freshets of wind? And don’t you think
the trees themselves, especially those with mossy,
warm caves, begin to think
 
of the birds that will come — six, a dozen — to sleep
inside their bodies? And don’t you hear
the goldenrod whispering goodbye,
the everlasting being crowned with the first
tuffets of snow? The pond
vanishes, and the white field over which
the fox runs so quickly brings out
its blue shadows. And the wind pumps its
bellows. And at evening especially,
the piled firewood shifts a little,
longing to be on its way.

 

Much love,

Betony

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