Posts

October’s Adventures in Homeschooling

Last year we began homeschooling Lucy (8), Hattie (6), Beatrice (3), and Arlo (1). 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.

Anatomy and Physiology:

For October we did a whole anatomy and physiology exploration because – skeletons!
Our favorite layered body puzzle. We all really love this, lovely wood pieces.

I picked up this cool skeleton model at Target on clearance a few years ago. Its great for learning all the organs and bones.

Some magic school bus reading –

Looking at diagrams of the different systems of the body as well as playing with some cool body rubber stamps I found at a yard sale over the summer. (Book is the Firefly Visual Dictionary)

Art:

The girls helped me get my moon painted for my installation piece for the Children’s Museum in Denver.

And helped celebrate the closing of my time as Artist in Residence.

We learned about Leonardo Da Vinci and the Mona Lisa. Here is lucy with her Mona Lisa, smiling her Mona Lisa smile.

Harriet “painting the world blue” at the Children’s Museum’s VW bug installation.

 

Buzzy (and Lucy) painting at easels at the museum

Harriet putting on a shadow puppet show for Arlo

 

 

Lucy and I participated in Inktober (a fun instagram challenge to paint one ink sketch a day for the month of October)

Autumn Goodness:

We collected leaves and tried our hand at preserving them by dipping them in beeswax. Which we then made into a lovely wall hanging.

Collecting and breaking acorns to make acorn flour.

Learning about Andy Goldsworthy (watch this documentary if you haven’t!) and collecting a spectrum of leaves.

A trip to a local farm for fall festivities –

 

 

Our first snow of the year!

Enjoying the fallen leaves by making “leaf angels”

Apple picking!!

Halloween:

And alllllllll the halloween goodness.

Carving jack-o-lanterns

 

 

Howl-o-ween at Centennial Village

 

 

 

Lucy bobbing for an apple –

A trip to Pumpkin-Pickers-Paradise –

 

And we made our own scary movie – “Nightmare Mansion”! Complete with all kinds of cool special effects.

Making Halloween decorations

And our yearly reading of Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven (made better by pop up books)

India/Diwali:

Thanks to a delicious Top Munch box, we learned about Diwali and got to taste all kinds of traditional Indian snacks. (and dressed up in costumes…)

Making a mandala from rice and beans –

Coloring India on our giant world map –

Reading Club:

We had our very first Homeschool book club! Our book was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It was so so fun.

Homemade “golden ticket” invitations –

Picking out candy favors for the party at Rocket Fizz candy shop –

The whole crew with their candy sculptures! –

We ended the night with Chocolate fondue! (a melted river of Wonka’s chocolate)

 

 

Lucy’s homemade candy factory machine –   

Mazes and Labyrinths:

Visiting the corn maze (where we tried the Left hand on the wall trick, and it failed, ha ha because of this bridge in the middle!)

We tried it again at the pumpkin patches maze and this time it worked, phew.

 

A favorite game – Labyrinth! (Master Labyrinth is really fun too)

And we had a blast solving all the mysteries in Graham Bases “Mysterium” book

Electronics:

We got our first Tinker Crate in the mail and it was so fun! The girls built their own spin art machine! So well designed and educational! Can’t wait to do more of these. Thanks grandmama!!

We also have been having a blast with Snap Circuits – a very cool electronics kit for kids. This is Lucy making an FM radio! It worked!

 

Miscellaneous :

I missed posting this in August, but here is our yearly newspaper, the Coons Delivery

Harriet Orchard lost her first tooth!

The tooth fairy brought her this homemade doll – her name is Sky

The girls made a play dough feast out of a batch of homemade play dough we made.

And finally, we took the girls out to their first experience in really fancy dining at Acorn in Denver to celebrate my time at the Children’s Museum. They did a great job trying lots of new foods. Not a great photo, sorry, I was too busy snarfing down all the things…

September Ideas and Activities around the Theme “Animalia”

For this entire year I’ve been doing an at home curriculum with the family (Lucy 6, Hattie 3, Beatrice 10 months). Tim and I call the project “Abacus” and we’re sharing it each month for the fun, challenge, and community of it. Each month we choose a theme and then come up with a bunch of activities around that theme.
Read all about how to use this list and our heart behind this project here.
Explore past months themes here.

 

Growing up we had this book as a kid by Graeme Base called Animalia. It’s the basic idea of an ABC book taken to the next level – as many things that start with a letter as possible entertwined together on one page with catchy alliteration poetry. My dad and I would play a game where we would see how many things we could find that started with the letter on each page. It would be in the hundreds per page. Inspired by that book, this month’s theme is “ANIMALIA” – think the animal kingdom, animal alphabets, zoology, fables and more

 

September Dates to Take Note of:

September 7th –Labor Day
September 13th –Grandparents Day
September 19th –Talk Like a Pirate Day
September 21st – International Peace Day
(We also have two little cuties who have September birthdays)

Local: Greeley, CO events:

September 12th –Chalk-a-Lot at UNC (a fun family art event – they will be trying to break the world record for longest continuous chalk drawing)
September 12th –Potato Day at Centennial Village (one of my favorites)
September 19th – Poudre River Trail-a-Thon – we haven’t ever been to this, but it sounds great!

List of Ideas and Inspiration for ANIMALIA:

FILMS:

There are so many good family movie nights here…

Dr. Doolittle (I prefer the old one of course)
doctor_dolittle_1
Milo and Otis
We Bought a Zoo
Babe
Homeward Bound (Old version is called the Incredible Journey)
Gorillas in the Mist

BOOKS:

Animalia by Graeme Base
5891875_orig
Animalium by Katie Scott & Jenny Broom
61WwdERNfVL._SX363_BO1,204,203,200_
All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot
51n5GyrBy8L._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_

…and oh so many other great books from the perspective of animals (Redwall, Wildwood, Charlottes Web, etc…)

SCIENCE & NATURE:

Learn about animal taxonomy (remember “Kings Play Cards On Fat Green Stools”?)
tree
Animal tracks – maybe make plaster casts of them
Woodland_nursery_art_animal_tracks_1024x1024
Learn about endangered and extinct animals – could make little clay models of them
117808-004-BE1D7BE5

ART:

Funny animal combinations
74bff5032541ed17ef46798e12593e9c
Painting and drawing animals – there are some great books on this. Learning how to simplify to basic shapes is a great lesson.
51aD3sLdpHL._SX389_BO1,204,203,200_

Help the girls Sew little felt animals
il_fullxfull.747610104_eucx

OUTINGS:

Take a trip to the Zoo (or wild animal sanctuary)

LITERATURE:

Read animal fairy tales – three little pigs, billy goats gruff, etc.
613vB7Zq91L._SX258_BO1,204,203,200_
Learn about Aasops Fables
aesops-fables

MUSIC:

Listen to and talk through the Carnival of Animals by Saint-Saëns – also this Ap might be a fun add on too

screen480x480

 

DRAMA:

Play Animal charades
charades-header
Put on a play of one of Aasops Fables or a Nursery Rhyme
vl-curtain-embellishments
Make animal hand shadow puppets

June Ideas and Activities Around the Theme “Collection”

Giants and Pilgrims’ “Abacus” is a creative home curriculum centered on a monthly theme. This month’s theme is Collection! All the bits and pieces that make up a whole, taxonomy, pressed flowers, and collected works of literature, poetry, and music. We wanted a theme that lent itself to playing outside, picking flowers, and long evening walks.

Read all about how to use this list and our heart behind this project here.

Below is our comprehensive activities list. Choose a couple to do with your kids to enrich the month or try to accomplish the whole list! What would you add? I would love to hear your ideas and plans for the month.

Dates in June to take note of/celebrate:

 June 14 = Flag Day
June 21 = Summer Solstice & Father’s Day

Our List of “Collection” Activities:

SCIENCE:

Learn about Scientific Naming and taxonomy.
Herbaria - Johnson exsiccata

A perfect way to go about that seems to be to make a little collection of pressed flowers


Learn about Curiosity Cabinets and make one – I will probably pick up some old drawers from the Habitat for Humanity ReStore and we will use the magic of hot glue to put it together.
CuriosityF
Looking at curiosity cabinets ties in nicely with the art of Joseph Cornell and his shadow boxes
 

GEOGRAPHY:

In celebration of Flag day, look at all the different flags from around the world, and sew our own flags to put on the treehouse (or summer club house of sorts).
(For slightly older kids, the book Swallows & Amazons, is great)

Collection-national-flags

Speaking of the treehouse, we want to have our second annual sleep over out there – enjoying the sounds of the night, the stars, and the summer air.
IMG_9814

Take lots of lovely summer evening walks – and find little treasures.
DSC_0067

I used some old letterpress trays I had laying around to make our “Collection” themed wall. My plan is to fill up the wall with all sorts of found treasures over the course of the month.

IMG_4865

HISTORY:

Have mom share some of her love of button collecting with the girls. So many tidbits of history and folklore. The buttons have so many stories to tell. Check out her fun etsy shop here. She is also about to release a new site called “House of Button” that should be pretty neat.
buttonsbest

Visit the Build Frontiers exhibit at the Greeley History Museum (and of course play with legos)
603832_10153139837429187_5842496359310328894_n

ART/CRAFT:

Draw lots of collections of tiny items (hopefully we will be making these into a calendar that will be available here!)

Visit the Denver Art museum (now free for kids) to see the collected works of Joan Miro exhibit with studio time (through June 28) (we didn’t make it last month, so I thought I would roll it over 🙂
MIro_logo_hero

Last month at Denver Union Station I saw a little collection of hand cut paper silhouettes. I think I am going to start my own collection of them. Isn’t this fabulous!
silhouette_art_country_living

For that matter, I also want to continue adding to my collection of tiny art – I love this because they are small, I can afford originals of some of my favorite artists. Note to my artist friends, I would really love to curate our own version of the “Enormous Tiny Art Show” if anyone is interested 🙂
IMG_4923

Revisit the Collection a Day blog that Lisa Congdon did in 2010 – this is just lovely to browse through and get inspiration from.

Documenting:

Jump back into our Journaling – specifically using my sister Katie’s awesome tiny squares method. She just adds one each day, or to capture a little moment she wants to remember. #documenteachday
10968366_10153177583113690_4483944923264886664_n

PLAY:

Have a tea party with using my teacup collection – probably for Lucy’s 6 year old woodland fairy birthday!
IMG_4924

MUSIC:

Listen to Ars Moriendi by The Collection
url

The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra – Moonrise Kingdom
41nkU-zs0OL._SY300_
Curate a Curiosity Cabinet Playlist

WATCH:

Indiana Jones
We Bought a Zoo

READ:

I want to read tons and tons. That is what summer is about for me. Lazy days filled with quiet reading.
We will definitely be participating in our libraries summer reading program. Their theme this year is “Super Heros”.

crop_Newsletter-header_2015

For Grown Ups:
Collected famous stories – I am really interested in trying out some of this curated list from Powell Books.
landing-short-list-2014
This list also has some I would love to read –
landing-page-25-books-2014

For Kids:

Read Collections of Nursery Rhymes, short stories, and poems

Read the Borrowers by Mary Norton (they collect all the tiny things we don’t use)

the_borrowers

Read lots of books from Jan Brett’s extensive collection and then go to her show at the Fort Collins Contemporary Art Museum.banner_Brett-2015