Some of Zoey's Sketches...

I am just smitten with her sketches as of late...loving them! These from a girl who dreaded art class when in public school. Who pretty much endured them due to having one art teacher who was not a nurturing and positive role model to her. Who actually asked her once if she was "proud" of a drawing and when she replied that yes, she was, the teacher took her paper, crumpled it up and threw it in the trash and told her to start over. Thankfully, the two years before we started this homeschooling journey she had a new and amazing art teacher who I feel started to build her confidence back. Anyways, to see my daughter having fun with art again and feeling free, is a remarkable thing.

Wishing you a creative rest of the week!

Lately...

This has been a productive week...Zoey's been continuing with her art exploration when it comes to sketching. Here are a few more interesting faces that she's been working on in her sketch book.

This morning when out walking the dog around the house we discovered some bear tracks which was pretty exciting! They went right through our yard in-between the house and our garage and then meandered off into the woods. We had to take some pictures quick before the snow melts!

Zoey just started reading the book I Am Malala for her geography and literature studies and most recently finished reading Habibi. For fun, she most recently finished reading the book Tuck Everlasting and is currently reading The Secret Garden. She also has read the complete series of Mortal Instruments, Infernal Devices and the book Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare. It's safe to say that I've long given up on trying to keep track of the books that she's reading for the blog. I now keep track on our library request list that is attached to my library card check-out history.

Tuesday, Zoey and I both went to a school board meeting in a neighboring community. This was Zoey's first school board meeting (kind of funny that she attended it now that we're homeschooling!) and it was a major learning experience for her. We went to support a teacher who is a friend and who also has a daughter Zoey's age who is a friend of Zoey's. This teacher has taught for over twenty years at this school and is getting a non-renewal this year with nothing worthy in her personal file for dismissal. The meeting was packed with community members (we had to move to a different room) and was very passionate/high energy in nature. We stayed for two hours (on just this agenda issue) and left around 8:15pm so we could eat dinner and walk the dog! It felt good to show up and do the right thing (I spoke) and to hear so many people showing support for this teacher. It didn't feel good to witness and hear the lack of compassion and empathy of the school board or the administration of this school. Zoey was astounded that the individuals sitting as the board, were representatives of the school to the community. I have to agree with her, there was one individual on the board that showed compassion and interest when people spoke, everyone else looked annoyed, bothered, uncomfortable and/or, put out. I do think that things could have at the very least, been handled in a more empathetic manner so that the public could have felt as though they were being listened to. Regardless, we had some great/tough conversations afterwards and then again once Ethan got home from working late as well.

Zoey is continuing working through her second math book at lightening speed, still enjoying her logic workbook and is working through her beginners spanish book. Health is included in her science curriculum and she is working through that and is approaching the heavier portion of that unit here quickly. It's kind of amazing to look through all the we have done this year and know that we almost have our first complete homeschooling year under our belts!

Life learning at it's finest!

Permission to Play

This year Zoey has been enjoying art projects somewhat on her own terms. She recently has checked out some library books on sketching and these are two of her most recent attempts. I love the whimsy in them!

I also love that she is feeling free to explore and have fun when it comes to art. This hasn't always been the case.

 

Geography Project | Cuneiform Tablet

For history we've been talking about Egypt and one project that Zoey did this week that she enjoyed was to create a clay tablet using cuneiform script. We had some basic air dry clay that she rolled out into the shape of a rectangular tablet (keeping it thick enough so it would be somewhat sturdy upon drying) and then she took a knife and wrote out (something of her choosing) by pressing the designs into the clay. It took about a day to dry.

Super simple project for when you are studying Egypt and want something with little prep!

Geography Project | Creating a Rain Stick

We've been so busy this week! Lots of fun projects happening around here, some planned and some that weren't, but all have been meaningful. Today I'm sharing a geography art project that was scheduled in Zoey's curriculum this week. She was to create a Brazilian rain stick. I had a real rain stick made of dried bamboo when I was a kid...my dad had brought it home from one of his art shows for me as a gift. I think it broke when I had a little boy over to babysit at some point during my teenage years...I remember that it was really cool though and I loved making the sounds of rainstorms with it. 

I was tickled to discover that Zoey got to make this for a project and even more tickled to discover that it actually sounded pretty good for being handmade and pretty simplistic in nature. Here are the details and her finished project...

Hope you're having a great week!

Huipil Weaving - Art Assignment

This week one of Zoey's assignments for art using the book Geography Through Art was to create and design a Huipil (pronounced, Wee-Peel) cloth on paper using pencil and paper and then coloring it in with markers. This is what she came up with. 

The huipil is a piece of cloth woven in Guatemala. It is usually woven by hand. These beautiful garments are embroidered with images from nature and everyday life and the designs are often times personal. It is said that you can tell from the designs, what family a person is from or what village they live in or what religion they practice.

Zoey isn't always a fan when it comes to art projects that are required...she enjoys doing her own thing but she said that she enjoyed coming up with the designs for this particular project. I kind of wish that we would have used paint instead of markers as you can tell some of them were drying out. Next time we'll know to check the marker supply!

Our new block schedule is working out incredibly so far this week! So happy with it. Zoey's accomplishing so much more during the day, it's crazy! She's more relaxed and is having fun too.

I AM: Project for Girls

This afternoon Zoey and I were feeling creative so we had some fun painting and putting together some collage art. We thought it was the perfect time to try out the I AM: Project for Girls from Brave Girls Club. We already had the canvas and paint so I went ahead and printed out the free printables on to cardstock and we were ready to get started.

We started by each painting on to our canvas with acrylic paint and then we adhered our desired paper pieces with mod podge.

There are so many word choices and different phrases  available to use which meant we each had more than enough to choose from to create our unique pieces of art.

Truly was a beautiful way to spend the afternoon. Feeling happy, blessed, thoughtful and inspired! It does my heart good to get a little creative with my girl!

Rock Painting

We live in Northern Wisconsin and we've got at least 6 inches of snow STILL! We've been getting a bit antsy and have been looking for some easy crafts. Rock painting was something that I had pinned on Pinterest awhile back and we hadn't attempted it up to this point. I had however pulled a small stash of rocks from our rock garden so we used those for this little project.

We used small bottles of acrylic craft paint that I picked up at our Ace Hardware and painted a few coats on to the rocks so the colors were vibrant.

*TIP* For art projects I have a vinyl tablecloth that we throw over our work table in the basement and for painting I cut up pieces of cardboard to serve as art mats.

I pulled out my permanent markers too and love the little faces on Zoey's rocks (pictured below).

A fun, easy art project that you get to see pretty much immediate gratification from! Sometimes that's nice! Right now the rocks are sitting in a pretty little bowl on our table but the plan is to put them out in the garden this summer.

Thanks for stopping by!

Making Milk Marble Paper

Zoey had some fun making some milk marble paper this weekend...we found the tutorial online and after rounding up all the needed materials she went to town. It's nice when all the materials needed for a project are easily found around the house. That was the case for this project.

Materials Needed: milk, food coloring, toothpick, dish soap, watercolor paper

We started by pouring in just enough milk to cover the bottom of our pan, about a 1/4 of an inch or so deep and Zoey added some dots of liquid food coloring.

She then added a few squirts of dish soap here and there and it was pretty cool to watch as the colors spread quickly from the soap!

After the colors were done moving about she swirled them a bit using a toothpick. At this point you need to be careful, if you swirl them too much the milk will turn a gray/brown.

She then pressed some watercolor paper into the mixture and set them aside to dry.

A fun and easy project! The designed papers will be fun to use for cards, tags or other future projects!