Weekly Report: January 2010

The kids worked this week on their winter projects. I am especially proud of Grant for the writing effort he put forth. Writing doesn't come easily for him, but this week, he was able to write his first paragraph!

We haven't seen much of Mr. Sun the last couple of weeks, so I started the girls on some learning to sew projects. They are mostly interested in being able to sew up their own costumes for the history movies they like to make.

Here is a sample page that teaches them to sew in straight lines and to pivot.

They will be pros in no time!

Chloe is a little young to learn on the machine, so Allison started her on her old weaving loom.

What a great big sister!

Grandma Moses lived and was buried in Hoosick Falls, New York. Her paintings were first discovered in Hoosick Falls in her husband's drug store. Moses painted several versions of Hoosick Falls in different seasons. We studied this one today for our picture study.
I then took an idea from Harmony Art Mom, and had the kids use a view finder to study the above painting. They then had to reproduce that small square of her painting in their sketchbooks. This one is Grant's attempt at the train crossing the Hoosick River.

Abby and Allison both chose the bottom left corner of the painting.

Chloe attempted the various colors of the sky in Moses' painting.

We also did a lesson on "value" this week. Value is the lightness or darkness of a color. We got this lesson and project idea from How to Teach Art to Children.

We've been concentrating on birds for our winter nature study. It's been so cold, and dreary that we prefer to watch nature from the sliding glass door in our kitchen! We have observed house finches, house sparrows, juncos, woodpeckers, mourning doves, chickadees, and spotted towhees for the most part. Check out my nature blog here to see the things the kids have been putting into their nature journals.

For history, we just finished up 2 books in the "If You Lived...." series which we all really like. In the book, If Your Name was Changed at Ellis Island, we learned about immigration to the US from about 1880 to 1910, and why your name might be changed once you arrived. And, we learned all kinds of fascinating facts about life 100 years ago in If You Lived 100 Years Ago. Have you ever thought about the fact that 100 years ago, people didn't have anything plastic?! What in the world did people ever do without plastic? Ha!



Next up in our history studies---World War I.