Artist 2012-3013

Mary Cassatt
quick intro video

biography
a few other works in the National Gallery


Winslow Homer
biography
quotes, works, etc.


Gilbert Stuart
biography
National Gallery tour (paintings & explanations)




John Singleton Copley
biography
huge gallery of works

BFSU Vol 1 Thread D Lesson Links

D-1 Gravity: The Eath's Gravity; Horizontal & Vertical

D-2 Day and Night and the Earth's Rotation

D-3 Reading and Drawing Maps

D-4 Land Forms and Major Biomes of the Earth

D-5 Time and the Earth's Turning  you tube Day and Night and Earth's rotation

D-6 Seasonal Changes adn the Earth's Orbit

D-7 Gravity II; Rate of Fall; Weightlessness In Space, and Distinction Between Mass & Weight

D-8 Rocks & Fossils

D-9 Resources; Developing an Overview  Magic Schoolbus Holiday Special on recyclin- Hanukkah

BFSU Vol 1 Thread C Lesson Links

C-1 Concepts of Energy I; Making things Go

C-2 Sound, Vibrations, and Energy  Magic Schoolbus & the Haunted House on youtube

C-3 Concepts fo Energy II; Kinetic & Potential Energy

C-4 Concepts of Engergy III; Distinguishing Matter and Energy

C-5 Inertia

C-6 Friction Magic Schoolbus Plays Ball on youtube

C-7 Push Pushes Back

Halloween can make your hair stand on end.

California Gull & I took our broods to a local senior citizens home to celebrate Halloween with the residents there.
Mockingbird was begging to go home as soon as we stepped in, and honestly, I didn't blame her. We've not been to a residential center before ever, and to see 50 people in wheelchairs lining the hall plus all the costumed orderlies was initially a bit of a shock.
Especially since there were some green-skinned witches, very convincing zombies with gauges, and a big, tall man poured into his tights, tutu, and pink wings later identifying himself as "Gerry the Fairy." (I thought the barbed wire tattoo on his left bicep really brought the whole outfit together.)

Bowery Bird won the prize for best Children's Costume as the Bride of Frankenstein.
(I think it was due solely to the clapping and cheering of  Frankenstein in the back.)
Add some black rain boots and a sheet--literally draped and cut (see the fairies in Sleeping Beauty for directions) to an amazing up-do and you've got a pretty creepy gal.

How to achieve the 14" do?
1 water bottle
6 bobby pins
Lots of regular and colored hairspray
and my talented friend, Puerto Rican Parrot.

 

Some silhouettes I did for Bantam Hen.

 

 

And Canary running from the paparazzi.

 

 

 

On the Hunt for The Homeschool Yearbook

I'm no pro with organizing, printing, or even taking photographs--as you can obviously see from this blog. Someone that is amazing at this is Heidi over at Mount Hope Chronicles where I go for homeschool Eye Candy (yes, that is the name of my Favorites folder her blog is in).

But I've successfully printed two Homeschool Yearbooks out of our 3 years of school. (That middle year, when I had a baby, we're still filling in the pieces from--which is perfectly understandable, right?)

 

Homeschool Yearbooks are a different beast

--in that, organizing photos chronologically would be fragmented, and virtually everything else overlaps creating a potential BLAAAH everywhere. 
But, unlike a brick and mortar school yearbook it's incredibly rewarding when done because instead of having to search through the entire thing for the 3 pictures of your children and things relative to them--they are on EVERY page.

I create a Yearbook because I want to:

1. Motivate myself to keep going.

 It gives validity to what I do everyday. To look back and say "Yeah, we did learn something. Here's a picture of my daughter painting a letter "A", and in this other book she's reading! Oh, and here she's doing another painting--with the brush upside down." Hmmm.

2. Make sure my children see that we had fun.

Who knows what memories will stick in their head, or come out later in therapy? At least I've got proof that it wasn't just an isolated cell they were educated in with rats rummaging through the endless piles of broken pencil leads, chipped abacus beads, and flash cards. We went on field trips, frequented the park, had friends over, and enjoyed being together.

3. Reward my effort with something pretty.

 I can crop out the laundry pile in the other room, dirty diaper smell doesn't translate to photo paper, and if you were grumpy that day--you're not in that spread. See how nice that is? All I'm left with is a cute corner of life to look fondly back on as the rest fades-thankfully- into oblivion...

4. Remember what we did.

Because, if I don't put it on paper somewhere--I forget about it. I want to remember what we enjoyed, and the things we tried that worked well so we can be sure to repeat them. I'll know what field trips are worth the effort and what field trips ar---Never mind. If it's a field trip, I'll go.

5. Capture a child's predisposition.

Family Albums to me, are more general--and I just don't have the get-up-and-go to do an album for each child every year. But if I do a yearbook, I can capture who that child was at 6...8...10 y/o. It's been sometimes surprising when I've noticed patterns. Oh, you were into climbing up everything that year, you were the one always Right There when the camera came out, and you  are happily somewhere in the background--to busy to be bothered.

Aha! You thought you'd see some of our faces here, huh!?