Morning at the Museum

With time ticking away for our chance to see a special free art exhibition in our area with a small chunk of Impressionists on display, I decided today was the day to go. Hubby was super-depressed his work schedule was too consuming to join us, but he was happy the kids would be able to go.

We have studied Renoir in the past and this term are enjoying the works of Monet. I use the Simply Charlotte Mason Picture Study Portfolios because I just love the added benefit of having the artist's life story in a wonderful narrative already included.

Upon arrival to the museum, I reminded the children I wanted them to see if they could spy a Renoir or a Monet without getting so close as to read the descriptive. I also reminded them to be on the hunt for their favorite painting to tell me about.

children should learn pictures...by reading, not books, but pictures themselves.

A Philosophy of Education, Vol 6: p 214

I was just about overcome with emotion when Royal said, "Mama, that looks like Renoir's son. You know, the one that was upset he had to dress up in a clown costume?" (See this post about our Renoir study.)

!!!!!!!!!!!

oh.my.word.

Renoir's Claude Renoir, a portrait of his grandson

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And then further along Alice started squealing because she saw this painting that reminded her of another painting of a train station she had seen of Monet's. And lo-and-behold, it was a Monet! I was just about to cry with joy!!!

Monet's Saint-Lazare Station

(I would have taken another photo with her eyes open, but then I was told I couldn't take pictures). Sniff-sniff.

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We took our drawing books with us to sketch before leaving the museum.

Despite these two exciting discoveries, both Royal and Alice chose another painting as their favorite of this exhibit (also by an Impressionist, though). It is Camille Pissarro's Close to the Pond, Kew Gardens. Of course by this time I knew I was not allowed to take photos, so there are no more to share.

AND...

Unfortunately, for the life of me I cannot find this painting online to post here for you all to see! Maybe it is quite the rarity, I don't know. But this is where we owe it to Charlotte Mason for passing along the technique of studying a piece of art until we can see it in the gallery of our mind. Even now, I can just close my eyes and see it before me. It is there.

[the mother] carries about with her just such a picture-gallery;

for whenever she sees anything lovely or interesting, she looks at it until she has the picture in her "mind's eye"; 

and then she carries it away with her, her own for ever, a picture "on view" just when she wants it.

Home Education, Vol 1: pp 49-50

Royal's sketch of Pissarro's Close to the Pond, Kew Gardens

All in all, this morning at the museum was a phenomenally successful one!

{Keeping} :: April's Firsts

A little late, but wanted to share our April firsts.
And what a delight of firsts we witnessed!

From assassin bugs to tornadoes... and lots of beautiful things in between! 

1 - wheel bug (assassin bug) nymph on our bird bath

2 - leaves on redbud tree

6 - beans on redbud

     

6 (cont) - leaves on chinaberry trees

15 - cottonwood seeds floating through air

16 - bluebonnet seed pods

16 (cont) - mama cardinal building nest
                 See our Nature Diary post on Glory & Mrs. Cardinal here for a more in-depth look at this bird family!

22 - amaryllis bloom

23 - cardinal egg in nest!

24 - 2nd cardinal egg; mom sitting on them on and off

25 - 3rd cardinal egg; mom sitting on them most of the day

26 - storms, tornadoes, lots of rain, hail

27 - lots of trees and branches down, river raging

28 - record low-high of 59 degrees today. Brrr!

How's it going with your Calendar of Firsts?

{Nature Diary} :: Glory & Mrs. Cardinal

Glory & Mrs. Cardinal

Aren't they a cute couple?

Glory was giving his wife a seed. It was so adorable to witness!

..........................................

April 12-18

It was an amazing morning to notice that the Cardinal family was building a nest in a small bush just outside our kitchen window.

After each piece was brought in, be it twig or leaf, Mrs. Cardinal would do a little tamping and molding. One day after the work was finished, Glory came over, perched on the edge of it and tweeted. I don't know if he was looking for Mrs. Cardinal or just doing a final inspection, but the nest was complete.

............................

April 23

This morning Royal peeks through the blinds and exclaims, "There's an egg!!!"

.....................................

Logically, we decided to enter this into our Nature Journals.

Royal's

Alice's

Mine

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April 24

We woke up to another laid egg. Then Mrs. Cardinal spent time on and off throughout the day sitting on her eggs.

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April 25

There was yet another egg in the nest. Today Mrs. Cardinal sat on her nest almost continually throughout the day.
After a quick break, she would return. It was so cute watching her get situated, shuffling the eggs around within her underbelly feathers.

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In addition to entries in our Nature Journals, we kept a running log of happenings with the Cardinal family in our Calendar of Firsts.

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April 26

A scary, too-close-for-comfort batch of tornadoes ran through our neck of the woods. 

During the time our family was bunkered in our inner-most, windowless room, I pondered:
Would our Cardinal family survive?

We were all so happy that on the morning of April 27, Mrs. Cardinal was found sitting on her eggs, nest still intact :-)

...................................

May 7

Fourteen days after the first egg was laid, Baby #1 hatched!

May 8 

We awoke to see Baby #2 and Baby #3 already welcomed into the world.

Later Alice spotted Mrs. Cardinal eating her babies' eggshells. Apparently the calcium is very beneficial to her during the nesting season.


Royal decided to enter the baby cardinals into his Nature Journal:

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How many are your works, O Lord!
In wisdom you made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.
Psalm 104:24

This has been the most awe-inspiring nature study we have ever experienced.
We are so grateful for this very personal account the Lord has allowed us to witness of His creation, 
and we will continue to monitor and document this amazing study in nature as the baby cardinals continue to grow.

However, I think the babies deserve a post all their own, so thus ends this chronicle of Glory & Mrs. Cardinal. 
Oh, and if you haven't read the story from the Burgess Bird Book, go have a quick read here and enjoy some more particulars about Glory & Mrs. Cardinal!

{Handicrafts} :: Minnow Trap

If your boys (or girls!) like fishing as much as my 8-year-old son does, this is a simple way to make a minnow trap. The minnows can be used as bait for catching bigger, eating-sized fish. Our fish of choice around here is catfish (blue, yellow or channel), although we catch alligator gar and gasper goo from time to time as well. But we love catfish!

So cutting the top off a juice bottle and inverting it (sans lid) serves as the mechanism.

Dad helped Royal drill a few holes around the top in order to sew fishing line through and around the opening to keep the trap from falling apart.

Two holes were also drilled on the side in order to string fishing line through to cast and anchor to shore.

White bread crumbs are dropped in and used to lure the minnows.

to get the trap to sink more, we dragged it through the water to fill it

Literally within minutes of throwing in the trap we had minnows, but we left it and came back later to quite an amazing amount!

Now to go fishing...

All in a Day's Lessons: Term 2 of Year 3 and Year 1

Juggling two students in two separate years can be challenging. When I first began this school year with Royal (Year 3), it was more difficult than it is now because he wasn't reading as much or as well as he is now. AND it took Alice (Year 1) several weeks before she was able to gain some traction with the pace & challenge of the lessons.

Now that we have one term behind us, things are moving along a lot more smoothly and easily. And it really helps that Royal is able to read more of his books himself. (I was really praying for this last year because I was a tad concerned about getting it all done!)

So today I decided to keep track of our lessons just to show how a typical day can go with students in different years. 

We begin at 8:30. (Actually today we began at 8:40 because the kids were late in getting their morning chores finished. She this post about how we now do our morning schedule with alarms)

~ Morning Round-Up

• Read & tell together: Exodus 20:1-17
• Memory Work - Philippians 1:6 and Sara Teasdale's Twilight 
• Read from A.A. Milne's Now We are Six
• Spanish: Calendar, weather, review of family tree and listen to/sing José Luis Orozco's "de Colores"

~ Math Drill
~ Alice & I read from The Blue Fairy Book's The Master-Maid (continuing the story - this is Day 3 of this selection by the way. We should finish tomorrow.) & Royal reads by himself This Country of Ours' How the Colony was Saved (finishing from yesterday). He tells me how the chapter ends, then...
~ I go over Alice's Math pages for her to work on while Royal & I buddy-read Our Island Story's How a Woman Struck a Blow for Freedom (he on the Kindle and I out of the book)

10:00 Snack Break; Royal chooses to begin reading "Along Came a Dog" (from Ambleside's Year 2 free reading list)

At 10:15, when Break is over...

~ Alice finishes Math, with a little help from me. I start Royal on Ch 11 of Children of the New Forest (He listens to the audiobook while following along with the story on the Kindle); Mom fixes lunch! Royal tells me everything that happened in Ch 11 (talks about 5 minutes - he really likes this book!)

At 11:30 we eat lunch.

At 12:30 Royal and Alice do some cleaning duties for 10 minutes to pay back their tardiness from this morning before they have some free time outside.

At 1:15 Almanzo goes down for a nap.

~ Alice & I continue reading Shakespeare's As You Like It (started yesterday) & Royal works on his Math word problems
~ I work on some reading skills and word-building with Alice.

~ Alice does her copywork.
~ Alice & I read from 50 Famous Stories:  The Inchcape Rock.
~ I check Royal's math and help him with one he couldn't figure out.
~ Almanzo wakes up from his nap & Alice plays with him for a few minutes while Royal does copywork.
~ Royal and Alice do Music Study with Almanzo listening in. This is our 2nd week on Paul Dukas' The Sorcerer's Apprentice. We review the story/poem and watch the short video clip of Disney's Fantasia on YouTube.

3:00 - We are done!

{Spanish} :: ¡A Cantar!

In order to add in a little more actions having to do with clothing, I decided to make up my own song to the tune of Old MacDonald Had a Farm. I suppose that singing little phrases, with performing the appropriate actions along with the song, could be a form of the Gouin series that Charlotte Mason references and endorses. So why not add in a bit of diversity to our Spanish learning?

In thinking about things we do with clothes, I first came up with a list. I decided shopping is done first, then ordered all other actions in a logical sequence afterwards:

• go shopping
• buy
• wash
• dry
• fold
• put away
• put on
• wear
• take off

So finally, the hardest part was the song leading up to the series, but I think this works out ok. 
Any native Spanish speakers, feel free to chime in and suggest better phrasing!

The way I do the song is by shuffling our clothing flashcards, placing them face down in the middle of us, then when we come to the first blank in the song, one child draws the card and has to say what it is from memory. (If using these clothing flashcards, just cut off words if your students are already reading!) Of course this song follows having practiced our clothing items for awhile, so for the most part the kids already know each article of clothing's Spanish word. 
Oh, and for words like necklace or hat or whatever, it is fun to go ahead and sing about washing and folding them because the kids think it's hilarious :-)

So here goes...

Spanish song:                                          Old MacDonald words:

Voy de compras ahorita.                            Old MacDonald had a farm.

¡Vamos, vamos ya!                                     E-I-E-I-O

En la tienda compro ____.                         And on that farm he had a ____.

Y a casa regresar.                                      E-I-E-I-O

Lavo ____.                                                 With a ____ here.

Seco ____.                                                And a ____ there.

Doblo ____.                                               (same tune over and over for the rest of the list)

Guardo ____.

Me pongo ____.

Llevo ____.

Me quito ____.

Voy de compras otra vez.                         E-I-E-I-O.

And thus the song repeats for as many times as you like, in order to practice the clothing items and verb phrases.

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If interested in the translation...

I'm going shopping right now.

Let's go, let's go now!

In the store I buy ____.

And home to return.

I wash ____.

I dry ____.

I fold ____.

I put away ____.

I put on ____.

I wear ____.

I take off ____.

I go shopping again.

{Keeping} :: My Commonplace, on being out-of-doors

"You see," said the stick, "there were as pretty little children once as you could wish to see,

and might have been so still if they had been only left to grow up like human beings,

and then handed over to me;

but their foolish fathers and mothers, instead of letting them pick flowers,

and make dirt-pies, and get birds' nests,

and dance round the gooseberry bush,

as little children should,

kept them always at lessons, working, working, working,

learning week-day lessons all week-days, and Sunday lessons all Sunday,

and weekly examinations every Saturday, and monthly examinations every month,

and yearly examinations every year, everything seven times over,

as if once was not enough, and enough as good as a feast --

till their brains grew big, and their bodies grew small, and they were all changed into turnips,

with little but water inside; and still their foolish parents actually pick the leaves off them as fast as they grow,

lest they should have anything green about them."

The Water-Babies

Charles Kingsley

p332