Why I Homeschool: Life Lessons

I had different ideas for how I was originally going to write this post, and then life happened. It really happened. In the process I realized that I had a great opportunity to show you a real life example of what I would have been trying to explain in a post. Instead I can actually show you.

I feel pretty strongly that there are lessons that I want my children to learn that will not be learned best in the school system. Some can be practiced there, but to really learn them I believe you need time, unplanned moments, and you need real life examples that aren't part of a "planned curriculum."  Lessons about character, service, hard work, and life in general. Lessons that are only learned when you are actually living life.  There's nothing like learning about life and death than from the real experience of loosing someone or something. There's nothing like learning how to work, then spending all day doing hard, back breaking physical work. There's nothing like learning about service than doing it, or having it being done to you. There are certain life issues that you would learn at school as well, more than you might in a home environment. But to me the important thing was what teaching happens during these life lessons.

There were times when my kids were in school dealing with hard issues.  I didn't feel like I had adequate time to help them learn from it. I couldn't give them time needed between the few hours they were home and before they went to bed.  Between homework, any after school activities, dinner, chores, baths and getting ready for bed, there were few opportunities to deal with the real issues of life.  I wanted those teaching moments, that were short and fleeting. I wanted the opportunity and time to really help them work through them. I also wanted them to experience those magical moments that just happen, such as this one.

We had one of those life experiences this last weekend. It was a life experience that I've gone through before, but there always seems to be different lessons to learn. On Thursday I found out during an ultrasound at 16 weeks, that there was no heart beat. I had already felt that it was not going to be a good pregnancy, but that still never prepares you for the loss you feel, and the many emotions you'll go through. We hadn't told our kids yet that we were expecting, and so it was hard to explain "why I was crying" to them when I picked them up after the appointment.  They had that instant excitement of mom being pregnant to the sad "oh" of realizing that the baby had died.  They had an idea of what it meant since I had gone through 2 other ones, but they are still kids and not fully aware of what it entails.  But what an opportunity for everyone to learn.  

There's nothing like the moment later that evening, when I'm crying and Savannah puts her arm around me, hugs me and says. "Don't worry mom, Heavenly Father will make everything all right."

There's opportunities for priesthood blessings, to be comforted and blessed. To know that no matter what happens, we would be taken care of. Things went wrong with the miscarriage, I was hemorraging and after passing out a couple of times was taken to the ER via ambulance. Sitting and crying to my husband in the ER about how much I hate feeling like this. I hate being so weak and passing out. I hate the pain. I hate the fact that my body shuts down and they can't find an IV. I hate that an hour later, with sticks all over my arms they finally get one in so they can rush me into the operating room. I hate coming out of anesthesia, of just physcially feeling like crap, while emotionally being an absolute mess. I hate sitting there worrying about my children, because moms will just do that no matter how many times you tell them not worry about them.  But despite all that I hate about the experience, there were many blessings that still came out of it. Many lessons learned. Moments where the Lord showed his tender mercies through people, his earthly angels. 

I look back and started seeing his hand in it all. The phone call that was an answer to prayer, as we were desperately searching for someone to take the kids to a friends house. She called just in time, and got the kids just as Beau came back to the house and found me passed out. If he had taken them, and had been gone for too long, I could have been a lot worse. To also have had the knowledge from past miscarriages, that we could act quicker and get help faster. There was also the sister from our ward who happened to be one of my ER nurses. To just see a familiar face was such a welcome sight. 

There were the people who immediately jumped at the chance to watch all of my kids, to come and spend the night with them while we stayed over night in the hospital. Dozens of people who called, emailed and stopped by, asking how things were going and offered to help.  There have been so many meals brought, planned and unplanned from people showing they care.  Family members who helped out, took kids, gave support from a distance and sent paper plates since they couldn't be here to help.  

People who felt like they needed to just stop by and lighten my load, and brighten my spirit.  People who were here just because I didn't want to be left alone. My visiting teacher and dear friend who showed up at the hospital just as my blood pressured dropped. I started passing out, was scared to death and didn't have Beau around. She held my hand and cried with me till I started pulling out of it.  And just the love, dedication and service my husband alone has shown me. Who has willingly missed work, because I wasn't emotionally nor physically ready for him to leave me alone yet. Who is willing to come and be here just because I need him.

I have never felt so loved and so taken care of. Neither has my family. Last night Savannah told me before she went to bed. "Mom I feel like we are being treated like royalty. I feel funny, it doesn't seem right." She was experiencing for herself what it is like to let other people serve you, even when you may not feel like you deserve it. She was feeling it herself, after all the service and kindness she had been shown.  She was learning what real service is about.  It gave us the opportunity to talk about learning to let others serve us and making sure we do the same thing for others when they are in need of help.

They have also been learning for themselves what service means. We explained that physically my blood level is really low, and that I can't do very much at all. They are learning that they are going to have to help, chip in and serve mom so I can get better. They are realizing the need of being around family to help everyone heal during a time like this.  They have spent a lot of time at other peoples houses and today  expressed the desire to just want to be home with us.  A need that I have too. To just have my children around, to see my many blessings, and help heal the loss I still feel. But realizing that sometimes we still need to do things we'd rather not do, to help to long term goal - getting mom better.

They are learning the real lessons. The vital lessons. The ones that are the whole purpose of this earth life. The lessons that help us become more like Christ.  The lessons of how much God does love us, watches over us and helps us in times of need. The lessons of genuine service and love. That's not even counting the real science lessons they are learning too. What is a miscarriage? Why does it happen? How big was the baby? What did they do in surgery? Did it hurt? Why does it mean to go under? Why do you have bruises all over your arms? Why do they have these tubes hooked up to you? Why can't you do anything and how long will it take you to get better?  Why do you need to take iron (supplements)? Why do you need to sleep so much?  etc. 

It's times like this that although difficult to manage, because I do homeschool, I would never trade for anything. The things they are learning right now are priceless.

If you'd like to read some other great blog posts about this same topic I really love these two by Diane Hopkins.

The baby IS the lesson

Grandma is the Lesson

Homeschooling While Recovering

Last night I had two dear homeschooling friends bring me dinner and stay to visit.  I asked them "please tell me it's ok if I don't get any schooling in right now!" They both looked at me like I was nuts to even think about doing it and told me about their days so I could feel better. I physically can't do much, and don't last very long before I'm completely exhausted, burned out and needing a long long nap.  I just can't do what I was doing. In fact, I'm lucky to be getting anything done that requires lots of physical energy. I know that is part of the reason we homeschool - the flexibility. But I also knew that if we did something for school the kids would not be making messes, getting into trouble, or making it harder on me.

So I've tried to change my thinking, knowing that we wouldn't get normal school in, but looking for opportunities to get any learning in, or recognizing those learning moments when they did happen. So here is how school looked the last couple of days at our house.

Picking rocks outside with dad while mom slept - practicing counting, earning a penny for every rock picked, practicing adding their money, using tally marks, paying tithing, and spending money on a treat later. Plus learning hard physical work.

Reading books

Practiced Piano - Piano Lessons

Played a vowel game - identifying the vowel sounds in words. (Isaac's learning to read and everyone is helping)

Watched some educational movie clips and filled out a graph on the various types of weather and natural disasters, so mom could get some sleep after having a physical and emotional break down. Which lead to Isaac not wanting to sleep tonight because he was scared. "What if something bad happens like a flood, tornado or earthquake?"  We tried to address why he didn't need to worry about each of these issues. "What about poisonous gasses?" Caitlyn asked.  Obviously they all retained the information from the movies a little too well.

Did Math using one of the I Love Math books from Time life books. (My kids LOVE these books and love doing the Math inside of them.) Mirian and I sat on the couch for a good hour while I rocked Belen to sleep and went through almost the whole book.

The skills we practiced: Counting by 10's, counting, adding, and subtracting money, acute, obtuse and right angles, time, mapping skills and spatial sense, logical thinking, multiplication and division readiness, grouping.  She didn't want to stop. We might have done 1/2 of the book and practiced all of that. (At the bottom of each little section they tell you what skills your practicing, and give you additional activities you could do as well to expand it.) We first found them at my local library. I then picked them up really cheap through amazon for my kids to read and do anytime. They are ALWAYS taking these books to their rooms to read.

Photography - Mirian taking pictures for her online photography class assignment

Legos and Programming - building her Lego duck assignment and then programming it on the computer so it could move around. Savannah loves these sets.  They're the Lego WeDo sets that are made for the elementary age kid. Simple robotics for really young kids.  Isaac can even do it.  You build it with the instructions then you plug it into the computer, use a simple programming program to make it do what you would like.

Learning really can happen, even if you are unable to teach.

Why I Homeschool: To Be Able to Fully Serve

Disclaimer:  This series of posts is written to tell my story of why I decided to homeschool and what I have learned a long the way. These are my personal feelings and direction the Lord has given to me and my family. That does not mean they are your answers.  I don't want you to feel guilty at all nor that I'm telling you this is the only way. I write it because people have asked for honest answers to why I chose to do this, and I want to be able to be completely open and honest back with them.

As I look back over the last year and a half at the different feelings and decisions we came to, I don't know that there was one singular event that determined the moment we decided to homeschool.  It was a myriad of promptings, thoughts, research, feelings and inspiration that directed us to this decision.  It reminds me of Elder Bednar's description in these series of movies "Patterns of Light" about how we receive revelation. Ours resembled the slow rising of the sun, that eventually made things brighter and more clearer. Some insight we didn't even gain until we took that leap of faith and actually started homeschooling. There were small answers, directions and things that eventually led to our final decision to pull our kids out of the public schools and take on the responsibility ourselves.

It had been something I had considered for over a year before Beau got his answer as well and we made our final decision. So what were some of those things that were catalysts? What are the things that prompted that decision. I hope to share them with you in these series of Why I Homeschool. The reasons are not in any specific order. They were all percolating at the same time. I will just be writing them in the order that they come out.

About 2-3 years ago, I went through a couple of miscarriages, that emotionally took quite a toll on me.  I started to appreciate my family more, the children I had been blessed with, and I started seeing the stress, daily activities and demands that were taking a toll on my family as we were trying to do so much with church callings, school (both Beau's schooling and the children's), our work - both Beau's and mine, and just family life and demands. At the time I was emotional and physically spent from the miscarriages.  I was at one point juggling the callings of Ward Young Women's secretary and the teacher for the weekly Strengthening Marriages course for the stake,  my husband had been serving as the Stake Young Men's President during a very busy summer of youth activities and had just barely gotten called as the Ward High Priest Group Leader.  Between our two callings it seemed that we were gone many nights of the week and I was on burn out.

While serving in Young Womens we did not have any leaders who were able to attend Girls camp and because I recently had my miscarriage, I was no longer pregnant and was now eligible to go.  I did not want to. I still was emotionally and physcially recovering from my miscarriage, and all I wanted was time with family, of which there seemed to be very little. Beau had missed lots of work time, and had been unable to get much research done, I felt like he had sacrificed too much time for me to take another whole week off for girls camp while he watched the kids.  I was torn. I knew I needed to serve, I knew I should say yes, and yet I couldn't. I knew it would be too much.  I went to BYU Women's Week burned out and in need of answers. I felt guilty saying yes to my family and no to church service, and I wasn't sure what to do. The Lord gave me answers through Sister Beck, he gave me permission to focus on my family. I was finally at peace. At that point in our life, that is what we needed.  Our family needed each other and time for each other, there are times to serve and there are times when we need to say yes to our family instead.  I told them I couldn't go. I just couldn't do anymore.

Over the next few months I felt like I could focus on my family, I started healing physically and emotionally.  Ironically the morning the girls left for camp, one of the leaders backed out and I had 20 minutes to get ready to head to camp, the Lord told me I needed to go. There was no one else, and there were no other options. I was emotionally able to just pick up and leave knowing Beau would take care of everything at home, and in turn the Lord blessed me with an amazing spiritual and emotional healing week. I had started becoming frustrated and sometimes almost bitter about the amount of service the church was putting on family, specifically those in leadership callings that were doubled up.  Our family was suffering, and I was frustrated with the family being the most important structure in the church, and yet the church taking us away so much from our family that it had began to suffer and didn't seem to be that important to the many church demands.  The Lord took me to camp where he softened my heart, showed me things I needed to see about some of the policies our local leaders had set up that seemed so unrealistic and demanding on families. He reminded me of what Beau and I have always wanted to do and covenanted to do and that was to serve the Lord with all our hearts in any way we were called.  I was reminded of the hymn sitting quietly on top of a mountain that has personally resonated with me most of my life.


I'll Go Where You Want Me To Go

It may not be on the mountain height
Or over the stormy sea,
It may not be at the battle's front
My Lord will have need of me.
But if, by a still, small voice he calls
To paths that I do not know,
I'll answer, dear Lord with my hand in thine,
I'll go where you want me to go.


I have gone in directions during my life that were not my plan but the Lord's, directions he's needed me to take.  My ultimate desire was to serve where ever he would have me go. In fact this last weekend a couple sang a beautiful rendition of this song at our Stake conference that once again tugged at my heart, reminded me of the sincere desire to serve where he needed me, and confirmed at that time that homeschooling was a road and a path that he needed me to go, even though it was not the norm.

The last day of girls camp as I was preparing to go back home to our busy, hectic life, the Bishop made a comment to me that I don't write here to brag about it, but because of what it reminded me of. The moment he said it, he reminded me of what Beau and I have always tried and attempted to do. He told me something along the lines, "I honestly wish there were more families like the Tippetts. Families that lived on a partial income, that aren't full time and busy in the world, that are willing and CAN serve any time they are called upon to do so. They can drop things at any moment to go and serve, and most people are unable to do that even if they wanted to.  They have nothing holding or binding them down so they can do it. They can leave at a moments notice if asked, or called upon to do it." When he said that it hit strongly that this is the way we had just sort of set up our life. We both had created very flexible schedules in work and school so that we could drop or serve at last minute. We have wanted to be able to do that. Our goals for the future is to find employment opportunities and other ways and means to continue to make that possible. Hopefully, the business Beau is starting will provide for our needs in that way before too long, at the same time acknowledging that it takes time to build a profitable business, and we will have to work up to being able afford to go whenever we are needed.

A couple of months after returning home I was called to serve in the Stake Relief Society. I knew life was not going to get any less busy or hectic between both of our leadership callings. I could not realistically ask to not serve, and had come to grips that there will probably never be a down time between Beau or I when we will have small, quiet, simple callings. (Oh to someday be the primary pianist. That would be such a happy day.) In reality I knew we were still going to have much asked of us, gone most evenings, and we needed to come to terms with that. In the process, the kids started school. I started seeing how by the time my children got home from school, we did homework, ate dinner it was time for one of us or both of us to run off to church meetings and responsibilities.  I started to see that we had no time for our children, and our children were starting to complain and cry for us not to go every time we told them we had to go.

I did not want my children to grow up hating church service because it took their parents away all the time. They are young. They needed us and our time. Especially in this uncertain world. They needed one on one time with us. They needed the stability of us being here, and yet they were getting very little of it. We would try to explain where we were going, why were serving, but that didn't always help.

As we started contemplating homeschooling, this was one of the huge benefits that I felt was there. It was an answer that would solve both problems. The lack of family time that our children needed, and the ability to serve in any capacity needed. I would be able to spend good quality and adequate time with my children all day that I didn't feel guilty leaving them to serve in my calling or other responsibilities we might have with work, civic or church.  I knew that it would open up our schedule freeing us from being on someone else's schedule and demands. If we needed to leave town at a moments notice, we could. If there was a family emergency we could go. If we needed to help or serve someone or somewhere we could. (Now if only we could convince family and other's that we really aren't that busy and they can ask for help. :))

Ironically it would seem that with our busy and stressful life, that adding homeschool to it would make it even more busy and crazy. And there are days that are like that, trust me!  But the majority of the time it has made our life much simpler. It works with family life.  It ebbs and flows and we can schedule things in a way that works with our family instead of against it. It has made things more relaxed in our home. We aren't as stressed when we have a busy streak of callings and meetings. We can meet our family needs when they need to be addressed during the days, rather than just waiting for the craziness to let up so we can then meet our children's specific needs or a general family need.  It has been freeing really.  It has just been one more piece to our family's goal of being able to serve whenever and whereever we are needed, and has now made it possible to serve together as a family.

I am hoping that I can show and give my children more opportunities to serve those in our ward, community and extended family. I hope that others will not see the Tippetts as too busy to ask for help because I homeschool all day. (I'll give you a hint, we're usually done by 1-2 and have all afternoon to pursue other things. We also can do work in the car while we travel. We also can do school somewhere other than our home if needed. My kids can bring work along and do it while I help someone. We can make up the work on Saturday if we are needed on a day during the week. That is the beauty of homeschooling! It really can make us available to help.) I hope they feel like we are an option. There have been a few times already this year when there was a need to serve and help for meals after a funeral.  I could take my children, we could stay as long as they needed us to and they were able to help serve too and be a part of the Lord's work.

Homeschooling has really helped a ton in the dilemma of church service and family. Of meeting both demands and needs. It has helped me not feel guilty about serving, because I already had the chance to serve my kids regularly every day.  I am also hoping that in the future, it will keep our lives open so that we may be ready to serve whenever and wherever the Lord calls us.

This Week

Lately I have felt the need to take more time to write here on my blog and in my journal. Somehow at the end of busy and crazy days, weeks and months it slipped by again and didn't happen. I have not made the time to sit down and write about the happenings in my personal and family life, and it has bothered me. 

For one I used to be an avid journal writer and have volumes of journals from my high school and college years.  I have a few for when we were first married, and then they tend to slowly get less and less.  10 years later in our marriage, I wonder what I have written to show for it. Luckily I do have some blog posts, random books and journals that I've recorded a few things in, but I feel there needs to be more. A lot more. 

Today I read some of these quotes that once again reminded me why I've felt the spirit to be pushing me to write more again.

"Those who keep a personal journal are more likely to keep the Lord in remembrance in their daily lives."

 - Spencer W. Kimball

"I wrote down a few lines every day for years. I never missed a day nomatter how tired I was or how early I would have to start the next day. Before I would write, I would ponder this question: “Have I seen the hand of God reaching out to touch us or our children or our family today?” As I kept at it, something began to happen. As I would cast my mind over the day, I would see evidence of what God had done for one of us that I had not recognized in the busy moments of the day. As that happened, and it happened often, I realized that trying to remember had allowed God to show me what He had done."   - Henry B. Eyring

Maybe these promptings have to do with our History lessons this last week. Our look at what History really is.  His Story. The story of God's dealing with his children, the fall and rise of nations and people as they either remembered him or forgot him. Maybe it has to do with the timeline we made that shows my  family's place in the great eternal timeline of this earth's life. Our place in these latter days, in preparing ourselves, our families and our posterity for the Second Coming of the Savior Jesus Christ. Seeing our place in His Story, his timeline. Knowing we had a specific time and place to come and am I recording what we are experiencing now in this very unique, amazing and difficult time in the history of the world. 

I tend to see the Lord more in my life when I do write. I see how he answers my prayers. I see how he has guided things in the long run over my life or long periods of time. I become more grateful. It also helps me formulate my thoughts when I have many on my mind. I also know that my children love reading about themselves, the happenings in our lives, and flipping through scrapbooks and photo albums remembering the times that we spent as a family.  I love to look back and see how I've grown, how far I've come, and sometimes wonder why I'm still trying to learn the same lesson for the 5th or 20th time. 

One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are

It has also reminded me of the book One Thousand Gifts. What a beautiful story Ann writes about how simply writing down her blessings every day completely changed her, and what it can do for us.  I love this book.  Taking the time to remember lessons we've learned, blessings we have, things we took joy in during the day, the struggles we go through can benefit us so much. But to actually take the time to write them down can change me, my posterity and possibly others. When it's written down, it's there to come back to. It's there in a time of need. It's there to refresh our memories, relive those tender mercies and have something to share and pass on.  

I want to do so much better at this. I'm not that great at it lately. I really don't know how I'm going to change the habit either, but I really want to try.  I want to make it consistent again.  These two pages of a week in our life, is my start for this week. Sometimes I want the visual. Plus I really want to finish the goal I have for myself, of having this last year documented and printed at the start of 2013. In order to do that I need to get caught up on a few weeks, and get back in the habit of recording the upcoming ones.

Our life these last few weeks have been mixed with blessings, stress, busyness, good friends, exhaustion, sickness, learning opportunities, and moments of peace and joy.  I'm not promising that I'll suddenly do better at writing about all of it, but I sure hope so.

Letting It Shine

This last year has been quite a growing period for me in so many ways.  One of those specifically being the choice that I made to homeschool my kids.  It has made me grow, stretch and learn things that I don't think I would have ever learned had I not brought them home.  It's been an incredible journey. Hard in some aspects and yet so rewarding in others.

There have been so many things that I've wanted to say. So many thoughts and feelings that I've wanted to share with you. Insights, difficulties, joys, and tender mercies that I've wanted to tell everyone about.  But in the process I've been hesitant to do so.  Here are some of the reasons why.

1) Some are very personal understandings and learning that are intended just for me.

2) Some are still more attacking that supportive.  They are still letting us know how they think we should do it, that we're not doing enough, that our kid should be doing this or that, that we're not doing it right and we're going to mess them up.  That they will either be smart or stupid. I have come to have some pretty strong opinions about things this year, and I don't feel like arguing about it with people. I would love to have a serious discussion with people, even those that don't agree. Especially if I feel like they are willing to listen and aren't going to be attacking me the whole time.

3) There are a lot of good mothers out there who sincerely want to do what is best for their child, and feel guilty or wonder if they are not a good mother if they don't homeschool.  I never want to make someone feel guilty or bad. Everyone's circumstance is different. Each family is unique, each child is unique.  We don't have to do it all the same way.

But lately I've been having a feeling that I should be saying more. I should be sharing the things I've learned and starting to understand because maybe there is one person out there that needs to hear it.  Maybe there is one person who is struggling with something that could gain from it.  Maybe there is someone that just needs the confidence to do it.  I have had quite a few say that they've thought about homeschool, that they'd like to do it, they just don't know if they could.  Maybe they need to see that it's possible and the Lord will help them along the way.

This morning as I was thinking about all the things that I'd like to share, the things I'm excited about, and whether or not to stick it ALL out there. I had part of this quote pop into my head:

"You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” -  Marianne Williamson

You don't shine a light by hiding it under a bushel.

So over the next little bit I'm going to be sharing some of my journey to homeschool. Why I decided to do it, things that I have been learning in the process, tender mercies that the Lord has given us. Some of these might come across as being strongly opinionated.  (If you don't already know that I have strong opinions about some things and feel pretty deeply about some stuff then you really don't know me well. :))  In sharing them with you I am not doing it make you feel bad, or guilty about what you are currently doing with your family.  That's not my purpose.  That is your stewardship and the Lord is letting you know what you need to do for them.  I am sharing it in hopes that maybe it can help someone. Maybe it can make you think, ask questions and start searching for answers. Maybe it will give you the courage to let your light shine a little bit more.

But mostly it will be a written record for my own children of what their mom believed, chose to do while raising them, and the things I learned with them in the process. Really all of this is for them.
 

Another Round of Art Classes

I have decided to do another 10 weeks of children's art classes this upcoming fall. They will be held on Fridays at 2:00 pm and possibly 3:00 pm.  If anyone is interested leave me a comment or send me an email and I'll get you the information for them.

Treasure Maps!

You can't study pirates for a school unit and NOT do pirate maps. When I took this e-course from Deep Space Sparkle this summer she had a lesson on making treasure maps. I could not pass this up on our unit. It was just too much fun.    She had great handouts that talked about the different items you'd find on an old map, how to make scrolls, and we just had a blast with it.  Shark infested waters, treasures, whales and serpents   We also came across a really cool pirate game that works with checkers. Where you have the Spanish Fleet trying to get their ships of gold safely back to Spain without loosing it all to the pirate ship. The kids loved it.

Of course even sometimes mom wants to have fun drawing and painting too and making a map was just too hard to pass up. I usually give it the name of "demonstrating" the lesson, but really it's just me wanting to relax and play too.

Incas, Conquistadors and Pirates!

Recently we did a unit for homeschool on the conquistadors, Aztecs, Incas, Myans and pirates. We read this great book about the Lost City, learned about Pizarro and Cortez, made some Spanish doubloons and finished off with some gold Inca masks.

We used gold foil to create our Inca masks and our Spanish doubloons. We learned about symmetry while drawing our masks, and then texture as we pushed the foil in and out to create the textures of the facial features and designs.

We added a bit of color with some colored permanent markers and additional decorations such as feathers and beads.

And yes... that mess you see on the table is what you see at our house on a regular basis during school time.

 I just love the unique way they turned out, especially the shininess of the gold foil!  The kids loved this project and ended up playing with their masks quite a bit afterwards.

Down by the Sea

This was the last project we finished for our summer class.  It seemed only fitting that it be a beach summer theme. This was a two day project for us. The first day we painted the background sky and sand. Then painted and textured our blue papers for our water. The second day was spent collaging boats and putting together our sea.  This is a great lesson for talking about depth and space. How objects look smaller the farther they are away, and how the boat that is going to be the farthest in the distance is going to be tiny compared to the boat that's closest to you.  Some of them got this concept easier than others or they made the different sized boats but forgot placement when they started gluing. It was also works wonderful for talking about overlapping with the waves and ocean to make the boats look in the water and to create a feeling of depth.  Sorry about my slightly blurry photos. My camera hasn't been working all that great lately.

I found the idea for this project here at Fine Lines.

Colorful Chameleons

I've seen this lesson on deep space sparkle for a while and just fell in love with it.  But I'm a sucker for anything bright and colorful. I decided to do it with one of my private students and some of my kids. I thought they did a great job. Unfortunately I only have two pictures of the finished ones and my sample.  This lesson is great for talking about complimentary colors, brightness and contrast, how to draw animals, and pastel techniques.

Mid-evil Castles

I'm finally having a chance to get caught up on some of our art projects for this summer's class.  One of our summer art classes was creating some mid-evil castles. I don't know of any child that doesn't love the magical, fairy tale dream land.  They did a great job creating these, and it would have been nice to have a bit more time to put in backgrounds. I probably should have given one more class period to painting backgrounds.  Live and learn I guess.  Some of the things they learned about was: Architecture, pattern and texture. I still love how one lesson can vary so much from the Kindergartener up to the 5th grader.

I took the idea for this lesson from Deep Space Sparkle.

The House That Built Me

My sister put together this video for our family reunion. It's about my Grandma and Grandpa Fielding home. A place that is filled with memories of reunions, thanksgivings, family gatherings, three wheeler rides, the big tire swing, waves on the trampoline and other great memories. I always loved to visit her, it just always felt like home.

Week 21 In Our Life

I know that I haven't been the best at updating what has been happening in our life lately.  Probably because too many good things have been going on.  So I thought I would share one of our weeks with you. You'll have to read about it in the layouts. :)  (You should be able to click on them to view them bigger.)

This year I really wanted to document our life. I am not completely caught up, but I am getting it done. After trying a thousand methods finding the one that I could actually do the Project Life Method has been the one that has clicked for me. Lately I haven't had much time to do anything scrapbook or designing related. When I have, all I've really wanted to do is record our story right now.  That is a good thing I think. Isn't that what it's all about anyway. Telling our individual stories.

Starry Night and Day

I loved the results of this lesson from Deep Space Sparkle when I first saw it. I decided to try it with my kids and another little boy that came to our house for art time.  We talked about cool and warm colors, looked at the use of lines in Starry Night and then had them choose if they the sky or land to be warm colors or cool colors.  This was their finished results.  My girls really loved this project.

We had such a fun time that we decided to do it with my summer art class.  Although we gave it a twist this time around.  We talked about how to create depth in your art work by having a background, middle ground and foreground. I encouraged them to also try to use warm or cool colors.  I used Starry Night to help them identify where his background, middle ground and foreground were. I also encouraged them to use lines in their sky to create movement similar to Van Gogh's Starry Night.    Here were our finished results.  I loved how they turned out and with such a great variety between the differences in skill and subject matter. (Sorry the colors are slightly off - trying to photograph these were tad more difficult.)

Here's how we made them.

1. Take a 12x18 piece of black construction paper and cut it so you have a 9x12, a 6x12 and a 3x12 piece.
2. Have the students draw their sky on the large background paper first. Make sure the designs they want shown are in the upper third of the background.
2. Have them draw the middle ground - hills, city, mountains, water, trees, animals etc on the medium sized paper.  Cut out the top spaces so it has more dimension and negative shapes.
3. Draw the foreground on the smallest paper. That could be waves, beach, a hill, grass, etc.

4. Fold the background in half so it'll stand up.
5. Fold the edges back about 1/4 - 1/2 inch on the middle paper, to make a tab that will wrap around the back of the large paper to staple it.  Fold it in half.
6. Do the same thing you did in step 5 only fold the side tabs twice as large as the middle tabs so that it will pop out in front.  Line the papers up and staple the tabs to the background.

We were able to get it down in within the hour art class, but we were pushing it with 11 kids. If you have a larger class, you might want to do it in stages so they have more time to do a really good drawing.