What's So Important About Art?

I remember making pottery ashtrays in elementary school. I remember wilted, dried apple witch heads. We made pinch pots and wove simple baskets and dipped candles and painted. Every week was a new lesson with a final product to show for it. 

Imagine my disappointment when my children went to public school and art class consisted of coloring in printed coloring sheets with Crayola crayons! Art was crap, plain and simple. It's one of the programs first to be cut when budgets tighten. 

Lucky for Bay, she's in high school, and those art programs are pretty terrific. Tuna, though, is in fifth grade, and if I were to put her in public school, she'd be coloring (she hates coloring) every week. 

creating a chalk pastel pumpkin, courtesy of a HodgePodge.me tutorial

What happened to placing importance on the fine arts? It is important to be exposed to the fine arts. Why? Here are a few reasons:

1. Making art boosts self-esteem. 
2. Art helps develop critical thinking. 
3. Art exposure and making art help encourage creative problem solving. 
4. Art is stress-reducing. 
5. It's just plain good for you!
6. It's fun and rewarding!

It's not hard to incorporate art into a homeschool environment. You don't have to be an artist to enjoy or teach art! You just have to have an open mind, a willingness to try new things, and some good directions. There are lots of ways to find art instruction online. 

Our art wall display for autumn, so far. 

Pinterest is full of ideas. If you're a visual person, seeing a thumbnail of a project might give you great ideas. Of course, clicking on it and opening will most often lead you to detailed instructions on how to complete the projects.

Hodge Podge has free (and paid) lessons in chalk pastels and acrylics that we have been enjoying. 

DickBlick.com has tons of project plans available free of charge. 

Haiku

We've been learning about China, Japan, and Korea this week, and we each composed a haiku, then illustrated them. I love how they turned out. Tuna, after this experience, thinks haiku is boring because it doesn't typically rhyme. Still, I think she did a great job writing one.

I like mine, too. Where's my gold star? 

Sometimes, ya gotta wiggle!

It rained yesterday, and it's raining today. The results:

She feels better now. It does no good to fight a child's natural urge to move. It's so much better for all involved if the child is allowed to act naturally and expel that energy. Now, she's calmly watching Minecraft videos. And she told me that was lots of fun. It certainly was a lot of fun to watch!

Dynasties: Not Just for Ducks

I don't watch that show. Actually, the thought of it sort of makes me want to vomit a little in my mouth, which you will soon find ironic. But people talk about it nonstop. What is it about Americans that makes us want to watch a bunch of rednecks living their day-to-day lives on television? 

Here, I must stop and admit, fully, to watching Here Comes Honey Boo Boo on a weekly basis. You better redneckognize. 

Anyway, this post has nothing to do with ducks, and everything to do with dynasties. We're reading Story of the World Volume 2: The Middle Ages, and we just finished up chapter eight: The Great Dynasties of China. In the activity guide, I found instructions for replicating a jade necklace with Sculpey. Sounded fun, so off we went. 

Materials: Sculpey in the closest shade to jade we could find, embroidery floss (or other string), something on which to string your beads (we used kebab skewers), a baking sheet, the oven

Soften the clay in your hands, then roll it into ropes and cut off 1/2" bits. Roll those into balls and skewer them. 

Baking the Sculpey at 275F for about fifteen to twenty minutes sets the beads. 

Why yes, those are pajamas my daughter is wearing. 

Then, you can browse the Internet, looking up more detailed information on jade, like we did. Here are some sites we enjoyed:

The Big Site of Amazing Facts

some jade history

A Lesson on Chalk Pastels

Tuna and I followed a tutorial layed out by HodgePodge to create medieval castles with chalk pastels. This was our first time using pastels, and this looked like an easy start. 

It's very messy, but it's fun, and it looks cool when it's done. HodgePodge has lots of tutorials for both chalk pastels and acrylics that are easy to follow if you're not artsy in that way. 

Along with some tutorials at DickBlick.com, some art museum trips, and lots of free art time, we will be using HodgePodge art tutorials to get a bit of art in our weeks this year. 

When we finished, Tuna made a Minecraft picture with the pastels. 

Owl Pellet Dissection

 We completed our first dissection activity today: owl pellets. Tuna was totally into it, gently coaxing the tiny rodent bones out of the furry pellets and matching them up to the worksheet. 

It was quite educational. I'm glad we got to share this lesson, Tuna and I. 

 We washed our hands quite well when we finished. 

 Check out those bright orange teeth!

Trip to Vienna, Austria and a Q&A with Tuna

Mom: So, we were in the oldest zoo in the world, What did you think of Vienna's Zoo?

Tuna: I really wanted to watch the Pandas but they were sick. The cheetahs were neat. It didn't really look that old. I didn't know it was 250 years old. 

Mom: Yeah, it didn't really look that old. I was expecting old statues and monuments and an older feel about the zoo. It was really just a zoo like other.
Tuna: Yeah.
Mom: Still, zoos can be fun. What was your favorite animal at the Vienna Zoo?

Tuna: cheetah

Mom: Did you have any other favorites?

Tuna: hmmm...nope

Mom: Do you remember visiting the palace?

Tuna: (nods)

Mom: It was called Schonbrunn Palace. What did you like about it?

Tuna: The gold in the room. The rice paper walls were really cool. Oh, yes, the millions room. It was full of riches!

Mom: I really liked the rice paper walls, too. Do you remember hearing about Napoleon and Marie Antoinette?

Tuna: Napoleon, yes. I don't know who Marie Antoinette is. 

Marie Antoinette was beheaded.
Tuna: Why?

Mom: For treason. She's famous fo rsaying of the commoners in her time, "Let them eat cake." Doesn't it sound lovely to be told to eat cake? 

Tuna: Yeah, but...

Mom: Yeah, but... It meant that she didn't care about hte peasants that had no bread to eat. "Let them eat cake" was an insult. 

Tuna: Oh!

Mom: We saw lots of statues in Vienna. What was your favorite one?

Tuna: The Mozart statue!

Mom: The Lipizzaner Stallion show at the Spanish Riding School was not your favorite event from our trip, was it?
Tuna: Noooo
Mom: Thank you for being a good sport, though. 

Mom: We ate a delicious lunch at The Mozart Cafe at Hotel Sacher, then we got to eat some yummy cake. Did you know that the hotel where we ate designed that cake, and that they're famous for it?

Tuna: Yeah, I knew that. On the way to Vienna you were talking about the cake.

Mom: I was pretty excited to eat that cake. What did you think of it? 

Tuna: The cake that you got? Uh..it wasn't that great. It was too bitter. 

Mom: I got the Original Sacher-Torte. It was dark chocolate. What did you think of yours? The Truffle Torte? 

Tuna: Oh my god that was SOOOOOO GOOOOOOOD!

Mom: One of my favorite parts of our time in Vienna was seeing the cemetery where the famous composers were buried. What did you think about that?

Tuna: It was cool but I expected fancier graves for the composers. 

Mom: Which was your favorite grave marker?

Tuna: Mozart's. No wait. Beethoven. 

..

Mom: You went to your first classical concert in Vienna. What did you think about the concert?

Tuna: It was amazing.
Mom: What was amazing about it?

Tuna: The cello player was amazing. 

Mom: He was my favorite, too. Which part did you enjoy most: The Mozart part, or the Strauss part?
Tuna: Mozart

Mom: It sounds like you are a big Mozart fan. I am, too. 

Tuna: Si. 

Mom: You became an expert at riding the subway and street cars, didn't you? If you had to give some advice to someone riding public transportation for the first time, what would you tell them?

Tuna: Always make sure you are on the right train. Always hold your kids' hands!

Mom: What was your absolute favorite part of Vienna?

Tuna: the pool (giggles).
Mom: ....

What city are you most looking forward to visiting in the future?

Tuna: Paris!!!