Farewell Jackson Pollock! Hello Monet!

We are moving on to a new Artist, so I thought I would share some of the resources we have used for our Jackson Pollock study. The point of our Artist Studies is to be able to recognize the artist's work, but I like to add in some biographical information appropriate for kids

youtube is awesome!! I wanted to show my kids how Jackson Pollock painted- prowling around a huge canvas on the floor, flicking brushes and splattering paint everywhere- but of course I didn't want them watching a complete documentary about him (due to his personal life- not appropriate information for them). Youtube, of course, had several great, short clips of him that were exactly what I wanted. Just search "Jackson Pollock."

The library also had a couple great books about him:

Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists: Jackson Pollock by Mike Venezia

Action Jackson by Jan Greenburg and Sandra Jordan


Personally, I loved the widget on my sidebar that let you use your computer mouse to make a Jackon-like painting. I spent way to much time channeling my inner-Pollock.

At Barnes & Noble I found a Taschen Portfolio of Jackson Pollock's paintings for only $5- a great deal! Using magnetic tape I would post one on our fridge for my kids and I to study. We had some great discussions about the paintings during lunch!

We will be studying my favorite artist next- Claude Monet!!

Flowers!

For all my complaints about how stinky crabapple blossoms are, they really are breathtaking when in bloom. This street not far from our home caught our eyes on a recent outing.

While on a walk we spotted this butterfly/moth (we haven't had a chance to identify it yet!) getting a drink.

We spent a couple days doing some planting- Managing the hose, otherwise known as spraying everything possible including little sisters, is a favorite job, though not for the little sister.

We picked up some annuals and planted them in these fun tubs for our deck

Beautiful results-

My kids "weeded" a beautiful dandelion bouquet from the neighbor's yard for me.

My kids had been anxiously awaiting the first flowers from some bulbs we planted a couple weeks ago. Each day they would head outside to check the flower's progress. So it was a bit shocking for them when their 11 month old sister suddenly plucked the one closest to blooming- it got to bloom in a cup

Fortunately, it was only a few more days before there were plenty of flowers blooming.

For our flower study this week I let the kids pick any flower in our yard to draw-

Austin- Pansy

Nyah- Tulips

Birds- Goldfinch, Meadowlark, and more!

Outdoor Hour Challenge: Birds #4 Goldfinches & Meadowlarks

We took advantage of the extra week for this challenge to also study a bird we have spotted, and especially heard, in our neighborhood- the Mourning Dove.

We use the All About Birds website to learn more about each bird, and to listen to their calls and watch video of them. I also read parts from the Handbook of Nature Study and The Burgess Bird Book. We don't have the other guide books being used by Handbook of Nature Study, but our studies work wonderfully without them. We do have a 1970's edition of American Birds and a more recent edition of National Audobon Society Pocket Guide (West) which I lay out for the kids to look at while they are coloring. Some days my kids like to draw their own birds, and other days they like to use the coloring pages.

Nyah's GoldfinchAustin's Goldfinch
Working on their Meadowlark pictures- I spied a Meadowlark while driving the other day and it was exciting to be able to identify it!

Working on their Mourning Dove pictures

I love the call of the Mourning Dove! It brings back many happy memories of early mornings and summer evenings in my parents backyard with my kids. Even my son recognized their call from spending time at my parents!

I am really LOVING these bird challenges! At the park this past week I overheard a woman complaining that there aren't have any "good" birds around here, and I couldn't help thinking how sad it is that she feels that way! So far we have only spotted very "common" birds- house finches, robins, mourning doves- at our feeder, but I LOVE watching them! They are fascinating! I love going out early in the morning and listening. I love seeing them sitting on the eaves of the houses- a single bird or couple per house, each calling their hearts out as the sun comes up each morning. I love to hear their calls throughout the day as I make meals, do school stuff, fold laundry, and read with my kids. I love that my 2 year old will sit quietly, watching birds at our feeder, enchanted by all they do. I love watching my older kids quietly sitting by the back door, eating lunch with the birds. I love it when a male and female house finch will sit at our feeder for a time eating and chirping to each other, and quickly flying away together when we come to close. I love that I see the birds everywhere I go, and that I want to learn more about them if we haven't studied them yet.

What a blessing these birds are!!

Dandelions

Wednesday Flower Study ~ Dandelions

"Professor Bailey once said that dandelions in his lawn were a great trouble to him until he learned to love them, and then the sight of them gave him keenest pleasure." (Handbook of Nature Study, pg.531)

I certainly felt the same way yesterday when I poked my head out the back door and immediately caught sight of these sunny heads! Yesterday was a bright, sunny, and windy day, and today is cloudy and rainy-- What a cheerful welcome to Spring the dandelion gives us!!

"The edges of the leaf are notched in a peculiar way, so that the lobes were, by some one, supposed to look like lions' teeth in profile; thus the plant was called in France 'dents-de-lion' (teeth of the lion), and we have made from this the name dandelion." (Handbook of Nature Study, pg. 532)

"The hollow stalk of the blossom-head from time immemorial has been a joy to children. I may be made into a trombone, which will give to the enterprising teacher an opportunity for a lesson in the physics of sound, since by varying the length the pitch is varied." (Handbook of Nature Study, pg. 532)

Well, we decided to give this a try, and after picking some flowers, we plucked off the heads, but we didn't get any sounds when we blew into one end. I guess there must be more to making them a trombone than I imagined.
When I said they tasted weird, my son said it was because of the white stuff coming out of the end. I told him its called milk, and he asked, "Is this like the milk we drink?" Yuck, the idea of dandelion milk makes me shudder!! Here is a poem I found about Dandelion Milk.

Just this morning I was reading Happy Birthday Kit out loud to the kids, which is a story of a 9 year old girl during the Great Depression, and they became so excited to hear about the main character collecting dandelion greens for salad.Nyah's Notebook Page

Austin's Notebook Page (he didn't want to color today)

Yesterday the kids helped me plant some Caladium tubers in these tubs so they will be ready to plant in the yard in a few weeks.

And we checked on our other flowers in the front-- getting taller!!

Mom! Olivia's coloring in my math book!!

What to do with a 2 year old?! Out of necessity, I am mixing up our home school schedule a little to include some "class" time for Olivia. "Class" is what Olivia calls nursery at church, and she has started asking to have "class" at home. And because she has become disruptive to our morning lessons (i.e. coloring in kids school books during lesson time, throwing tantrums for attention, etc.), I'm happy to give her the wanted class time.

I'm not approaching this class time as "preschool." The objective is not for her to learn her letters, numbers, shapes, and/or colors, though these will somewhat be included in our class, but the main objective is for the two of us to spend time having fun together. I think this is really what she wants. That said, I don't want to have to create original lessons for her, especially when there are some wonderful resources out there with information already put together.

I have been using the new Nursery Manual, and Olivia loves to look through it. I use one lessson per week, and each day review the main idea from the lesson. Lesson one is "I am a child of God" so we sang the song each day, looked at the picture of the kids and talked about how they are all children of God, everyone in our family is a child of God, and some days we did the activity verse, "If your very, very tall (stretch and reach arms up . . . etc. "

We have been using Letter of the Week's pre-preschool lessons. Instead of a poster as suggeted at Letter of the Week, I put all the information for that week on a single white cardstock page. I point of the letters, numbers, etc., but mostly we have been focusing on the weekly theme-- reading picture books from the library, singing songs and nursery rhymes, playing games, and coloring pictures-- all centered around the theme. She can also color the pictures on the white cardstock page if she wants.

These are the two main resources I am currently using. Here are some of the other sites I use to find songs, games, activities, and coloring pictures:

It's Storytime

Online Storytime

Free Kid Crafts

Enchanted Learning

Preschoolers and Peace Blog

My time with Olivia is only about 15-20 minutes, sometimes Austin and Nyah particpiate and sometimes they don't, but it has made a huge difference in how Olivia acts while I am doing school with the older two. After our class time, she gets to pick a special toy from the high closet shelf- these are toys I have put out of reach and she can only play with them while I do school with the older kids. These are a house set (plastic house, people, furniture, etc.) , farm set (plastic farmer and animals), Noah's ark set (plastic ark, animals, Noah & wife), and play dishes and food.
I didn't use the toys the first week we were trying the class time, and Olivia wanted class time to go on and on, and would throw a tantrum when I'd stop. Now she has something else to focus on, and happily plays with her toys. When she tires with one of the toy sets, she and I clean up, and she can pick another one if she wants. Most of the time she moves on to the other toys that are around all the time. As part of our morning chores the kids to clean up their bedrooms, and this helps Olivia be able to find the toys she wants to play with- like her babies and baby stuff, Barbies, stuffed animals, etc. Sometimes Olivia wants to be working with us while we are doing school, so I have several activities for her to do then. I try to get her to do something similar to what the older kids are doing. When they are reading she can look through books, and there are many days she will look through one book after the other, until she empties a book shelf. When they are writing or drawing, I'll give her a coloring page about that week's theme, or we have lots of coloring books and paper she can pick from. She loves to take her turn on our big whiteboard after the kids have finished using it, but we also have a couple small whiteboards she can also use. We have lots of puzzles that she can do- some on her own, and I can help her put harder ones together when I don't have to completely focus on the older two, such as when they are listening to a story or working on something on their own.

Mid-morning (about 10a.m.) we usually have a snack-recess time, and this gives me time to feed her & Jolie, change diapers, read a quick story, or do whatever else needs doing (switching laundry, which Olivia likes to help me with- sigh, someday she'll grow out of it). Once school is over I make a point to spend a few minutes with her before I jump into making lunch or doing household stuff- we read a story, chase each other around the house, play ring-around-the-rosies, whatever comes to mind.

Birds- Jays & Bluebirds

Jays & Bluebirds

One of the great things about the bird studies is that we are all more aware of birds around us. We watch and listen for them during our outdoor challenge time, but also while we are out walking or at the park, grocery store, or post office, as was the case this week.

We used Cornell's All About Birds site to briefly learn about all the Jays & Bluebirds that are part of the challenge, and then focused on two that are found in our area- the Western Scrub Jay & the Mountain Bluebird. We used the coloring pages listed in the challenge, read about bluebirds in the Handbook of Nature Study, and also read from the Burgess Bird Book. We also watched some youtube videos the Western Scrub jay and found these great pictures of Mountain Blue Birds nest, eggs, and nestlings.

Even though the cornell site says Jays don't frequently eat other bird eggs or nestlings, this is the most interesting fact of the week for my kids, especially after reading the Burgess Bird Book story of Sammy Jay stealing the Chebec's eggs while the nest is unattended.

Our bird feeder is on our back deck, and when the weather is nice-ish I leave the back door open so we can listen to the birds coming and going. We have only ever noticed House Finches at our feeder, but the kids still like to watch and listen to them. Lunchtime gives them the perfect opportunity. At the time of this picture there was a bird on the far side, and my kids would quietly say whenever they saw the tail or head poke around the side, or seeds and husks dropping.



We also decided to learn about a bird we had observed during this week, and we picked the California Gull, which we see everywhere we go- foraging for trash at the store, hanging out at the post office, and flying in a group above the park. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera handy at any of those times! But my parents shared their visit to the river with lots of seagulls just in time for our study!

Austin's (age 7)

Nyah's (age 6)
When we arrived at the post office we also spotted this flock of birds (pictured below) happily feasting on the lawn. I'm guessing they are cowbirds, but my kids couldn't resist trying to catch one, so I didn't get to observe them for long. We plan on learning more about them this next week.We also spent time discussing birds beaks. We used this great website to learn about different types of beaks- there are 12 different bird beaks shown and when you put your mouse over the picture it tells you what kind of bird it is and how it uses its beaks. We also compared the beaks of the birds we were studying to this page to see which beak they matched best, and discussed if the birds used their beaks in the same way. My kids really enjoyed this part of our Nature Study this week!

Wednesday Flower Study

My kids are having a hard time being excited about our recent nature studies, mostly because we haven't been able to see a lot of what we have been studying. Fortunately, this weeks flower, the Daffodil brought some excitement because these flowers are in bloom around our neighborhood.

Some of the flowers we've seen as we've been out walking:

Also this last week we planted our little section of yard that isn't in danger of being dug up as we landscape. We have some daffodils in there, but the snow over the last week has kept them from growing. They have shot up a couple inches the last day or so with weather warming up. Is spring finally here (or in the words of my daughter, "Is it done snowing yet?")

One of the dangers while walking in our area.

My daughter touched it, and when I asked why, she said so it would poke her. I'm sure the cactus was happy to oblige. In the outdoors again! Sticks, rocks, juniper berries- all found their way into hands, pockets, and our house.

Olivia loved being with us on our walk. She loved this tree because it was just her height, and grabbed onto the branch like Tarzan for a swing.

These are some tulips we planted just ten days ago . . .

And here they are today- getting ready to bloom. I brought them inside after they dried off from that snowy day. The smaller pot is Nyah's from a recent club activity, and it is growing mystery flowers because she can't remember what kind she planted.

In our last Wednesday Flower Study I posted about this plant:
As those who commented pointed out, this is a Woolly Mullein. Here is what this plant will grow into- the taller one is over 6 feet tall. The plant has small yellow flowers that cover the upper part of the stalks.

I love the unique shape.

Here they are all over our backyard,

growing on the neighbor's rock wall.

Great Sunflower Project

Photo by Ginny Stibolt

from Great Sunflower Project website

"By watching and recording the bees at sunflowers in your garden, you can help us understand the challenges that bees are facing. The first batches of seeds are mailing the week of 23 March 2009. We'll be sending our next round of annual Lemon Queen sunflower seeds at the end of April 2009. Just in time to plant!

It takes less than 30 minutes.

It's easy.

Free Sunflower seeds for planting.

No knowledge of bees required!

Enter your bee counts online or send us your paper form.We would love to have you join us; let’s help our most important pollinators together!
We love having beekeepers participate."

What a great idea!! We are going to participate for the first time this year.