Drawing and Painting - a learnable skill

Drawing and painting are like riding a bike or swimming - they can be scary and uncomfortable at first, but with practice most anyone can master these skills.  I often hear people say, "I can't draw", "I'm just not artistic", or "I can hardly draw a stick man".  But I believe that these are skills that can be learned with practice.  Like riding a bike and swimming they are easier learned younger.  I wonder if this isn't because when we're younger we're used to trying and failing and trying again.  As we get older we tend to take less risks and stay with the comfortable and familiar.  There are many ways that drawing and painting can fit into our curriculum.  We can draw our own pictures for our Century Book, copy great works of art by artists we are studying or use pictures as narration.  Of course our nature notebooks are a wonderful place to practice drawing skills.  Drawing is a perfect example of "practice makes perfect".   I include drawing at least once a week with our nature notebooks.  One of our daughters likes to bring her sketch journal to story time and draw while I read aloud.  She is getting very good.  We take books out from the library on drawing and they try different ideas they learn from the books.  

I enjoyed art classes in public high school but I wasn't particularly skilled.  I started painting as a hobby after I had several children.  One of my first paintings was a copy of a Duck Stamp painting I found in a magazine originally done by someone else.  My copy still hangs on the wall at my parents' house.  I think their affirmation and encouragement were a big reason I kept on painting.  Five or six years ago a friend's daughter took a watercolor class through community ed. then took the time to share some of what she had learned with my daughters and me.  I was hooked.  I got my Dad interested, too and we started painting together about once a week. The children would often gather around the table with us and paint, too. I took books from the library and read a couple a year and tried the projects and ideas I read about. Dad died of cancer over a year ago and I miss him terribly - but I have all those memories of painting together and pictures we each painted on my walls.  

One thing I've noticed is that drawing has forced me to slow down and look more carefully - to really see.  I often find myself looking at something in nature and asking myself what shape it is or what color it really is - what color is the shadow part?  These observations skills are wonderful for children.  If you and your children feel uncomfortable drawing and painting I want to encourage you to try and try again.  I believe drawing is a learnable skill, one that is well worth the effort and time spent.

We've been playing lots of math games lately.  I recently ordered Family Math and have been enjoying some of the simple ideas in it.  Today we're going to be working Tangram puzzles.  I found a good printable one at the following link:  Tangram puzzle I'm printing ours on cardstock. If you look up Google Images - Tangram patterns or use this link: Tangram patterns there are lots of patterns to choose from for things to put together with your tangram shapes.

We've also been working on our multiplication with two different games.  One is a dice game - we shake two, multiply them then take that number of MathUSee rods.  They can only have one rod besides tens or hundreds so they have to add and trade in.  The second game uses a set of 12 dot dominoes.  As they place the matching domino they have to multiply the two sides (six dot dominoes would also work).


At the end of the school day I have also been letting them play 15 minutes of math games online.  We've been using Multiplication.com games.

One Small Candle by Thomas J. Fleming

We just finished One Small Candle by Thomas J. Fleming as a read aloud.  It is the story of the Pilgrims' first year in America.  Well written with lots of wonderful details and insights.  I highly recommend this book.  I plan to look for other titles by Thomas Fleming. 

Cold winter afternoons and evenings in the upper Midwest have our girls knitting and crocheting while they listen to books online via http://librivox.org/  This is a great site with lots of wonderful classic books read by volunteers.  You can look for books either by title or by author.  

I don't know about you, but with the holidays about over I'm looking forward to more ordered days and getting back into a schedule and more order.  I want to have my children help set their own goals - seems like they're more motivated when they set their own goals.  Of course my goals  and schedule will apply to them as well.  What goals and plans do you have for the New Year?  This is my list for my children to fill out. 

New Year Plans and Goal Sheets

• What is one character quality you would like to begin to work on? ________________________ List three things you will do to implement this:  1._______________________________ 2._______________________________ 3.________________________________
• What is one new habit you would like to establish?_____________________________  What will you use as a trigger to remind you to practice your habit?  What do you plan to give yourself as a reward for your new habit?_______________________________________
• Let's plan to each have a quiet time with the LORD daily - what time will you meet with Him?__________________________                                                                                    Where will you plan to read from in your Bible or what topic will you study? __________ _________________________________________________________________ and what other books and tools do you hope to use?______________________________ choose a book or notebook for a prayer journal and decide how you will lay it out.
• Let's start book recording journals - it can be a commonplace book or just a simple list of titles and authors, but choose your notebook or journal and decide how you will use it.
• I plan to reward each of you if you finish your chores for the week without being reminded - what would you like as a reward?________________________________________

 Now that it is December I wanted to anticipate our celebration of the birth of Christ with the children.  My Mom gave us a cardstock Advent Calendar with windows to open each day from Dayspring.  .We open and read a window each day at lunch.

She also gave us a devotional made up of advent readings written by the women of her church so we read one of those each day in the morning as we light another candle on our advent candle wreathe.

A closeup of the Mary and Joseph
that our 9 and 11 year old modeled
from clay for the journey to Bethlehem
following the wreath as we light
 the candles each day.

After supper each day we read the Jesse Tree Devotional readings by AnnVoskamp. It is a free download here. I modeled ornaments from clay rather than print her paper ones.  I stretched a ribbon with 25 paper clips tied on at intervals of about 3-4 inches.  Each ornament I made has a paper clip embedded in it that we clip onto the hanging clips. The ornaments could also be hung on a Jesse Tree Branch. Ann's devotionals each start with an Old Testament Scripture reading and then in her beautiful words she points us to the coming Christ as seen in the Biblical passage.  

We're memorizing the Christmas story from Luke 2.  It is familiar but fun to brush up on.  

Of course crafts abound this time of year as the weather isn't as nice outside and the children are pleasantly engaged in making gifts.  

We've also been listening to Pandora Radio online.  You can make your own stations with music you enjoy.  Choose a song and they will play more like it.  We chose Classical Christmas and have been enjoying beautiful pieces of Christmas music throughout the day.  

And for read alouds - I'm planning to read one of our favorites, A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens.  I also ordered The Best Christmas Pagaent Ever, (A fresh look at Christmas from the view of the children of an unchurched family).  A friend said they read Jotham's Journey every year which has readings for each day from December 1st to Christmas.  If I can get a copy, I'd like to read it even though we will have to double up to catch up or maybe just read it right through.  We also have The Gift, a picture storybook by Jan Haley on our coffee table and have read it once and will probably read it again.  It is the fictional story of one of the wise men and his son.   

What are you doing to anticipate the celebration of Christ's birth?

Two books we've recently enjoyed reading aloud together are Cherokee Strip:  The Race for Land by Aileen Fisher and Nino.  You will perhaps recognize Aileen Fisher's name from All On a Mountain Day.
  She is a wonderful writer and this book has some good character lessons where the main character has to make a decision to do the right thing when it may cost her family something dear to them.  Nino is the story of a young Italian catholic boy and his daily life.  It includes harvesting olives, gathering firewood and other daily life as well as holidays and religious gatherings.  Good descriptions of life in another place and time.  At the end of the book Nino along with his mother and Grandfather prepare to move to America to live with his father.  I believe this book is based on the author, Valenti Angelo's own experiences as a child.