Arabella Watercolor Lesson

Here is a little make up lesson we did this week. My mom came over and painted with us.

Watercolor is a tricky medium. I would love to take a formal art class. I have a great book that I am going to practice with. It is called The Artist's Handbook by Angela Gair.

This first photo is an excerpt from the book Arabella.

I found I do pretty well at copying someone.

Mouse is pretty good at coming up with her own ideas.
I think we are going to try to do a lot of painting this summer.

FUN School - Arabella Week Two

Week one of Funschool was very fun. We did not get to everything on our plans, but we did most of it. Some things we will try to catch up on this week. Especially studying the Great Barrier Reef and storytelling.

Monday:
Social Studies - Relationships & Learning - Island Life - Review Australia
Science - Build an Island (Volcano building)
LA - Storytelling

Relationships and Learning: We will discuss why it is important that we learn things in stages. Building one idea on top of another. This will also be taught in a spiritual way. Heavenly Father loves us and teaches us in stages. Using Isaiah 28:9-10

Island life - I used to live on an island, Crystal Beach, TX, it was fabulous. We will talk about the pros and cons.

Australia Review - Where is it? What animals live there? etc.

Language Arts: Storytelling
Mouse wrote the story to a boy, a dog, and a frog. It turned out quite nice. She is trying hard to write so she can be "published"! I have seen a huge improvement in her writing lately.

I will have Monkey narrate his story to me later.

Science: Islands
Mouse wants to make an island as part of our study. Being the new and improved homeschooler that I am we are going to do it! We read a book from the Magic School Bus series on volcanoes and how an island is formed. This will be fun. We are going to make a volcano, and then if she wants to make a dirt island outside we will do that too.

Tuesday:
LA - Descriptive Sentences/Lists, an extra for Mouse: Parallel Construction
Science: The Great Barrier Reef

We will use some books I found at a library sale to supplement our study of the GBR. We will learn about coral, and the fish that live among it.

Wednesday:
Art - Medium - Watercolor
We will paint nautical scenes on real watercolor paper. It should be fun! I was thinking of tying this in with the GBR study and painting coral, or saltwater fish.

Thursday:
Applied Math - Parts of a Whole in Real Life
Science: Clouds

Friday:
Science: Tides

Dinner will be seafood po boys.

Pictures will come as they happen!

FUN School - Arabella Week One

The next two weeks are an attempt to make our homeschool fun again. We got a little focused on workbooks, and just doing the basics and it got B-O-R-I-N-G! This involves hands on science all week. (My kids idea.) Also I have to step up the art lessons.

This is what we are doing with the Five in a Row book Arabella by Wendy Orr. This book is a story about a boy and his grandfather and the model ship Arabella. The model gets lost at sea during a storm, and the little boy goes after it. The boy makes it safely home with the Arabella but learns that his grandfather values him most of all the things in his life.

Monday:
Social Studies - Discover Australia
Science - Weather Observation

A while back a friend from the FIAR boards sent us this book as a surprise. It is signed and there is a note to the kids from Wendy Orr. Very nice. It was shipped from Australia, where Wendy Orr now resides. So we are studying Australia.

Today we completed a Highlights Top Secret Adventure that cover Australia.

We are also going to make a bottle thermometer, a barometer and a wind speedometer from the instructions in the Usborne Big Book of Experiments.

Tuesday:
Language Arts - Simile, Storytelling, Vocabulary
Science - Rope and Knot Tying

We have the book a boy, a dog, and a frog by mercer mayer . This is a wordless book, and both Mouse and Monkey will write a story for this book.

Mouse will do the Vocabulary words in the FIAR Vol. 4 book. Monkey will learn about similes.

Andrew will be teaching us basic knots during Family Home Evening on Tuesday. We are pretty excited about that. I am sure I will "tie" in a demonstration on how family unity can be represented by a rope. I am sure the Godhead will be demonstrated also as they are 3 individuals united in one purpose.

This is the Double Half Hitch knot:

This is the Sheet Bend knot:

Wednesday:
Art: Model Ship Building
Science: Parts of a Wave/Reefs (The Great Barrier Reef)

We are going to build models of ships from toothpicks. We will also make the Crayola models of The Black Pearl and The Flying Dutchmen from Pirates of the Caribbean. I found them at Goodwill for $2.

Thursday:
Applied Math: Parts to Make a Whole
Science: Blood Cells

We will find real life fractions. This will not be intense. We will keep it light and fun. They get a ton of fraction practice in their math curriculum.

We will look at this website on blood. We enjoyed learning about how our blood is such a help to our body. We watched the Magic School Bus show Inside Ralphie. Note to me: It is so much better to study something then let them watch the movie. We discussed and reviewed it as we watched. Very good!

Friday:
Science: Sailing
Field Trip to a local marina.

We will talk about sailing concepts, and the general principles of aerodynamics and the use of simple machines. (straight from the manual)

We are using many books to aid in our studies this week. Our "Learning Library" is full of fun and interesting books on all topics we will cover over the next two weeks.

I will update with pictures as they happen.