A Net in Time

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London’s Art Museum

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Did you know that London has an art museum? Parking is $2/hour. Admission is by donation.

It is housed in what looks to me like an old horse barn, but that’s neither here nor there. We headed there as a family today since I decided that since my lad likes art (always has pen/paper at hand) that exposing him to different types of art would not be a bad thing. I hope to go every other month, just for an hour or so to let him see new ways of doing art, and to try to show him different ways of doing art as well.

He found it interesting. I pointed out the difference between water colours and oil.

He’s not a stand and stare at things kind of lad, but if you ask him what he thinks, or what he thinks the painting/object is trying to say he’ll give it this look and try to come up with something.

We each found something that we liked, and it was all different.

Jim found a painting that looked like trees/tree stumps all jumbled that he liked.

I saw a painting with oxen pulling a hay wagon that I thought was good, and a more abstract one that to me looked like lines dancing on water. The lad thought the same picture was worms in water so we had a different interpretation. Which is part of what art is right?

The lad liked the colours in a group of painting on a wall, but he didn’t like what was painted on them. 🙂

They had this children’s art area, the lad chose to make feathers for the cats. It was a collaborative effort since he had trouble tying the string. So he held, mommy tied. The cats enjoyed their feathers when we got home. 🙂

What we Learned today – January 5, 2011

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We used this book today in our homeschooling. We’d done part of it before so today we finished it off. It was a good book to do, some easy parts, some not so easy parts. Some I made more challenging by changing it up a bit. It was particularly enjoyable to write a rebus story together, using the stickers they provided and a child’s imagination. It covered phonics, reading, and math.

A real sense of accomplishment when he was done working through it. The toughest part for him was figuring out the ending sound of words so we worked on that for a bit. He learned to laugh at himself when he made a silly mistake.

We also worked on the directionals of horizontal, vertical and diagonal. We used popsicle sticks to make designs using these directions. I figured it was good for him to start figuring some of this out.

Snow Alphabet

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Out shoveling snow this morning. The lad I thought was off playing in the backyard.

Out he comes with his wagon and shovel.
“I”m helping too mommy”!
“great” I said as I continued to shovel snow.
“NO!!! don’t take that snow mommy! I’m making letters”!
He made a B, J, H, O, A. He was quite pleased with himself. I”m pleased as well. Nice to see a boy writing his letters and then singing the alphabet song, mostly correctly. 🙂

It was a good time outside in the snow. Not too cold, pleasant conversation, and a job well done. 🙂

What we Learned today – January 4, 2011

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Today we worked through a book on sorting, seasons, bigger than, less than, the same, and rhyming. The lad had fun “x-ing” out any pigs he came across. “why don’t you like pigs J? “they are too noisy mommy”.

It was an easy book, but at times the lad had to think. It’s good to see that he knows some of this stuff, and good to see him think.

We also did our “forms of beauty” lesson from a kindergarten curriculum that I have. This consisted of taking four pieces of coloured paper and arranging them in a balanced pattern. He also experimented with taking two pieces of paper and making them balance out. he thought a pause sign was a very nice form of beauty, as was a plus and an “x”. 🙂 I made a somewhat bigger one myself simply because it’s fun to do.

Afterwards the lad made solar panels from our paper cutouts to make solar panels on Rabbit and Tagu’s house (a large cardboard box). Yellow and black construction paper made the best looking solar panels.

Later on it was time for some boat play. We used that time to just have fun and to make some observations about our boats. The boats we were using were styrofoam meat trays, individual salad bowls from McD’s, and pudding cups. After doing some experiments we learned that stryrofoam meat trays make the best boats, but the Salad bowls seal nicely so when the bunnies from Mars get their machine working and they lift the boats up, when it starts to rain, the boats that are sealed fall nicely into the water without spilling out all the bunny town rabbits out.

boats in the water

the bunnies from MARS have come

Did you know boats WON”T float if a bad egg sticks a needle in them?

the judge of the boats

We did some experiments with the pudding cups as well, using water and friction and the breathe power of a five year old.

I found this experiment interesting, and unexpected. I did not expect the two cups to hold the water in. I was sure it would leak out. BUT it did not. It only leaked out if the lad blew hard right at where the two cups joined up. The power of what… friction?? He played around with this for quite a while. And then he of course made a “bunnytown game” where he had to pour water from one cup into the other while not spilling any of it. He won apparently, while I somehow managed to lose.

Shapes

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Today I had a boy NOT wanting to homeschool at all.

So we did fun homeschooling today. 🙂

We used plasticine and we used it to make some different shape.

BUT I CAN”T was the frequent response.
So I would show him, and explain that plasticine is nice, if you make a mistake, you can just squish and try again (he’s a perfectionist type). We had fun learning that boxes are squares all connected together. That balls are spheres which are circles all rounded out. That rectangles are like squares that have been pushed out longer and sometimes flatter. That ovals are circles that have been flattened a bit. and so on and so forth.

and then we put them together in different robot shapes.

AND after that we walked around the living room looking for the different shapes throughout the living room and kitchen. Shapes are EVERYWHERE. 🙂 Sometimes they are hidden and sometimes two shapes are in the same place.

Stars: in the tree, at the door, in “bunny town”

These two cylinders are dancing together.
We found cylinders in candles, for light posts, as markers, and more.

We also played a game for a construction equipment study that we have. We used construction pieces that the lad built out of lego as our game pieces. 🙂 He won both matches, much to my chagrin.