A Net in Time

Curriculum and book reviews, faith, homeschooling and more!

hands-on learning

A Lad’s Delight in Tidyness

By 18 Comments

Did you know that sometime in the 4 months we’ll be moving?

To that end, we’re  trying to find the furniture and belongings that we say “I’m not going to move that”.  

My lad has taken that thought to heart and over the past couple of weeks has been working hard to clean his room, and MY oh MY the articles and papers and toys and junk this lad is tossing.  🙂

He even went out and bought two new-to-him shelves for his room.

He’s rather pleased with how it all turned out and said I could post it up on the blog for comments.

No before pictures as well… he wasn’t happy with his room so no pictures allowed of that.

 
Allow me to walk you through some of his changes.

Where the shelves are placed used to be a large drawer cupboard.   It was good for the storage of blocks of wood, stuffies, toy animals and such like, but he’s 11 now, his play takes a somewhat different turn these days.   

We moved it out to the book room where I’ll use it for other things.  It left him with one shelf which was unacceptable, but YAY!!  Mom found some shelves for sale and the previous owner was willing to accept counter offers from a lad!!   An even better woot woot!

Shelf One:

Top Shelf – Christmas Snowmen, trophy and catapult.

Next Shelf- snake skins (literally) and art projects

Next two – papercraft items and support items

Bottom shelf – can you see how he made an area for his cat to lie down?

He is SO pleased with his just for Milo area.  🙂  and Milo seems to like it too.   All we need to do now is add a cat door to his bedroom and Milo will always have access to HIS BOY.

Some of the treasures he wants you to see.   All these treasures he made.  Some from a kit, the rest all him.  🙂

Second shelf unit

This unit predominately holds his books along with his 3-d models and a few other treasures.

The tractor is a reminder of his grandfather.

The bottom shelf holds toys he can’t quite get rid of yet, as well as some cat magazines etc.

Model car, items from Kiwi Crates and a bit of this and that.

Treasures again for you to see: 

One last area that he wants to show off.

OH!!!  I almost forgot!!!   He figured out how to hang up his real sword!!!!

My son is hoping you like what he did with his shelf units.  Nothing on the floor, everything nicely organized.  What more could a tidy boy want eh? Other than… MORE SHELVES!!!!   🙂

Art Series: Designing with Pixar

By Leave a Comment

YES! It’s time for another Art Books from My House to Yours. I really need to take the time to provide you with links to all of them, but not today. 🙂 Today’s book is Designing With Pixar: 45 Activities to create your own characters, worlds and stories.

 Anyways, when I first saw this 80 page I wondered at its usefulness, and then I really started looking at it.

The author Ms. Emily Haynes takes the beloved pixar characters and uses them to help children design better characters, worlds and stories. I’m going to be using this book with my lad to help him once he finishes his story, to turn it into a book. 🙂 Won’t that be cool?

Using pixar characters we are drawn into determining colours for characters skin, hair, clothing etc.   How do those colours make you feel, what do they draw out of you.

We are then led to think about shapes, how does the shape of the character change your thoughts about them.   Often the words “Imagine if….”

What makes your character(s) interesting?   How would you draw them to show those interests?

I won’t say this book is huge and very in-depth, but it does excite the curiousity.   What if Nemo wasn’t orange and white, would it have affected how we thought of him?   What if he’d been a moray eel instead?   Or if Brave’s Merida had long blond tresses rather than a wild mass of long red-haired curls?

Colour and shape influence what we think and feel about characters (and perhaps about the people around us… like the book we are listening to right now where the main character likes to dress in greys and browns so she won’t be noticed).   Could such a character be drawn and how would you draw such a person?

It’s a simple and yet intriguing concept don’t you think?

This book comes with a ton of pages to write and colour on.  To Design your set and to think through changes you would make to movies they have put together.     You see this book is the result of work done by Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum and Pixar Animation Studios when they worked to put together an exhibit.    The exhibit was all about Pixar’s design process.   Research, Iteration and collaboration.   A Story need to have appeal and believability. 

Research – when you look to the world to help inspire your own work.
Iteration – playing with colours and shapes to create your own worlds and characters
Collaboration – working with other people to help tell a story.

The goal of the book: to help people tell their own stories.

To that end, they use their own characters, such as Eve from Wall-E

We are asked to imagine that she has met an alien intruder, what does he look like, his shape and colour?   Does the mean friend or foe?

Emotions can be different colours, like red for anger, green for digust.

What colours could other emotions be?   Like Joy  or Sadness or excitement?

So grab up this book, this inventive activity book that draws you into the world of Pixar and discovery, talk and think about what colours and shapes evoke in your and others.  Work together, create your own stories and worlds.

Designing with Pixar: 45 Activities to create your own characters, worlds and stories.

Michael Bierut
by (artist) ‘Cooper Hewitt
foreword by John Lasseter 
Text by Emily Haynes
Size is 8 x 10 inches.
 80 pages.
Geared for ages 6-9 (but I see the age spread as higher)
Affiliate links provided for ease in finding this book for yourself.   Thanks for your support.
Amazon.ca: Designing with Pixar: 45 Activities to Create Your Own Characters, Worlds, and Stories
Amazon.com: Designing with Pixar: 45 Activities to Create Your Own Characters, Worlds, and Stories

Art Series: Draw, Paint, Print like the Great Artists

By 2 Comments

Don’t you love when you find a book that works great for a class you want to teach?   When I first saw this book “Draw  Paint Print like the Great Artists” by Marion Denchars I thought THIS book will be awesome to use in an art classes with a group of children.

And you know what… IT WAS!   🙂

I have to tell you how much fun we had with this 224 page book.   18
different artists that we could discuss it was hard to break it down to
just 6 classes.

One of the artists we learned about was Sonia Delaunay, was a Ukrainian-French artist who work explodes with colourful shapes in unexpected rhythms and patterns.   She loves to do abstract art.    Her work was always infused with abstract, geometric, and brightly coloured patterns.

Check out some of the work the children did.

I just love how the children took the ideas they learned and let them play out in their own ways.  Circles, layers, rectangles, and more.  I was particularly impressed with this one.

The young person who made this is a very shy quiet lad.   He needed a certain amount of prompting and quiet encouragement to attempt his hand.   Circles didn’t appeal to this lad, and he seemed rather uncertain so I read out the description of Ms. Delaunay s work about how it showed geometric shapes.  That peeked his interest so I said.. you know geometic shapes like circles and triangles, and rectangles and squares…and he was off to the races.  🙂   It was SO delightful to see this young fellow grab hold and figure out how to make it all work.     He was bravely different and I love it.  THIS is what I love about teaching art classes, and books like this that inspire and give ideas… I love them.

This is such a great book to use.

If you just want to use it within your family that would be very doable, or if you want to gift a child, this book is meant to used and worked with.

Pages where you can make a self portrait, do aboriginal drawing, learn to use space and so much more.

 
 

 

 

The set up is fairly simple.
Learn about the artist.  See examples of their style.   Learn how to copy that style.  Pages are given if using with an individual student to use, or you can just take the information and talk to a class of children and teach it.  This is a marvellous resource that I plan to use again with another class. 

I will continue to use it with my son in his schooling as well.. but art with a class is SO MUCH FUN.   Ideas that are spawned off each other… it’s amazing to see the encouragement given, the delight in a child’s eyes when they learn something new and accomplish it and the variety AND sense of pride that doing your own thing, while meeting the challenge of an artists gives.

It’s why I like teaching art to children… in my own way.  🙂 

Now I would be remiss if I failed to tell you where I got this great book, it comes my way courtesy of Raincoast Books.  224 pages, 18 artists, great for children 8-12 (or older), published by Laurence King and is about 8 x 11 inches.  Printed on heavier paper to withstand the rigors of being used by an artist.

Do it Different Fridays: 3D puzzle of Notre Dame

By 10 Comments

Notre Dame took 200 years to complete, started in 1163 by Bishop Maurice de Sully.   It was finally completed in 1345 It was built in the gothic style.  The whole town seemed to get involved in the building, from the finances needed, to labour, to expertise in design and what not.  It has become an icon of Paris. 


Some facts about Notre Dame:

  • .1160 Maurice de Sully (named Bishop of Paris) orders the original cathedral demolished.
  • 1163 Cornerstone laid for Notre-Dame de Paris; construction begins.
  • 1182 Apse and choir completed.
  • 1196 Bishop Maurice de Sully dies.
  • c.1200 Work begins on western facade.
  • 1208 Bishop Eudes de Sully dies. Nave vaults nearing completion.
  • 1225 Western facade completed.
  • 1250 Western towers and north rose window completed.
  • c.1245–1260s Transepts remodelled in the Rayonnant style by Jean de Chelles then Pierre de Montreuil
  • 1270  the Parisians watched over the body of the King, Saint Louis, who died in Tunis;
  • 1250–1345 Remaining elements completed.
  • 1302 King Philip the Fair opened the first Estates General of the Kingdom of France
  • 1572, it was here that King Henry IV married Marguerite de Valois
  • 1594 King Henry IV converted to Catholicism 
  • 1804 it is where Pope Pius VII crowned Napoleon I Emperor of the French
  • it was also at Notre-Dame that the Te Deum was sung at the end of the First and Second World Wars;

It is located on a small island called the Ile de la Cite in the middle of river Seine.

Notre Dame Cathedral which can also be called “our lady” is still in use
today by the Roman Catholic Church for Sunday mass and it is the seat
of the Archbishop of Paris. A notable and distinct historical artefact
which is very popular today is the famous bell that has been
redesigned to ring automatically. Any visitor to the bell tower should
be prepared to climb the 140 steps staircase, if desirous of seeing the
historical bell or have a glimpse of the city of Paris.

 Also inside the Notre Dame Cathedral, among so many historical
artefacts, is the notable 17th century organ with all of its parts still
functional.

We learned a few things about Notre Dame and then we built it.  🙂   NO.. not the actual building took 200 years remember  🙂 but a 3-D puzzle of it.

We made this puzzle:

 I liked how the pieces were clearly marked, and made on sturdy material. They were easy to punch out and match with the clearly marked directions.

 
Do you see how clear the instructions are?   My son found them very easy to follow, and even corrected my decisions a couple of times.   His only complaint about putting together this puzzle was that some of the slots for sliding the pieces together are a bit too small, but they were easily made bigger using the utensil it comes with.
 Putting the puzzle together.
It was a lot of fun putting this together with my lad, even though at times, my somewhat ill lad would get impatient with the finickiness of some of the pieces.
It was a good way for us to connect again after weeks of illness and kinda just doing our own thing.
 Once again I thought about Educents and how it’s having a sale this weekend and thought I’d see what they had about Notre Dame and France.  It would appear that they  have some 74 products you can choose from.  Going to link up a couple just so you can see what they have.  These are affiliate links that just help support us.
France Close Reading
France Symbols
Bastille Day
France My book

Homeschool Coffee Break

STEM: Light Up Planetarium

By 7 Comments

Since battling illness is the name of the game in this house lately, today I decided to switch things up for the lad.

“Do your reading and then we’ll work on a couple of your boxes okay?”   says I.

“GREAT MOM” was the enthusiastic response.  (good to have enthusiasm again)  🙂

Over the past year we’ve been working with kiwi crates, I decided to bump up the the tinker crates, and Light Up Planterium is the first one we received.     Below you will see my son unpacking the box.  It comes in the mail addressed to him.

 
Tinker Creates is a great way to teach and entertain youth from 9-16 years old.   I discovered that the instructions are different, they came as a fold out page rather than a booklet. 

My son had absolutely no problem following the instructions and figuring out where he wanted to go.  He was able to easily look ahead and problem solve before reaching the next stage as needed.

HA!!!   I made my first ever presentation, cool eh?

One thing I couldn’t figure out how to show you was how neat all those pin holes stars look against a dark ceiling.  Just couldn’t get a good shot regardless of what I did with the camera.

But seriously, tinker crates are a great deal of fun and you can take the learning from them into so many different directions.  Do them as is or put them into a small unit study.  We’re studying astronomy this year so this box was an excellent fit.  You can order individual crates from Kiwi Crates from what I recall, so give them a look see and figure out what you can use with your students.  🙂 

Fascinating Fungi

By 2 Comments

 Affiliate links may be used in this post that help to support us.  Thank you.

One of the things that I like to do when out for a walk, particularly if I have my camera is to stop and take pictures of fungi.

My boys shake their heads at me and keep walking, they simply don’t understand why I wouldn’t rather take pictures of birds and what not.   But Fungi are cool, they are helpful decomposers of the plant world. 

Most of the fungi I find are this lovely white/beige colour.   Aren’t they gorgeous?   Just look at all the variety in them, from rounded shapes, to rosettes or jutting out like mini shelves.   They are fascinating to me.   🙂

Imagine my delight when  I spotted this beauty.   It’s orange!   Every fungus on the tree was this same shade of orange.   I showed it to my lad when I got home and asked “What do you think makes it that orange colour mom?   I’ve never seen one like this before.”

I have to tell you that I don’t know a whole lot about fungi, I just know they are helpful plants that are often overlooked.     They come in a variety of shapes and sizes.   Some…are edible, others will kill you.   Others are so small you wouldn’t even know they were there.  

Once when we were camping we learned about a fungus that lives inside of plants and is able to figure out the shortest distance between points.   If you had the time and patience, you could map out a number of landmarks, lay out oatmeal in that pattern and that fungus will figure out the best route for you.   Amazing eh?   They are apparently using that to figure out the best ways to lay down a subway system.   Go figure.

Did you know that fungi are not plants nor are they animals.  They have a classification all their own. They are highly variable in their appearance and action. 

I love how you can find one all by itself, just doing its thing, and at other times you see so many of them, you can hardly see the wood it’s growing on.    Such variety in what seems an insignificant organism.  They just delight me.

So I heard that Educents was going to have a sale and they sent me a reminder that I have a credit with them and that perhaps I might want to use it up.   This made me wonder… might they have information about fungi?

And look.. THEY DO!!!

They have this bacteria and fungi kit. Young
Scientists of all ages will be fascinated by growing bacteria and fungi
of all colors and textures in Petridishes. They will discover how
antibiotics cure disease. Students finish the kit by “waking”the common
fungus called yeast.

Or check out this product: Germs and Fungus Lessons and Experiments.  Learn how to prevent the spread of germs.  Describe the various shapes of fungi and more. 

Oh Ick.  Gives students a chance to do science, including observing fungi growing as they make a mold zoo.   Not only that, there are 114 science experiments to be found at your fingertips, so even if you aren’t fascinated by fungi, you are bound to find something that intrigues you.  🙂

Just think of the fun one could have working with fungi, growing it, examining, watching it and most importantly…learning about it.   And Educents will give you a discount to do so.  Cool eh?

If you are  first time member did you know you get a discount on your first order?   You can find out the details for that RIGHT HERE. 

For all other discount options, see the image below.

Review: Ultimate Guide to being a SuperHero

By 2 Comments

Admittedly, when I first received this book I thought “HUH?   What am I going to do with this one? I have no interest in superheroes, and now I have a book on them?”

Then I opened the book and I was AMAZED!!!   What book you ask?   The Ultimate Guide to Being a SuperHero.

You know what this book is?   This is a
– boys cooking class
– a co-op class with varied activities
– a semester of learning that encompasses phys ed, coding, math, language arts, arts and so much more.

It’s a GREAT book, let me tell you all about it eh?

Exactly what is in the Superhero book?

Chapters
Secret Identity 101

  •  This section covers topics like your mask, avoiding detection, changing into your superhero suit and choosing your secret identity

Dealing with villians

  • Subcategories of fighting evil, knowing your villains, villain weapons, and more.

 Gear & Gadgets

  • Items such as supersuits, cape, accessories, specialty gear, secret messages etc

Moves and Maneuvers

  •  flying, transportation, marksmanship, smashing, fighting, jumping

Being a Superhero

  • topics like: finding your superpower, training,developing your brand, choosing your sidekick, social media, secret hideout, your commitment to the world

 This book is written for children.   It’s focused on keeping them safe and letting them have fun learning all the ins and outs of being a superhero.   For instance, capes are great when you are with your friends, or in a parade, but fighting or flying in a cape.. NOT such a good idea.  🙂

There is humour found within the pages, as well as seriousness, like the importance of knowing how to code.

Cooking when you learn about Superheros is so much…and you get to play with your food too!
Think about the math and the conversations you could have, and watching science happen before your eyes!

Remember I mentioned phys ed?
Well you do know superheroes have to be in good shape to do what they do right?
Exercise time!!!!   From learning how to eat smart, to how to keep your body in good shape, superheroes have much to learn and much to do.

At 157 pages, the Ultimate Guide to being a Superhero is packed full of activities, from making a mask and the rest of your gear (sewing anyone?), to building your secret hideout, and  making a target, as well as learning good superhero songs… and so much more in-between.

There is so much information in this guide to boggle the mind (it certainly surprised me!)

I am so pleased that Raincoast Books sent me this item to add to my resource pile… so much to do!  🙂
As I went through this book I kept thinking how easy it would to turn this into a book on being a superhero for God, or adding to it to turn it into a health unit (or expanding the phys ed section) and so forth…so much potential in this book to do SO MUCH WITH IT.  Seriously.

The Ultimate Guide to being a Superhero,is book that 8.86 x 10.35 and  160 pages long.

It is geared to children ages 6-11 years.

Printed on multi-coloured pages.

The book is a coil book, making the pages easy to turn and stand up if necessary.  It lays flat easily, making it easy to follow instructions when making crafts or cooking.

 This is a hands-on, let get down and dirty and do some learning type of book.    Life skills and superhero skills combined, have fun with your child today.

GET THIS BOOK.  🙂

 US Link: The
Ultimate Guide to Being a Superhero: A Kid’s Manual for Saving the
World, Looking Good in Spandex, and Getting Home in Time for Dinner

Canadian Link: The
Ultimate Guide to Being a Superhero: A Kid’s Manual for Saving the
World, Looking Good in Spandex, and Getting Home in Time for Dinner