Turner's light

When it comes to studying British artists, JMW Turner's name always comes up amongst the top list.  With him being labeled as part of the Romantic movement, and after our study of John Constable, we thought we were going to see pretty much similar styles -- countryside scenes, detailed paintings, etc.  I am very glad we decided to study both artists separately as both of them could not be more different from each other.

Picture Study
Once again, I had a few postcard-sized reproductions of Turner's work on the door, as well as on my computer screen.  These were on display all the time so that Tiger was able to see them each day.  By now, he knows that he is expected to discuss/narrate any one of the pictures he sees on the door at some point.

We used several sources to prepare for our discussion on Turner's style, his influences, and his most notable artistic achievement:
1) BBC Your Painting's Turner page was our first stop.  We looked through the slide show to familiarise ourselves to Turner's different works, and also listened to the audio clips.

2) We then took a visual tour of Keelmen Heaving in Coals by Moonlight here, followed by activities in the Inside Scoop - Tuner.

3) Bringing our focus back to England, we listened to the relevant parts of the National Gallery's podcasts (episodes 60, 65, 66, and 67) about Turner.

4) We also used the following book, with its short introduction and questions, to kick start the discussion:

However, we found the following documentary to be most enlightening about Turner's life and his creative process (note: parental guidance needed due to a few scenes of nudity relating to life drawing):

Hands-on Project
Turner's work is very difficult to replicate at a child's level, for the simple reason that his style is one of romantic-realism.  Without years of practise and developed fine motor skills, it is extremely difficult to create a piece of art work at a child's level and to call it "Turner inspired", in contrast with some of the more expressionistic or abstract styles.  Nonetheless, we gave it a try. First, we looked through one of Turner's sketchbooks to get inspiration from his looser, watercolour work:

Once Tiger has had some idea of watercolour sketching, we decided to attempt an atmospheric watercolour painting based on Turner's Rain, Steam, and Speed - The Great Western Railway.   We listened to the short discussion here before starting on the project. First, the preliminary pencil sketch...

followed by a wash...

 

Tiger had fun laying in the details as he learned to use create different marks using a combination of different brush strokes, toothbrush, and the back of his paintbrushes.

The final result:

Field Trips
We went to the V&A's Room 87 to look at Turner's work, as well as Constable's work.  Nothing compares to looking at the original artworks up close!

Tate Britain happens to be the best place to learn about Turner this time.  There was a lot of renovation going on when we went there, with the Turner collection being moved to another location.  The curator and workmen were in the process of moving the collection on the day we were there but they were nice enough to let us look slowly at the paintings without being disturbed.  I spent a long time standing in front of Fishermen at Sea.  Once again, Constable's and Turner's works were displayed in the same rooms.  As a quick 'test', I asked Tiger to identify Turner's work amongst all the paintings in the various rooms.  He faired very well in that. At Tate Britain, there is a special display about Turner's Experiments with Colour and Line in another room, so we spent another hour there learning all we could about Turner's techniques. 

This post is linked up to several blog hops, where you can see what other homeschoolers have been busy with.  It is also linked up to the Carnival of Homeschooling 349th Edition.
 

Life cycles and eggs

This week we look at life cycles of the different groups of vertebrates.  We worked through this section of our study very quickly since Tiger is familiar with the concept of life cycles, having done it before in his preschool years.

At the beginning of the lesson, I wanted to make sure that he knows what a life cycle mean, so I asked him to draw me that of a chicken:

To cement our knowledge of this topic, we read the following books.  We found a few interesting facts from them, especially on the growth of sharks and salmons:

Although we knew about life cycles and that animals change as they grow, especially amphibians, we have never seen a live birth.  Watching the following clips about live mammal births made us appreciate how miraclous the process is: (note: parental guidance needed for graphic content of birthing process)

The topic of birth brought us to consider why a hen sits on her eggs, and why her weight does not break the eggs.  Tiger did a quick experiment to verify the spread of pressure on the egg by holding it in his palm and trying his hardest to break it by squeezing the egg:

We also rolled the egg on the table to see whether it would roll in a steady, straight line.  When the egg rolled in a wobbly, roundabout way, we discussed what caused that to happen and how the shape of the egg helped the hen to protect it.

Finally, we cracked the egg to look inside.  Tiger identified the parts of the egg and their uses from the 3 levels of identification exercise (easy, medium, hard) , then examined a real egg and labeled the worksheet for review.

The hands-on exercises and observations found here are quite interesting so we did them as well.  Tiger felt the texture of the different parts of the raw egg, smelled it, and did the same with a hard boiled egg.

We ended the learning session at home with a few online egg-related games: 1) Which animal lay eggs? 2) Counting eggs 3) Egg jokes - page 1 and page 2 The most interesting part of the lesson was probably live handling of the different vertebrates.  Apart from the frog that we found in our garden, all the other animals (a chicken, a corn snake, a salamander, a rabbit, and a goldfish) came from an Environmental Education Centre that we went to for half a day's lesson on vertebrates, which became a revision session for Tiger since we have already covered all the concepts taught there.  Nonetheless, being able to handle the live animals was well worth the trip.

This post is linked up to several blog hops, where you can see what other homeschoolers have been busy with.  It is also linked to the Homeschooling Carnival: September 12, 2012 edition.

Character modelling

Although we do most of our art learning at home, whenever there are interesting sessions conducted by artists working in other medium, we go and learn from them.

We spent a very interesting afternoon learning the art of modelling characters from a sculptor.  Even though Tiger has enjoyed the tactile experience of modelling clay and plasticine at home, this was the first time he has a specific tuition for three hours by a practising sculptor.

Not only did Tiger learn new modelling techniques, but he was also guided in useful sculpting skills such as using various modelling tools to make detailed markings, how to remove excess clay efficiently while considering overall form.  I learnt a lot about clay modelling from the session too.

 

While Tiger was busy with the lesson, I was busy chatting with the lady who also happens to be the principal of an art school in London!  We had a good exchange about what we each do in terms of art.  Tiger did well for himself by impressing her with his concentration and ability that she said she would make an exception for him to be enrolled in a similar class at her school that only admits teenagers.  I have looked into the class, but found the cost to be beyond our budget at the moment so Tiger will continue to learn at home to develop his skills all round. 

The principal sent me a very nice email after the workshop:

Dear ..., 

It was very nice to meet you and Tiger yesterday at the workshop, I hope you had a good journey home.

Tiger's work impressed me very much, I attach some photographs.

Do visit our School of Art whenever convenient for you, you will be very welcome.

All best wishes, I.L.

This post is linked up to several blog hops, where you can see what other homeschoolers have been busy with.

Geometry: 2D and 3D

We have been "playing" with 2D shapes on paper through our regular maths programme at home, learning to draw them with technical tools such as the 30-60 triangle and T-square.

What makes these geometry lessons interesting is that the programme goes a few steps further by asking the student to do one or more of the following:
1) identify the different shapes that are "hidden" in the main constructed shape;
2) cut and fold it into another shape; and
3) cut the main shape into smaller shapes to create other shapes.

Once every few weeks we take a day out of our regular math lessons to practise a related concept using another source of maths.  This is to get Tiger used to applying the maths concepts he has learned from our regular lessons to other types of maths problems.  The latest maths games we have played with are:
1) Hidden Polygons - an introduction to the different properties of polygons

2) Butterfly - a game that is similar to the Chinese Checkers

3) Lines of Symmetry - where some shapes can be a little tricky to think of how many symmetrical lines are possible.

Besides doing regular maths at home, we also participate in external lectures and masterclasses whenever they become available.  One of these has been an investigative class on Platonic Solids.

With the notes generously provided by the institution, one can easily teach the concept at home.  However, we have found much benefit in attending the class with other (older) homeschooled children in terms of:
1) learning how to work effectively as a team with other children;
2) making friends and contacts for future projects;
3) sharing resources and ideas;
4) learning from the strengths of other children and parents.

Although we tend to do most of our learning by ourselves at home, we are always keen to embrace opportunities to work with and learn from other homeschoolers.  It has been especially beneficial for Tiger to realise that other children can be just as quick as, if not quicker than, he is in mathematics.  It is not easy to learn about humility in isolation. 


This post is linked up to several blog hops, where you can see what other homeschoolers have been busy with.  It is also linked to the Math Teachers at Play blog carnival #50.

In the groove of nature study

Does anyone experience this, or is just us?  Suddenly we seem to get into the groove of getting the hang of putting entries into our nature journals!

After reading a chapter from an old Enid Blyton nature book that talks about recording weather, Tiger and I made our first weather record chart in his journal, and he has been diligently entering his observations into it.  Weather recording is so obvious that it completely slipped my mind that it can be a totally valid subject for nature study!

Also included in the pages are weekly observations of animals, birds, and plants.

It was meant to be a robin, but maybe Tiger was thinking of a hedgehog when he was drawing...

This post is linked up to several blog hops, where you can see what other homeschoolers have been busy with.  It is also linked to the Homeschool Showcase #96 and Science Sunday.