A natural way to fall in love

I must confess that we haven't done any structured nature study this summer.  However, we did have a lot of fun spending time and just being in nature.

Sometime at the beginning to summer, I fell totally in love with poppies.

I just couldn't get enough of them, so I went crazy in my nature journal playing with different images of them:

Tiger saw how I went crazy with painting loosely the poppies so he decided to have a go at doing it himself:

The above are more artistic interpretations of poppies than accurate botanical illustrations.  However, we are finding that painting loosely removes the pressure of having to be absolutely accurate and precise, thus freeing us to observe and record our experiences with the objects and/or with the environment.  At this point, we tend more towards an artistic interpretation of our interaction with nature, rather than a precise, scentific record of flora and fauna.

Having said that, I do admire very much the accuracy and precision of botanical illustrations.  It's just not realistic to expect Tiger to be able to draw in that way, especially when he has not shown any inclination towards realism.  Right now I am more concerned with establishing a habit of nature journaling than with having Tiger draw realistically.  What else is in our nature journals this summer?

A glimpse into Tiger's nature journal for the summer:

 

My nature journal saw a gradual evolution into more tightly drawn images:

After a while I decided to try turning the record into journaling, rather than mere paintings:

The process has been gradual, but I'm definitely falling in love with nature journaling.  It feels as though we've approached it from a roundabout way, in terms of starting off with very loose recording with no concern for accuracy.  However, if we had started off with a focus on precision, we might have given up after a few attempts.  Enjoying the process is a big part of keeping our motivation going.


This post is linked up to:
1) All Year Round Blog Carnival: Summer
2) Enchanted Thursdays Blog Hop #29
3) Science Sunday: Canine and their relatives

A summer of artistic scratching...

By "scratching", I mean finding our way through trying out different ideas and/or activities.  This summer we have specifically done lots of scratching with art, specifically in the areas of mixed media and art journaling.  As with most activities that happen around here, the scratching process was as much for Tiger's exposure as it was for my personal exploration into these two areas of art.

We found there to be much overlap between mixed media and art journaling, in terms of applying multiple layers of medium and paint.  Tiger loved the process of making mixed media art because of the potential of making a mess...

Unfinished mixed media art

We then tried to use what we have learned so far,to another project.  The difference in the second project is that it involved random application of paint (similar to abstract art), rather than multiple layers of ephemera.  Tiger used a canvas board while I did mine on gessoed sketchbook pages.

Tiger's unfinished abstract art

Mine unfinished spread, to be used as the background to journaling pages.

Tiger also tried his hand at using layering and stamping technique in his art journal.

Creating art involves much scratching for ideas, playing around, and experimenting.  Almost all of the pieces of work shown above are incomplete.  At some point we will complete them, but the process of experimentation is just as useful as producing the final piece of work.  The most important part of it all?  We played!

This post is linked up to:
1) All Year Round Blog Carnival: Summer
2) Hip Homeschool Hop - 8/28/12
3) Collage Friday - All about the Haircut

A sporty summer

This summer has been a truly relaxed one as far as we're concerned.  I, for one, have felt very rested and am now ready to face starting our new academic year in September.  This summer has been very different from last summer, which I am surprised by yet am grateful for.  Routines can become rather dull.

While I rested, Tiger has been very active.   He passed his grading in karate and is now a blue belt.

He has also been introduced to the new sports of kendo, which is the Japanese swords fighting.  After a few sessions of training, Tiger is very keen to continue with it whenever his karate sensei next arranges for it.

The rest of the summer was dotted with tennis, badminton, tramplining, and archery.

The latest sport to have taken root is off-road cycling.  Tiger has been going out on rides with Tortoise almost every day.  Thanks to the longer daylight hours, they have been able to cycle for one to two hours each time and cover increasingly longer distances and more challenge terrains.

It's not summer for us without having been on the beach, so we did.  I relaxed on the picnic rug reading and sketching, 

 

while the boys dug, swam, and mostly just played.

This post is linked up to:

1) Hip Homeschool Hop - 8/28/12

2) All Year Round Blog Carnival: Summer

3) Collage Friday - All About the Haircut

Summer with Fred

There has been much interest in various homeschooling circles, both in the UK and in the USA, about the Life of Fred math series.  I decided to take a look at the sample pages and liked how the author has interwoven important math concepts into the story, while introducing broader philosophical and historical concepts in a conversational style.

We used the first book, Life of Fred: Apples, last summer and Tiger loved the quirky character, Fred.  We didn't pursue the series further in the year until we found time again this summer, so I ordered the rest of the elementary series , and Tiger read them several times by himself at the start of the summer.

There are rave reviews for the series.  While Tiger loves the series and I think it is an interesting and broad way to introduce some very complex maths concepts to children, I am not sure I would use it solely as our main math curriculum, even though I know of homeschoolers who swear by it.  I get the sense that this series is very successful with children who fear or hate maths, as the series is written in a humourous way to grab children's attention while exposing them to the applicability of mathematics in real life situations via the adventures of Fred.  For a child who already enjoys maths (e.g. Tiger) this series is useful to the extent of exposing him to concepts that he would otherwise come across much later, and to use them as jump-off points to investigate certain areas further.

Having said that, Tiger enjoyed the series so much that I decided to sit with him in August to work through all the end-of-chapter questions to make sure that he did not gloss over the parts that he did not understand.

Things began to become more interesting for us in the sixth book, Life of Fred: Farming, where concepts such as sets and factorials (amongst a host of many other non-mathematical concepts) are introduced in a straightforward way.  I like the way the author is commited to introducing seemingly complex mathematical ideas in a straightforward manner.  Nowadays, many subjects have been made confusing and complex to the learner due to poor quality teaching and/or unnecessarily complicated explanation.  Mathematics, when explained in a straightforward way, should not be an intimidating subject to anyone.

We have completed the series up to Life of Fred: Goldfish.  There are 3 more books in the elementary series, so it looks like we'll be seeing Fred again next summer!

**Note: I am not affliated with the publishing company or the author of this curriculum.  Neither am I paid in any way to say anything about it.  This review is done purely out of interest to share our experience with using this curriculum.


This post is linked up to:
1) Homeschool Mother's Journal: August 24, 2012
2) Collage Friday - All about the Haircut
3) Weekly Wrap-Up: The One with the First Week Off
4) Favourite Resources: August 24, 2012
5) Enchanted Thursday Blog Hop #28
6) Math Monday Blog Hop #64
7) All Year Round Blog Carnival: Summer