Wednesday, October 7, 2020

Adventures in Home Learning: Episode 28

 

We are rolling along with school work here, adjusting here and there, but it has been going fairly smoothly on our end.

We started the school year online and were supposed to pick up worksheets every other Wednesday but that has been difficult for the teachers to prep in time so we are moving to every Friday. That doesn’t allow for a full four-day quarantine of materials but it’s better than nothing.

The munchkin is pretty good about doing her work, but she doesn’t like us to check it because we usually find something she needs to fix. We aren’t turning things in daily online anymore so we really do need to correct any problems before they get too far. If we wait until the papers go back to her teacher, she can be doing something wrong for a week or more before it gets caught. That seems like a bad idea to me.

We are getting assignments from Music and P.E., so that is good. The school had said there would be art but I haven’t seen anything yet so I’m going to start some art projects at home for her.

I have an older drawing book an aunt gave me, and one on coloring with markers, that might come in handy. I bought her a fashion coloring book where the figures are there already and she just needs to design the clothes, because I thought that might interest her.

She also loves watching videos on Kids Youtube where a young woman takes squishies and paints them, or sometimes even combines them before painting them. (The mention of squishies painting was greeted enthusiastically.)

After a little brainstorming, I turned to some friends for advice.

Home-schooling mom and newly minted author, Michelle Pointis-Burns, recommended 2 books -  

You Can Draw in 30 Days: The Fun, Easy Way to Learn to Draw in One Month or Less  – January 4, 2011 by Mark Kistler

Drawing With Children: A Creative Method for Adult Beginners, Too -  June 4, 1996 by Mona Brookes

“I've had this book for years. The other is new and I love it. Easy, step-by-step instruction for even the most reluctant artist.”

Check out Michelle's web site for homeschooling and writing https://www.michellepointisburns.com/ 

(Oh, and her first cozy mystery releases on October 24th so be sure to check out Say Cheese and Murder by Michelle Pointis-Burns! I’ve already read it and highly recommend it, if you like cozy mysteries.)

Author and home-schooling mom, Mattea Orr, gave this advice –

“We also have the Discovering Great Artists one and some kid-friendly art lesson/drawing books similar to the ones Michelle listed. Another fun one [a friend] gave us this spring is The Doodle Book by Taro Gomi---very low pressure, very fun, for the days when you're not up to a big project. We use all of those, but I try to make sure there's more doing than learning for the elementary aged kids. During the school year we usually have at least one art project centered around a holiday, one that's baking related, and some that align with a science or social studies portion that we're studying. For example, when my daughter was doing Ancient Egypt last year, she mummified an old doll, and turned a small-ish cardboard box into a sarcophagus complete with decorations/trinkets/coptic vessels. My younger daughter is easy, though. She'll do art every day no matter what. Lately, she's sketching faces from black and white photos of famous people. My older daughter prefers art that is a craft with a finished product she can use, or that tells a story, so we do a lot of book creation, photography, graphic novel, and fashion studies/creation these days. She's in 6th grade this year, so she also has an art book she works from. My son is only in first grade, so he usually tags along on the group projects and does what he can/has patience for. And I read him age-level art books and keep his projects tactile as that's what he loves.”

You can read more about Mattea and her writing at https://www.matteaorr.com/

I’ve ordered a couple books and I have some ideas. Time to make art.

For inspiration, I’ll leave you with Artist Transforms Coffee Stains into Mischievous Little Monster Illustrations from My Modern Met.


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