Zoe and i commenced “the plan” today, working our way around Fran, Skye and Amelie going to a workshop with Tim Noble at their dance school.
While they were out, we got the others working with a fairly intensive day looking at the art of Kandinsky with the help of a rather fab book from Usborne which looks at an artist and then gives a project to do, inspired by one of the works of art. We hooked up a laptop to one side too which meant we could flick through various others of his pieces. I hope the children were inspired; Zoe and I certainly were!
Zoe read to them first and then I had printed out some worksheets on the colour wheel and primary, secondary and tertiary colours. We got them to colour these in first, looking at how it worked (brainstretch alert!) and then talked about contrasting and complementary colours and groups of shades and tones. We touched on light having different primary colours and used the keyboard to try playing notes and seeing what colour they made us think of. (This worked better with the younger ones).
Once they’d got their brains thinking in colour, we set about three versions of the Concentric Circle Picture.
Firstly, we folded paper so it was in 6 squares and got them to decorate each box differently, thinking about the colours. We used my much beloved gel pens for this, which have been worth their weight in gold. We’ve had masses of use out of them over the last few weeks.
Once they’d done this, we got them to do a larger version using poster paints, mainly for the fun of splodgy paint, which we don’t use nearly enough. (Poor Josie!) This went down very well. Liked those pots of paint very much; quite dinky, so seemed to inspire them to be neat but covered the paper very well. We did both of these on coloured sugar paper.
Lastly, we used proper oil pastels and drew a final set of circles and then washed over them with water colours. Loved the effect of this; very clean and different to the other looks.
After that we dashed off to see the girls do their dance. Fran had obviously had a ball, Amelie looked a bit scared (but apparently had had a lovely time!) and I’m told Skye had too 🙂 Fran had, clearly, adored it and thrown herself into it and the teacher said she’d done really well. She did look alarmingly at home dancing in a group actually, I do think she would probably quite happily do that for a living if she got a chance.
We got them home and fed them endless extra food and trotted them through the same as the other girls with a reasonable amount of success. The others played like loons in the garden and had a wonderful time.
Think it was really very successful. Wish I could find the piece of paper I did the rest of the planning on though! Eeek.
I finished off my Hama Bead pattern which I am very pleased with indeed and then went off on my bike ride and got to 200 miles (did have a couple of non-bikey weeks due to being so busy and horrible rain). Am gradually beginning to tone up and lose some weight now which makes the biking feel worth while and it is good for my soul. Been listening to Swiss Family Robinson; it’s enjoyable but i do wonder about an island with tigers, hyenas, lions, kangaroos, elephants, jackals and more. There was a quote on family and learning and living together which I loved; I must try and find it. I have a copy of it somewhere from when I was a child though. I read most of it but it seems very different to the one I am listening to.
On the way home I got a call to say Fran passed her grade 2 cello with 126 (Merit) and managed 28/30 in the piece she only swapped to two weeks before the exam. Happy girl 🙂
Kadinsky WOW WOW WOW.
I like the oil pastels and the first version of the concentric circles.
Here is a searchable copy of Swiss Family Robinson:
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/sfrbn10.txt
“`Still you have been doing your duty, my dear boy; you were entrusted
with the care of the family, and a youth of manly character will not
depend for happiness on mere excitement.'”
And it’s really about passing on to the next generation:
“And my great wish is that young people who read this record of our
lives and adventures, should learn from it how admirably suited is the
peaceful, industrious and pious life of a cheerful and united family,
to the formation of strong, pure and manly character.
None take a better place in the great national family, none are
happier or more beloved than those who go forth from such homes to
fulfil new duties, and to gather fresh interests around them.”
(The first quote is from chapter 4, the second from chapter 16).
It probably does sound like your family!
Thanks for the Usborne Art Treasury recommendation 🙂
The gel pens have saved my sanity! and brought out a hidden artist in Benedict. He has always loved pen and ink drawings but complained that ordinary pencils/crayons for colouring in made his hands ache. Not so with the gel pens they glide on the paper effortlessly, it reminds me of drawing with mum’s best lipstick as a child, ahem!!
Hugs San x
Well done to Fran. like the art ideas :0)
Adelaide, it was the second – and thank you. Also a good one right at the end.
*smiling* (and grateful, business has been a tad slack lately!) for the gel pen purchases. i do hope people enjoy them 🙂
I love the paintings and the Hama beads are just beautiful. I’ve never seen such a big pattern made up, only little pieces. It looks really impressive.
i love the vibrant colours of his work. utterly gorgeous. you’ve done some amazing work around this. inspiring.