Weekly Wrap UP 5/2518-- Martinez, Caesar, Public school ends

The last artist we will be studying this year is Maria Martinez who is a Native American artist.  The project was to work on 3D art and learn about pottery.  While Meet the Masters only had one project, a pinch pot.  I as usual added to it.

While this artist is famous for making her pots it was actually her husband who painted them.  We never could find out why he wasn't given as much credit for the pots.

First the boys made coil pots

then a pinch pot

We had to let the pots dry before we could paint them which we did the following week.

we encouraged the boys to try to do Indian designs but we were flexible and they boys came up with their own designs

Sample of my pots 

MarioFans pot

We are getting to do one more art projects next week--weaving baskets.  I thought it would be a fun project to end the year with!


This year the boys covered 15 different artist, learning about their art, style and the personal history of each artist.  We are hoping to work together next year and chose more artists to introduce the boys too, since this year was a great success in learning art on a weekly basis!!


For our last Literature book of the school year we are reading the play Julius Caesar! there are so many books out there but after looking at several of them we chose this version as it had lots of notations that help us understand the play

We are expecting this to be our last book of the school year for our Literature class!

 I am not an expert on Shakespeare and this type of reading is pretty hard for the boys.  So we have been pulling lots of resources together to help them learn about the play and the type of writing it is in.  Here are some of the resources we have found that has helped us in our lesson planning.

Before beginning we listened to this video



I also had the kids listen to this video which gives a synopsis of the play



At home we are listening to an audio version of the book as we are following along.  Stopping whenever we need to look something up to better understand the passage.

After each scene we go and watch a video clip that helps to explain the scene and some of the nuances that we might have missed



After we have read the scene and understand what the characters are saying and doing we are watching the movie scene.  I stop the movie at the point of where we have finished reading.  It may seem a bit disjointed but we plan to watch the movie again all the way though once the book is completed.  I am finding this helps with the understanding of the play.



Lastly we are having the boys fill in a question work sheet for each act, again hoping to get the boys to better understand the play.  I found these questions free at this site.

MarioFan has completed his Science for the year.  We finished Evolution and this semester have been concentrating on human evaluation.  We are going to take a short break on science and then we will do some more hand on activities as MarioFan prefers science experiments and he feels this past semester, science has been lacking in that area.  Hard to recreate a lab on this evolution!

Firedrake had her finals this week for her three classes in public school.  Since we ended the semester with all A's she once again was allowed to drop one final exam.  She chose to drop Algebra final this semester!  She is still working on a few subjects at home but should be wrapping things us shortly.

Weekly Wrap UP 5/18/18 -- Shakespeare, Michelangelo, Tapas

We have completed our literature program (Lightening Literature) but we decided to do just one more book as a group.  We chose to do the play Julius Caesar.  But First we wanted to review who was William Shakespeare and why his plays are so important.

Some books we used to learn more about the life of Shakespeare


the boys watch a few videos  to learn about the Globe theater and the way Shakespeare uses verse in his plays

Firedrake has chosen a new book for her Science Fiction class for public school.  The final book for the class was student choice.

As I understand it, she was the first to call out she wanted to read this book which resulted in a few groans from the other students;). As every student had to read a different book and then present on it the last week of class She was very happy and can't wait to get started.  

Firedrake also completed her first Public school state testing this week.  I actually called the school to see if we could opt out of it, since I am not a huge fan of state testing, only to be told that the state mandates the testing and it represents 4% of her grade:(, plus missing class would be considered unexcused absences.  This is when attending public school can be such a pain.  Tying state testing to a students grade is unreasonable in my opinion, but it is what it is:(.  Firedrake took the test and now we wait to see the results.  We aren't necessarily worried about the test I just don't like the pressure it puts on kids.

For art we are working on learning about Michelangelo and his many styles of art.

Some of the books were looked at to better understand this artist and his life.  For our lecture we concentrated on his sculptures and architecture

 The Meet the Master programs art project focused on his architecture designs.

I don't know why but this project was very stressful to complete.  Not sure if there were too many steps or that my directions were poor, or the boys just weren't interested....but getting it accomplished was painful for all involved:(

Everyone was glad when the project ended.  The project still turned out ok though.  Sometimes you just have one of those assignments or days where it just doesn't work:)

For the next project I decided to work with the boys on drawing the hands up close.  I chose a simple pattern that concentrated on shapes of the hand.  Then the boys tried it using only a pencil and basic shading techniques.

First the boys looked more closely at his paintings

Then I did a quick lesson on anatomy and drawing hands.  Please keep in mind I am NOT an artist!!!!

Boys looking at Michelangelo's art sketches of body parts-- you can see my hand sketch attempt on the table;)

Not bad first attempts for either boy, I thought.  This project which I thought would be the harder of the two projects turned out to be the easiest for the boys, go figure!

My son has been going to coop for Spanish lessons and recently they went to a local restaurant to try Spanish tapas.  The assignment for the kids was to order as much as they could in Spanish and try new foods.  The whole family went and enjoy a tapas lunch!

I only caught a picture of the dessert!

We are really wrapping up our school year.  MarioFan has completed his vocabulary and spelling program.  Should be finished by end of May with his Grammar and geography work books.  He should also be wrapping up his science topic on human evolution very soon.  I will be documenting our summer plans soon.

Firedrake is also finishing up with her Public schooling ends in 3 weeks. She too has finished most of her homeschooling curriculum.  There are just a few things that need to be finished up over the next month.  But we an all see the end in sight.

Weekly Wrap Up 5/4/18--Holes , art show and Japanese

The boys finished reading the book Holes and we watched the movie to do a compare and contrast exercise.  Both boys said the preferred the book to the movie.

Boys getting comfortable while watching the movie HOLES

I don't think I have added a picture this school year of my daughters Japanese tutor lessons.  She has been going to a tutor for two year now and is still passionate about learning this language.  We found a great tutor who is very enthusiastic about teaching Japanese!

Reviewing Grammar:)

The girls meet at a local star bucks for an hour each week and then Firedrake has to study on her own to maintain her knowledge.  I am quite impressed at what she has learned and her drive to continue:)

At coop we had our annual art show.  MarioFan never wants to submit any of his art work but Firedrake does every year.  This year she won honorable mention for one of her digital art pieces.  So she was very happy.  There were over 180 art and photo submitted for the art show this year.

Firedrake along with 2 others won honorable mention for their art work.  The competition is very tight!

I took a picture of my favorite art work for every grade level.  The best of show isn't even in my pictures!!

Next was the photography group.  There are some amazing photographers in our coop and once again I seem to have missed capturing the best of show photograph.

The judges had a tough year picking the best in each grade level and then best of show.  I wouldn't have wanted that job as I thought all the work was fantastic!