Weekly UP date 3/15/19 -- Georgia O'keefe, The 100 years of Exploration and Taste tester

I got to do something very interesting this week.  I was contacted by a company to be a taste taster for two  new menu items.  I received a $30 gift card for my time.  Sounded interesting and since I enjoy this company's food I decided to make room in my schedule to go.  I can't really tell you what the new food items are or what company it was since I had to sign a release form.

Having never done this before it was very interesting.  I would absolutely do it again:) 

For art we finished our lesson for Georgia O'keefe with one last project.  O'keefe is famous for her flower portraits.  I had the boys find a simple coloring page of a flower they like and had them enlarge it so the flower was going off the page.

We then traced the flower on to paper (we left off the finer details )

After looking at some of Georgia O'keefe flowers and seeing how she used colors and shading to bring out the shapes and shading the boys began to paint

Boys finished projects.  

My sample to show the boys

Some might say I am cheating in our art lessons by having the boys trace their work but since neither boy enjoys drawing (mine in particular), I try to get the boys to enjoy a new technique and not obsess over their lack of drawing skills, as that is a huge issue for both boys.  This way they are more happy with the results and we can enjoy the process better!  

For history we are entering the 100 years of Exploration.  I am still getting a few books from the library as I want to delve a bit deeper into the explorer lives than the history book that we have does and even Crash Course World history skims over this more that I like.  We are currently on unit 4 of World History Crash Course.  

As we read about a explorer we are adding their route to our huge world map in the school room 

First he drew the routes 

then we added pictures of the explorers 

his finished works:)

Next week is spring break for my daughter from Public school so I will be taking the week off from blogging to enjoy some time with her and MarioFan.

weekly wrap up 3/8/19-- Returning to work and a new New Chore

So I am looking to return to part time work by summer time.  It was a hard decision and one I am still not sure of.  However our oldest child is going off to college next year and she needs a car and a laptop computer so she can be successful in college.  Money doesn't grow on trees so I am going to attempt to get my Occupational Therapy License back by the summer and hopefully find a part time job locally.  In order to do that I need to get 36 CEU's and reapply for my license in my state since I last worked as an OT in the state of MD and haven't worked in 14 years!!!  It is a bit scary.  I am scheduled to go to a huge OT conference in April in New Orleans.

Just in case I am not able to return to OT practice I thought I could work for the school district as a substitute teacher. The local district had a job fair last week and a friend and I attended.

This was the crowd we walked into-- we lasted about 30 minutes before giving up and going out to lunch. To say we were overwhelm is putting it mildly.

I am still planning to homeschool MarioFan next year and it will be a new challenge to figure how it will all work out.  However MarioFan has really grown this year and is doing more and more for his work independently so I think with some adjustment, for both of us, we will manage.  Only time will tell.  

Because I am planning to return to work I spoke to the family about everyone having to help out a lot more around the house.  While my kids do have chores (dishes, pets, bathrooms and bedrooms) and are generally pretty good about doing their chores there is still plenty of things that get done around here that I do more or less on my own.  One of those things is Laundry, which is my nemesis. It is not unusual for laundry to be washed and then sit on the sofa for a couple of days until I get around to folding it -- just being honest here:(.  I always seem to be behind in laundry duty and I swear there are times when the kids laundry baskets come back down the stairs on laundry day that some of the clothes inside it have never been worn from the last washing.  So it was one for the things that I wanted off my list of things to do.

So every member of the family has been assigned a day to complete their laundry (includes towels and bed linens).  If they miss their day for any reason said person is welcome to pick another day that has not been assigned to complete their laundry.

Monday -- MOM
Tuesday -- Firedrake
Wednesday-- MarioFan
Thursday--Free
Friday-- Free
Saturday -- Dad
Sunday-- Free

I was so surprised that no one resisted this new schedule, in fact both kids say they prefer it, YAY!!!  So far I just need to give reminders to the person of the day to get started and then to take out their clothes by the end of the evening...I am working on eliminating that verbal reminder over the next few weeks.

I should have done this years ago:)!!!  Only person to miss their laundry day in the two weeks that we have been doing this is ME, oops:)

weekly wrap up 3/1/19-Tolkien, The Hobbit, and O'keefe

We are falling a bit behind with our schooling due to some family things that have come up.  Things are going to be a bit crazy for the next month or two so my posts may be a bit sporadic until things settle down.

For Literature MarioFan is working on reading The Hobbit and learning about JR Tolkien.

Just a few of the books we are looking over.

MarioFan is also going to be writing a paper on Tolkien and his process for creating the hobbit.

For history we are entering into the Renaissance period and the years of exploration.  I am currently gathering up my materials for additional reading while we continue to work on Crash Course World History (unit 4).

For art we have been learning about Georgia O'Keefe, who I must admit is one of my top ten favorite artists and we have visited her art museum on Santa Fe, New Mexico several times.

Some of the books we looked at as well as the boys watched a few clips of Georgia O’Keefe on you tube talking about her art 

Over the years I have bought several prints from the O’Keefe museum and the boys examined them closely as we talked about the artist.  Much nicer to see art in larger sizes than the thumb size art in books.

For the boys art projects we tried to recreate a few of her works but adding our own touches to it.  For the first project we talked about the skulls and bones O'keefe found in the desert of New Mexico and how she incorporated them into her art.

This is art piece by Georgia O’Keefe is called Cow's skull

My example piece

The boys choose the colors of the background of their project

We found some simple skull drawings online and made outline of the skull 

Next I encourage the boys to add shading and dimension to the skull and then they cut them out to add to their finished back ground

Their finished works

Next week we are going to attempt to recreate a different style of O'Keefe, close up of flowers:). I will post about them soon

We had a huge wind storm this past week and it seemed every leaf in the neighborhood blew into our yard.  So the kids had to help me rack them all up.  

You couldn't even see the side walk to the front door or any of the  bushes in the front yard.

Took over 12 leaf bags to clean up that mess.

That is our week in a nutshell:)