Viva Italia

Today the girls finally finished their lapbooks on Italy ... and about time. It seemed to be taking us forever. Ok we only work on geography on a Monday but still ... we were all a little happy to have it completed.

Agent Smelly's (left) and The Fashionista's (right) front covers.

One chose to tape their 3 A4 pages into a book in a portrait style and the other landscape.

These are the inside. I have pulled some of Agent Smelly's little inserts out so you can see all the little do-dads that go into them. Some lift up, some open from the middle, some open out like a letter, some are in pockets ... they are a lot of fun.

They have to colour, write, work out time differences, graph the population in comparison to NZ, do map work, learn some of the language, the capital city, famous people and sport and so on. It's not an in depth look at the country but enough to simply whet their interest.

We were a little dull with our cooking this time around, we kept it simple and made pasta and pizza.


I get most of my printables for the lapbook inserts off  www.homeschoolshare.com

Handwriting; a lost art?

I read recently where someone said that teaching handwriting was a waste of time as most people will only use technology to communicate in the future. I found that really sad. Nothing beats a handwritten letter or card.

We do handwriting at least once a week. We used to do it more often but I think both girls are pretty neat writers and they tend to write more in other areas so there's not the same need as there was earlier on.  The girls also have pen-pals so spend time writing to them.

We use Targeting Handwriting books, which is from NSW (Australia). The writing in that seems to be the one that is most like ours in N.Z.  It is very good and has little activities for them to do every so often.  Agent Smelly (7) has recently started level 3 (she actually skipped 2 and it hasn't seemed to have made a difference) and The Fashionista (9) is on level 4.

A sample from The Fashionista's book.

A sample from Agent Smellys' book.

Further to the above comment about technology replacing the need for handwriting. With this in mind the girls also do typing practice on the lap top once or twice a week. They use Mavis Beacon typing tutor which they really enjoy. It teaches them the correct way to type and keeps a record of their progress as they go along.  

What a load of Pollocks ...

The third artist we have worked on is Jackson Pollock. A little different to the other two artists, as Jackson was so much later than the others and probably a little less known outside of the U.S. Also his style and especially his technique was very different (and appealing to the children).

The Fashionista's completed page. They enjoyed "making a mess" so much that rather than paste a wee picture of his on their page they did another one of their own.

Agent Smelly's page. It is interesting to see the colours they chose; they reflected their personalities.

The Fashionista's copy of  "Number 13A: Arabesque". Whilst impossible to copy a "splat" they did well to get the colours very close to the ones in Mike Venezia's book.

Agent Smelly copied Autumn Rhythm. She got some lovely big blobs on the canvas by squirting paint directly from the tubes.


The girls really enjoyed "action painting" just like Jackson. They ended up with paint all over them (definitely an outside class people!) and kept coming into my kitchen and taking whisks, etc to try and fling paint with. In all, a thoroughly entertaining style of painting.

It was also interesting that they did not enjoy Jackson's earlier style of painting which was when he was influenced by other artists that he admired and trying to imitate their styles. It was the perfect opportunity to explain to them that you can truly be at your best when you are true to yourself!


Please visit http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/blog/2011/06/worlds-greatest-artists-unit-study.html for the curriculum we are using for the above artists study. Erica kindly has a free program that she made and shares with people.

Puddle Cookies

Today I made some "Puddle Cookies" and they are simply so delish peoples! Whilst they are usually made with nuts, the recipe did say that you could substitute the nuts with chocolate chips, for people with nut allergies. So despite having no allergies what-so-ever, guess who used the chocolate anyway!

Even though there are only 5 ingredients and so therefore kids could make them, I would recommend having an adult do the mixing. Because there is so little liquid in the recipe it is quite hard to mix, but oh so worth it!

 

Puddle Cookies by Jules Clancy

• 155gms (5oz or 1 1/2 cups) roasted & chopped nuts (or chocolate bits if your name is Lisa)
• 225gms (9oz) icing sugar
• 30 gms (1oz) cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 egg whites

Preheat oven to 160C (320F)
Combine all ingredients in mixing bowl until well combined
Spoon into 2 tablespoon piles on 2 baking trays lined with baking paper.
Leave heaps of space between - they're really going to spread
Bake for 12-15 mins or until they have puffed up and cracked on top
Cool on the tray (and keep the kids away!)

Tips from The Mama:

I only got 10 large cookies from the batch and thankfully only baked 5 at a time as they really do spread.  The above picture shows an average sized one on the palm of my hand. Next time I will probably only use one tablespoon per biscuit so that they are half the size of these, as we have been breaking them in half and sharing them to eat. I may even use white chocolate next time to see how they look. 

These cookies are really light and ever so lovely and our whole family recommends giving them a try.

Fashionista's First Fling with Crocheting

Today I introduced The Fashionista to the wonderful art of crochet. I was taught by my beloved Aunty Deb, when I was about her age (9). Despite not doing a lot if it, I have always preferred crocheting to knitting as it seems to take me less time to accomplish something.
Firstly I started by teaching her the basic chain stitch which the little madam picked up on very quickly.

Then we moved onto how to make a granny square.  With a bit of help from the Mama she started making one and in order to remember how do a double crochet stitch she made up a wee story. Apparently it involves a robber, then a policeman who chases the robber into a cave and then retrieves a stolen jigsaw. Rather imaginative and it certainly helped her remember how to make the stitch.

She is quite thrilled with her first piece and despite not yet finishing it, has already grabbed another ball of wool in order to make a green one next. I do hope she isn't planning on making me a green and gold blanket (Aussie colours) for Christmas ... hmmm

A side note, sadly (Aunt) Debbie, although only 8 years older than me, passed away from cancer at age 34. She was a lovely, vibrant woman who I spent a lot of time with. She left me with a lot of great memories, and I feel so lucky that I can teach my girls something that she taught me.