Thursday, March 13, 2008

Today's Art!

Today Erin and I drew together. We read a book that we both love (God's Wisdom For Little Girls by Elizabeth George) and she chose a specific page to look at together. The pictures are beautiful in this book and highly detailed so we chose one specific element to draw - the red teapot. So we drew together! My major aim was to encourage Erin to look at detail in illustrations and practise her pencil skills etc. I did the activity in order to model it to her. I had a ball! A few minutes in we were scribbling madly and chatting about colour, shading ('why are you scratching at the picture like that Mummy?'), teapots, shape, texture and showing Daddy our pictures!

Homeschooling at it's best, where I learn even more than she does!

The whole activity probably took about 20 minutes which is just right for a tired Mummy and a 3 1/2 year old girl's attention span. I do not really believe strapping children to chairs for hours makes them learn any better!

Here they are, the finished products:



This is actually Erin's second attempt. Her first was rather yellow and blue and zig zag shaped to be a red teapot but it was entirely her own decision to do over, part of the reason I was modeling the task. To be honest, even if she had stuck with the yellow and blue zig zag version it would have been a worth while activity. I am ridiculously proud of my teapot!

Oh, and while I am on the subject of homeschooling, I just want to recommend an article on Socialization that I just read. It articulates beautifully many of my beliefs on this subject!

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