CTC Unit 4 in review

So we had a lot of fun this week, were still schooling around the kitchen table. 

Little Miss Sunshine tried to make them all uniform sizes.
We used an envelop to store the yarn and straw pieces for the second day.  

This fine motor skill was a bit of a chore for Sweet Potato,

but she she finally managed to get all those straw beads on the yarn. 

The water color this week was super fun, I do like the wet paper painting. 

I do not know how I managed to have flat bread (It's Indian Naan)
Yogurt, almonds, white cheese, figs, and raisins in the house.
But I'm sure glad we did! 

They even tried to use dishes that would have been available in ancient times.
Ceramic cups and bowls in earth colors. 

They really got into it, and raided my closet of Indian Salwar Chemise's.

They were going for the authentic look. 
Although I don't think girls were shepherd's back then... 

 The science experiment... they cut up a cardboard box to back their cougars.
I found a deer illustration and printed it out for them

Um Mom what happens when the cougar doesn't land in the square?

Here is my masterpiece, I really enjoyed this project. It is fun to play with paint again!

 Notebooks are so beautiful Little Miss Sunshine chose Joseph's coat.

Sweet Potato picked Rachael dying in child birth.

You just can't guess what will resonate with your child. I think Sweet Potato doesn't understand grief. Looking back on this unit. I had much trouble getting her to complete her work in a timely manner. I wonder if the loss of Rachael in the story triggered the oppositional behavior, unwillingness to work, and extreme dawdling she displayed this week. She has to deal with the grief and loss of her first family, seemingly lurking in her mind just waiting to ambush her. I think it overwhelms her. I'm glad school gave her an opportunity to explore it in a safe way. 

I could have done without the chip on the shoulder it brings!!! I felt like a wash rag wrung out and hung out to dry by Friday night. I keep telling My Knight in Shining Armor to say "It will get better." instead of "Oh you poor thing." I find if I start traveling down that road of "poor me" I loose all perspective. I become selfish, no longer a help-meet, but rather a helpless me. It's a slippery slope, school is a joy and a sorrow it is REAL LIFE played out in my living room. I have to admit, I'm am glad to see them go to bed at 9pm and have the quietness, peace, and silence of my husband. 

CTC Unit 4 Watercolor Tutorial

Creation to Christ Unit 4 Watercolor Tutorial 

Day 2

I'll not list your supplies here as they are available in the Creation To Christ Guide. We are doing another wet paper technique today so I got out my Big Ol' Paint brush which I find so handy, it is optional as is the backing board and masking tape. 

Optional: Tape down your paper.

Put your colors on the pallet. Don't forget it is easier to add more paint than it is to put it back in the tube. Start with a pea size amount. :-) I like to put my paint out in cool to warm or light to dark
depending on what I'm working on here I placed them light to dark. 

 Wet the paper.

Blot any puddles with paper towels or a rag.

 I find wetting my brush before I load up my paint brush with paint helps it flow more smoothly. Also giving a quick stir on the pallet also helps get it on the brush. 

This time keep going back for more paint. You want the blue sky to be more evenly colored, but remember your paper is wet so don't over work it. 

Over working the paper: If you find your paper is pilling (getting little dots of paper pulp on your work surface) you are over working the paper. 

 I clean your brush after you have painted the blue sky.
The sky should reach halfway down the paper.
Equipment Note: Please do not leave the brush in the water,
this harms the bristles, but rather swish it around
and blot it on that paper towel you used earlier. . 

 Ok now (unlike me Oopsie!) switch to the smaller round brush! add a few drops of water to the brown paint and load your brush up. 

 Overlap the blue and brown at your horizon line. 

 For the next step pick one side of your yellow, with your dirty/brown paint,
brush load up a bit of yellow on to it. 

Overlap the dirty yellow on the brown and paint down. 

 Once you have exhausted the dirty yellow paint,
pick up clean yellow from the opposite side of your yellow paint. 

Now lay down the yellow.  

 See here I'm pulling the green paint out towards the yellow. 

Here I am letting the yellow and green mingle on my pallet,
to make the transition to green for the bottom of my painting.  

 Look here the paint is puddling. Icky I don't like that! 

 With a clean damp brush, I let the brush soak up the excess and swish it back n' forth. 

 I had to do it again here for the green.  Now set your painting aside and let it dry for tomorrow. 

Little Miss Sunshine says wash and dry your equipment. 

Sweet Potato says pack up your paints neatly and put them away. 

Day 3

Here is what you will need for today's work I don't have purple so I got out my scarlet and blue. 

 I only have a bit of blue and I found out I needed a wee bit more blue to get a decent purple. 

 A few drops of water in my paint was needed to get it to flow. 

Paint in your bushes, breaking the horizon line.  

 Clean your brush by rinsing and blotting to get out the brown before switching to the green paint. 

You can make many variations on the green as you paint.
If you add yellow you will get a lime green. 

 I imagined it was sightly hilly so my lines are not exactly straight.  

 You can mix the yellow with the dark green, in a new spot on your pallet and make a medium green. 

 I felt the paint was a bit dry I dipped my brush in water when I felt the paint was to globby.
 (I wonder is globby a word?) 

Adding dark green straight from the tube to my painting. Using lots of greens help give your painting depth and makes it more realistic. Ever go look at a field? it has lots of different colors.   

 Meld your colors a bit if you like. 

Load up the tooth pick. 

 I find if you use a rolling motion with the tooth pick it lays the paint down pretty well. 

After you paint with one color green layer on a lighter or darker color green.
This gives depth to the grass. 

 Since I didn't have purple I mixed one up from red and blue. 

 Don't forget to clean your tooth pick I didn't want greeny-purple flowers. 

 Just tapping the paper gave me nice little buds for flowers I decided to go for a monkey grass kinda flower. 

 See how nice that looks! I was happy. Don't forget to sign your work! 

 Sometimes Sweet Potato decides she gonna do her own thing, here are her horizontally curved lines :-) 

 Mom I'm going to make it really hilly! 

 Such concentration. 

 Moving quickly to add in yellowish green lines. 

My finished masterpiece!  

Another one This is Little Miss Sunshine's
Sweet Potato decided to keep hers to her self. 

Don't forget to pack up your supplies, clean your brushes, and equipment. 

Holding Firm

Today I asked Sweet Potato to do a character study on her reading book. I really can't do Dithor (Drawn Into the Heart of Reading) with her at her level of comprehension. Recently I found a book of folk tales from India, she has actually been interested in these. So knowing repetition is the key to her success, I decided to have her read these for her interest study and reading comprehension.

Yesterday she did a fantastic job of giving me an over view of the story in a written narration. Today I wanted her to pay attention to detail hence the character study assignment.  Over all she found plenty of details on the main character. Since we covered paragraph creation in grammar yesterday, I asked for a paragraph.  I'm always looking to kill 2 birds with one stone, not to mention repeat, repeat, repeat is so critical to her learning. I feel may be emphasizing the repeat thing a bit to much? 

Do you think she gave me a paragraph??? do you huh huh huh? Of course not!

In fact there were 5 incarnations of the words on the page but not in paragraph form.  I know part of my problem was I was tired. School went fairly well today, only a 45 minute hiccup over math. I thought she could  Do This With Out Me Being Present. (un-clench the teeth mama)  She did take it up to her bunk bed and close the door, I really felt I was free to have some Facebook free time.

She brought down a page of bullet points, all starting with the word Gopal.  I did remember to sandwich my criticism of not a paragraph and use pronouns, in between praise of handwriting and detail work. but man this child would not write it into a paragraph form. After the 2nd odd form of paragraph writing and reviewing how to write a paragraph.  It dawned on me... Shes playing me!!! Shaking off the afternoon lethargy I cleared my head and realized this is just more of the same.  Ohh she is good Miss Manipulation is poking her head out again.

Gratefully I didn't lose my temper or get mean (and say something stupid), I just realized she is not doing as I requested "on purpose." So I played along. I mean what is the fun of parenting if you can't turn the tables on em every so often.

I  kept sending her back to rewrite it from the beginning, in a paragraph form.  It took 6 tries before she decided she didn't want to do it again and chose to do it correctly.  After she handed in a acceptable paper I had her sit down next to me.  I praised it, corrected one mistake and said Good Job! and asked "Now tell me what made you choose to do it right this time?"  after some hemming an hawing she replied "because I didn't want to do it again."  Score!!!! one Mom child um well er never mind... lets not go there.  Wow Great choice ok now you have piano practice and chores then you can have free time.. Oh look Daddy is now home dinner in 20 minutes.

We have prayer meeting tonight and we try to go early so the kids have time to chat and play four square. She was 10 minutes late to dinner, 10 minutes late to doing her vest time, and 10 minutes late to prayer meeting.  It was so Awesome that she did this to herself.  Like Kevin Leman says, sometimes you just have to pull the rug out from underneath them and let them fall.  What you had no free time today? Oh well. What you missed chatting with your friends??? Sorry not my fault, you got to look in the mirror for that one.

Was I frustrated yes, but only because I hate to watch it. No one likes their child to fail. Although Sweet Potato seems to have turned it into a art form? hobby? lifestyle? I'm glad I stuck it out I'm hoping that standing firm, and letting her make poor choices and dealing with the consequences now. Will help her make better choices in the future.

Thanks so much for the positive feed back on the water color tutorials. I'm so glad you are all stepping out into new territory with your kiddos. I find this the fun-ist part of school!

My Campaign over at GFA is a bit neglected so if you want to enrich the lives of women who can't read you can donate here https://www.mygfa.org/gardenforsara/