Our Start of Lunar New Year Week

We're back on track, as far as days of the week go!  I'm celebrating that almost as much as the Year of the Ox!  I do love that Lunar New Year is a 15 day festival, so we're bound to continue to have Chinese themed projects and decor for the next two weeks.  

 

I've been helping Sam with various aspects of adulting, and we're making real progress in his transition to civilian life.  He needed to upload a photo for his veteran ID card (which we can do online right now, #thanks2covid) and this is what we came up with.  

For the first night of Lunar New Year, I picked up a feast at a local Chinese restaurant that we hadn't tried before.  

I was going to take a picture of each dish as it came by, and put them together in a collage to share with you, but after the amazing wonton soup, I stopped caring if I documented anything and focused on snarfing.  

The leftover dragon cutouts from the CNY cards I made to send the adult children turned into a banner for over the table.  We had Chinese music playing in the background while we ate, too.  It was quite lovely.  

The girls got new t-shirts for Lunar New Year.  I realize Katie's is more Japanese, but I'm okay with that, since we just wrapped up our study of Japan.  

Have I mentioned I dislike transition lenses?  I'd love to be able to see Hannah's pretty eyes in outdoor photos.  Note to self:  tell Paul NO transition lenses next time he takes her for new glasses.  

Someone wrote on my calendar, while they were scheduling an appointment on the phone.  I don't know where I'm driving them, but I appreciate the amusing heads up.  

One of Hannah's projects this week is a nod to the ancient Chinese art of papercutting.  This is actually the second attempt.  The first one was somewhat lacking in effort and following directions.  

This is what happens when the library is closed 2 weeks, instead of the one week we were expecting.  A few stragglers came in to the branch across town.

Hannah got a book in German, because she wanted to see if she could use her 5 language dictionary from Christmas and read it.  I suggested she start with a board book.  

I'll just lay these bags here for a picture real quick...

Oh Grumman.  

One of Katie's projects this week was faux wheat painting, using toothpicks.  It's a compass.  

Other, unphotographed projects this week include something about squid ink, and something involving blowing across bottles.  

Hannah was unavailable for a photo, so Sam stood in holding her kimono drawing.  

This is what happens when the library has a week's worth of incoming holds that we weren't allowed to pick up.  

Pagodas!  

Grumman instructs us on the finer points of origami.  

Fan drawings.  

Origami penguin, I believe.  

And origami grasshopper.  

This is the project I alluded to at the end of last week's post.  We drew koi, then we used orange and green watercolor crayons to trace our drawings.  Then we brushed water over the tracing to activate the watercolor.  After that dried, we used watered down blue liquid watercolor for the water background.  After that dried, we outlined out drawings in Sharpie.  It was a little time consuming, but I love the way they turned out.  

We learned about the famous Japanese wave paintings.  Oh Grumman.  

And in Swimming Creatures, we learned about plesiosauruses.  

So, of course we had to make origami plesiosauruses, draw them, paint them, write a plesiosaurus haiku...  I like to take a theme and run with it.  

I picked up the Draw Write Now ocean book, and decided to step away from Art Projects For Kids for a moment and have the girls do something different.  I let them choose any drawing of sea life in the book.  Notice the blue backgrounds have a bit of "sunlight" streaming in from above the water?  Sigh.  Our new markers are already dying.  Katie got about 6 blue backgrounds, and now we're back to where we started.  Color me unimpressed.  

A rare moment to catch on "film."  Jack looked cute hanging out with Grumman, and actually let me take a picture.  Generally I get photos of Jack's palm any time I point a camera in his direction.  

We're going to start learning about Russia in the coming week.  I'm looking forward to having the girls watch Anastasia (after some actual documentaries and more factual videos, of course).  

Leaving China and Starting Japan

How is it Friday again already?  We did Tuesday work today, so I'm very confused.  

We will, of course, continue with more China related activities during Chinese New Year, but our main time of learning about China from our curriculum has drawn to a close.  This is a little sad for me, because I love China, and I want my girls to love it, too.  But we have to move on and learn about other places.  

One of the reasons I like the Apologia elementary science series is that the notebooks contain lots of projects, experiments, summaries, and things to do, rather than just reading and answering questions.  

Hannah said, "I've made these lanterns at every school I've ever gone to."  All 3 of them, including our house.  

Chinese tangram puzzles.  I printed up a few pages of picture ideas for them to make.  

Good critical thinking skill, especially the ones where all the pieces of the suggested picture are the same color.  

Year of the Ox library bags.  One went downstairs without me getting a picture.  

New markers arrived, and I'm not delighted.  Several of them are too light to use, and a couple look like the tips have never been inked at all.  I did leave a review on Amazon to caution other buyers.  

Of course, that doesn't stop Grumman from cozying up with them and being right in the middle of things.  And Katie is happy to have blue again.  

First we drew, then we colored, then we brushed with water, then we added characters.

Remember how we busted out the watercolor crayons last week?  That went so well, I decided we'd try watercolor pencils, too.  I have the Staedtler ones, and the girls have a set of Faber-Castell brand.  

This was a project from a Home Art Studio DVD.  I love these videos.  My standard disclaimer for them is don't go by the grade levels.  The projects appeal to a w-i-d-e variety of ages.  This project is from the 4th grade DVD; my girls are 5th and 8th.  We've also done a few projects from the 2nd grade DVD this year.  

The characters on mine mean "attempt" or "try."  Katie's says "mountain."  Hannah's says "red mountain."  

This is what happens when big brother walks through the school room in the middle of a lecture on Japanese haiku poetry.  Collaborative poem; artwork mine.  

Very happy to have blue backgrounds again for our bunny pictures.  No, not an early jump on Easter.  The rabbit is one of the Chinese zodiac animals.  

Miss Katie finished another spelling book.  We're weird.  She did weeks 11-18 in Jack's old Level F book.  Then I got her Level G, and we've done 18+ weeks in 14 calendar weeks.  The goal is to finish both Level G books this school year, even though we started them in school week 13.  She's been a great sport about it.  Our approach is two-fold.  We do spelling on Saturdays, whether we're "doing school" or not.  And on the last day of each lesson, we test, then turn the page and do the first day of the next lesson.  So she's never doing the same lesson twice in one day, but we're still clipping along at a nice, speedy, rate.  Not sure if we'll get the remaining 17 lessons done in the next 11 weeks of school, but we're going to try.  

Last year's Valentine dresses from Zulily still fit!  These were drawings the girls did to go with their ocean haikus from the previous day.  My plan was to have them write their haikus over the drawing.  I guess I should have had them use colored pencils for this one.  

The sun, streaming through the sewing room window in the morning, illuminated Grumman's floof.  

Learning about Japan means trying out some origami!  

I feel like we have another origami book around here somewhere, but I haven't run across it yet.  

See that silver car?  That's Josiah, driving off to work by himself for the first time.  Paul told the kids they had to pay for their own auto insurance, so most of them have chosen not to drive while living at home.  Now that Josiah is working, he's purchased insurance.  I'm proud of my boy, and excited to see him adulting.  

My text to Eli.  We were working on another watercolor project that I'll share with you next week.  We've been using old detergent cups as our paint water containers.  

Grumman adds a lot to my days.  I can't imagine going through Shelter In Place without a companion animal.  

Our What Day Is It? Week

Because last week was not a regular week for us, the day of the week and the day of our curriculum are not currently in alignment, and it's making it even harder for me to know what day it is.  So tomorrow is Monday, but we'll be working on Wednesday/Thursday stuff.  No worries.  Fridays tend to be light days, so I'm sure we'll adjust to synch up with the correct days soon.  

While I still wouldn't call Grumman a lap cat by any stretch of the imagination, he does deign to grace me with his presence occasionally.  Generally when I'm cozied up to the space heater, but sometimes just because.  I'm hoping this is a glimpse of what he'll be like as an old man.  He's still plenty feisty most of the time.  

I forgot to mention earlier, we finished 2 books roughly around Christmas break.  One was our Health text, which was a pretty thin book, with only 7 chapters.  

The other was Flying Creatures.  I had lofty ambitions that we were going to become avid birdwatchers because of this book, but smoke and fear and cold have kept us indoors more than I care to admit.  

We've moved on to Swimming Creatures now.  I wish we could do a field trip to the aquarium while we're in this book, but field trips just aren't a thing now.  

  

I don't like to say this out loud, but I didn't really enjoy the music we listened to from India.  We're in China now, and the music is much more pleasant.  I did really enjoy the music from Turkey, though.  

Grumman stuffed himself into a crevice in the sewing room and was very curious about the fake fur that I bought to make gnomes when we studied Norway.  Somehow, we never got around to actually making them, so the fur hangs there, reminding me of my over ambitiousness/lack of follow through.  

Perhaps at some point, I'll have a project that needs fake fur, and be glad to already have it on hand.  Or, my kids will shake their heads at silly old mom as they box up the sewing room after I'm dead.  It could go either way.  

We survived the week with our local library branch closed.  I'm looking forward to it opening up again (just for curbside) on Tuesday.  

Hmm, I should have cropped this.  If you've ever been on a military base, you know there are often outdated pieces of equipment "sprinkled" around as décor.  Our family calls these sprinkles, and when I took Sam to the VA this week, I snapped a picture of one that we saw to share it with Eli and Jack.  

Between having our branch closed, and books undergoing quarantine upon return, our library account is pretty scary right now.  There are currently 115 books checked out to us, although I know we've returned at least 3 bags that have not yet been checked back in.  Since the "limit" is 60, I'm a little afraid of getting cut off the next time I go to pick up more books.  

I picked up a Family Meal Deal and a free kids meal from Panda Express one day after picking Josiah up from work.  Hoping to score Chinese food a few more times while we're studying China, and then we'll roll straight into Chinese New Year, which means more Chinese food!  Yum!  

The girls made whale and dolphin mobiles from their Swimming Creatures book. 

We watched a documentary about the ancient origins of the Great Wall (it's older than you think!), and I shared pictures with the girls of my two trips to the Great Wall, and they read library books about the Great Wall, so it seemed fitting that they also draw the Great Wall.  

It's chilly out there!  Sam wanted to come back in before Grumman did.  

With Josiah working [Hallelujah chorus], he needs to mask, obviously.  He's pretty picky about what he'll wear, so a few months back, I made him a special mask from a different pattern than the pleated ones I've been churning out (737!) all along.  We tweaked it until it was Just Right, but now it's time for Goldilocks to have a couple more, so I made two for him in this Hawaiian print.  My camera shy boy elected not to model them for posterity.  

I introduced the girls to a new medium in the art world:  watercolor crayons.  

The red lanterns were done with watercolor crayon, the blue was done was done with liquid watercolor, and the sharpie was added after everything was dry.  

We have been doing so many of these Art Projects For Kids guided drawings that our markers are drying up.  

Katie mentioned being completely out of working blue markers, so I ordered a pack of art markers that's heavy on blues.  I considered getting a pack of blue Crayola markers, but I feel like the kids are old enough now to use real art materials.  Hannah has a nice set of Prismacolor markers that are almost used up.  I think it's time for me to suck it up and share my markers.  

Back to our Chinese zodiac animals, rats.  

A friend on Facebook inspired me to be more intentional about being creative this year.  Instead of just assigning art, I want to make things, too.  January has gotten off to a good start with 5 Crikey projects, 5 days of mask sewing, 3 pillowcases made, a little paint pouring, and some drawing.  

Temple of Heaven, on which happens to be the obverse side of the panda coin Brianna gave me for Christmas.  We saw it from a distance in China, but didn't visit it.  

Another of Josiah's cooking projects was meatball sandwiches.  I absolutely love that he's on a cooking kick lately.  

To go along with my wanting to art more (can I use art as a verb?) I picked up a book called Art Before Breakfast, and it talks about keeping pen and paper close and using random moments to draw.  I am more comfortable with colored pencil than pen right now, so I'm thinking about getting a little pouch to cart my supplies around in.  

Last night, I sewed a few masks, and then I paused for a bit to draw one of them.  It's hard to see the "white" elastic loops, and I only drew a few of the shamrocks, but it's recognizable.  I'm looking forward to seeing what else ends up in my little sketch pad this year.