Auguste Renoir and the New Notebook

This spring we have been taking a look at Auguste Renoir. The most famous painting he did was probably was the girl with the watering can, so I introduced this artist to the boys by having them do an art project with that painting. We did this fun technique with a Cezanne painting and it worked out so well I thought we would try it again with Renoir's Girl With the Watering Can.

Then we read a fun picture book entitled, The Girl With the Watering Can. We played several games of concentration with Renoir montesorri cards, and read the Smart About Art book About Him. Then we hunted through the You-tube files and found this fun video of him in his later years painting with arthritis deformed hands.

I started something new with Renoir that I hope will continue with all the other artists we study. I created a notebook art gallery. The idea came from this post. I loved her idea of keeping an ongoing gallery of all of the paintings the boys were learning. One day (I hope) they will be able to flip through it and recite all of the paintings by name that they have learned and share with others these beautiful works of art they have collected. It should make an impressive collection over the years.
With this great idea to begin with, I only had to make a few adjustments and we had ourselves a notebook gallery! The first adjustment was to use the notebook instead of the photo album. I had three white notebooks already. The second adjustment was to use plastic storage sleeves instead of photo album pages. I found these sleeves designed for storing coupons. Then, In publisher, I placed the image of the painting on one side and added some blanks to fill in on the other side. Then I printed them out onto cardstock and the boys put them into the sleeves how they liked. If  you already have the montesorri cards, buying sleeves to fit them could be a great way to start your notebook art gallery without having to create anything or print them out again.

Then slowly, maybe three cards at a time we looked up the date it was painted and filled in the other info on the card.

We haven't designed a cover for this notebook yet but as more artists are added we will. The fun part about this notebook is that you can add or take away the pages you want. This notebook may become our impressionist art gallery. Why not have one for each art period?

What I loved about using the notebook over the photo album was that we can insert our biography pages. Prior to creating the notebook art gallery I had no where to put this page once we had completed it. Now we do. We have already studied many impressionst artists, so perhaps as a review next year we will create cards for all the artist we have learned about so far and make this book a real work of art itself.

The Artist Study Helper: Henri Matisse

This last week I set out to put together some montesorri cards for all the post-impressionist artists and some of the modern artist for our artist study next year and I ended up creating The Artist Study Helper for Henri Matisse instead. I am sooo excited about it, and I hope to be able to make Artist Study Helpers for all of the impressionist artists that I have made Montesorri cards before. Now to just get some time....(smile).

The Artist Study Helper is a resource packet of tools and ideas to help you as you study a specific artist, this one is on henri Matisse. At the front of the e-book I have included some ideas for using these materials and a sample seven week plan for implementing some of the resources. There is so much in this little e-book you could spend a whole year on it, or you can just choose one or two activities you enjoy and do those. Whatever you do your children will love looking at this colorful artist.

Come have a peek inside...

There are twelve montesorri cards to use for playing concentration or go fish or whatever creative ways you use them.

There are notbook pages to be filled in. For one of the pages I have made small replicas of the art work so you can print, cut and glue them to the bottom of your Artist bio sheet. Using these same replicas you can add it to the page at the top and your copy of that painting below it. There are also pages for each of the twelve paintings chosen for your student to write about the work of art.

There is a short biography of Henri Matisse you can display on your wall or in your notebook.

There are five coloring pages for you to color.

There are three art lessons. One designed so you too can draw with your scissors like Matisse.

There are six large pictures which can be used for picture study. I also included instructions for how to do a picture study and a list of books introducing Herni Matisse for children that can  be checked out of the library or bought.

The Artist Helper: Henri Matisse and The Artist Helper: Vincent Van Gogh are now available at Currclick.

Move-able Math

I love the Montesorri Materials and the ideas behind them. Unforntunately many of these materials are costly and time comsuming to make. However, their idea of having materials with movable and reuseable parts is just the right fit for my boys; ages 5 and 6 1/2. It is very engaging for them and I find it easy to be creative with the materials, making up many lessons using one resource. So, since I am counting pennies, I adapted a few free resources I had accumulated from other sites for math and made some psuedo Montesorri math activities that we can use again and again. These activities I use in conjunction with drilling of math facts, math games, living math books and everyday math experiences like cooking and buying things at the store.

The basic tool for all these following activities is the movable numbers. I used a addtion table and printed out two tables for each boy then I cut them up and put them into the egg carton container to keep them organized. We may find we still need more ones and twos. :)

Use the movable numbers to fill in the blank addition table.

Use the movable numbers to complete this dice math sheet.

Use the movable numbers to fill in this Domino Math sheet.

Use the movable numbers to fill in these addition and subtraction fact sheets. These are part of the math handbook offered for a very nice price by Molly at homeschooling with index cards.

More Blend Phonics Fun!

Max and I got through to step six in the Blend Phonics book a couple of weeks ago. Step six is the final step and once we arrived there we learned that we had taken this course a bit too fast. I am always guilty of this...but I am learning and Max is very forgiving. Step six is sort of a blend all you have learned from the steps before and use it to decode these big words. Since we had not mastered all of the phonics rules as we went through each step it was daunting for Max, to say the least to try and blend the different rules in one word. So we have pulled back....looked at how to master the phonics rule at each step. In looking at how to go about this, I discovered some cool FREE Montesorri materials, and a simple lap book for consonant blends and a few other odds and ends to make this mastery happen. Thus we begin again our journey into Blend Phonics.

We enter now at step two: Consonant Blends and Diagraphs. I started out using this Montesorri tool called "Alphbatical Order" to give them a firm grasp on the alphabet while in addition getting more familar with what are the consonants and what are the vowels.

We have used this little chart in several different ways. First off we simply put the words onto the chart in alphbetical order. Then the next day we raced doing it. Then we raced again. the next day I had them outline the boxes that were vowels. Then we sorted our words according to what vowel it had. The next day we raced sorting the vowels.

The boys hard at work competing to finish the alphbetical chart.

TJ working hard.

Zak almost done.

Finished!!!

Next we moved on to another Montesorri tool called the Vowel Tree.

Print on cardstock and laminate. I do not have a color printer so I rpinted it B&W and colored in the tree with ink pen, then glued it on to a colored paper.

To use the Vowel Tree: Have the child take two consonants from the movable alphabet
(or write two of them on small pieces of paper, or type them in word and print them out and cut them up). Place one consonant in front of the letter “a” and one after. Have the child say the word that is formed, combining the first two letters into one blended sound. Then have them slide the letters down to the next vowel and say the word. Continue all the way down the tree. For the purposes of this work, they can say a word even if it’s a “nonsense” word, just for the practice of saying the vowel
sounds.
Some possible beginning and ending consonants are:
b _ d   s _ p
b _ t   t _ p
b _ g   p _ n
j _ m   s _ t
f _ n   m _ t
m _ d   s _ m
h _ m   t _ n
r _ g   l _ t
b _ n   h _ t
r _ t   r _ n
r _ d   c _ t
Once the child has mastered short vowel words, they can use the chart with “silent e” combinations and long vowel sounds:
l _ ore   t _ le
t _ ack  s _ ck
p _ ne   m _ re
m _ ne   m _ le
r _ de   l _ ke
l _ te   t _ me

Our Movable Alphabet.

Today, we used the vowel tree to review words with the CVC contruction.I gave them each the consonants from the alphabet to use in making words, then I dictated a word, "bag" and they raced to see who could build it first. The winner got two treats and all who kept a good attitude got one treat. We are working on good sportsmanship as we learn to read and write. We did about 20 words.

As I move through the Blend Phonics book again I am keeping three things in mind:
1) drill: I have phonogram cards which I drill about 8 each day until mastered. 
2) hands on: Montesorri and lap books and other games.
3) Practice and review: re-read all the words from each section.

Phonogram cards for this week.