this is one of the art ones

Remember back to my first post where I said that sometimes I would write about art stuff?  This is one of those times.  I really like to see where other artists work.  You can tell a lot about a person by their work space.  Sort of like seeing the inside of another persons refrigerator.  Very revealing.

I make pottery.  Mugs, cups, bowls, plates, platters, vases, jars and occasionally sculpture.  I love pottery because it is an art form that is accessible to every one.  Even if you don’t “get” art, every one “gets” a great coffee mug or beer stein.  You are a pottery connoisseur.  You chose your favorite mug because you like what it says to you or because the handle is perfect for your  hand.  If your family eats off something other that paper plates, you chose that dinner ware because it was the right weight, it was lovely to look at or because you suspect it will be difficult for your child to damage.  You are already so into pottery.

I’m working out of a small place in my garage right now.  Here is the tour de studio de Andrea.

This is my work table with work in progress. The pool noodles are just for decor and because this is also the garage. I don't use them in pottery.

This is my wheel.  I know it looks muddy but its actually pretty clean in this pic.

I share some space with the other artists who live here.  They’re primarily working with a red clay so we keep our work separate.

I’m working with a new clay this year that is white when its fired similar to porcelain but stronger.  I’m testing some new techniques with black slip over the white clay.  Heres my unfired test cup.  I am really excited about it.

The Lifestyle of a Lady

The summer we first moved here, Heath took the girls to his parents house for a weekend and I stayed home and built a tree house.  It was a lot of fun. My sister and brother-in-law helped some and it turned out pretty good.

The following spring, I built a chicken coop and chicken yard underneath it.  We’re sort of lazy here when it comes to taking care of pets so I built it in such a way that we don’t have to open a door for them every morning or feed them every day.  The chicken wire is buried a few inches into the ground and goes all the way up to the tree house so cats or raccoons can’t get in (unless they were really motivated.  It would be easier to get into our trash can than the chicken yard).   The floor of the coop is also chicken wire so we don’t really have to clean it, just rake out the hay or pine chips on the ground underneath every now and then.

This spring I’m planning a little addition and remodel.  I’m planning to extend the yard so they can eat more bugs in the bamboo. We need a better place to store the food and hay and pine chips. The additions may come with another platform for the tree house.  Maybe with a rope bridge.

CDs on Tape

When I was a kid I remember listening to books on tape.  Some nice lady would read a story and if you had the book she would ring a bell or the wind chime to tell you it was time to turn the page.

We like to check out audio books from our library.  When we first started doing this it was hard for me to remember that they were books on CD, not books on tape.  So that when we talked about them I would call them books on tape and then correct myself.  The girls now believe that audio books are “CDs on tape.”

Audio books really are great.  The girls will go sit quietly in their room for how ever long it takes to read a whole book.  I don’t really care what they call them, problem solved from my end.

As you can see in this photo, the American girl dolls are also enjoying “The Mouse and the Motorcycle.”

I’m probably not qualified for this job

My children are currently in the first and third grades.  I feel pretty good about my first grade skills.  Ava can add and subtract well.  She knows what a noun is.  She can read on an appropriate grade one level.  She can spell home and eat (usually).  She knows King Tut is the short name of Tutankhamun.  She knows how to write the date and her whole name.  If we ended first grade today I would feel good about our year.

Third grade is so much harder.  Anabelle’s math book is covering some beginning algebra and she’s dividing 4 digit numbers.  Last week she learned how many pecks are in a bushel (who even knew those were real measurements?  I didn’t.).  I’ve got the answer book for math though and can fake my way through.  But grammar is a whole different ball game in 3rd grade.  Tomorrow we’re going to discuss prepositions. I don’t know why.  I don’t know why knowing which words are prepositions is important. In my own {somewhat spotty} college career when a teacher starts using phrases like “research paper” and “Chicago Manual Style” I get sweaty palms and headaches.  Anabelle has been diagramming sentences (another exercise I don’t quite see the point of) and she really seems to enjoy it.  She’s a good student, much like her father (I’ll probably hire him to teach 4th grade grammar. and math).  We will go on and learn about prepositions and predicate nominatives and conjunctions. We will learn the difference between linking, helping, state of being and action verbs.  I’m really banking on the quality of the school books I chose, because I’m pretty sure I’m not qualified for this part of this job.

We are going to learn somethings I am qualified to teach.  They’re going to learn how to read a cookie recipe. They’re going to learn how to clean a chicken coop and how to fry a really good egg.  They’ve learned how to make a pinch pot out of clay.  They will learn about complimentary colors on the color wheel.  I’ll teach them why tomatoes will never grow in our back yard unless we cut down at least 3 trees.  They’ll learn why women can vote and why they should even though it means they might get jury duty.  Things I think are all worth while.

Maybe this is the year I learn why prepositions are worth knowing.  If you know you should tell me.  Then I’ll be qualified.

The Solution

My new plan is make them read til their eyeballs fall out.

We checked out 53 books from the library this week plus 2 documentaries.  That brings

Tuesdays haul

our total number of items currently checked out of the library to our family 70.  Yes.  We are those people now.  Those people to take a crate with them to haul away all the books they need- *NEED* from the library this week.  With the people finishing their school work so early, this really is necessary.

I did not hold back when choosing nonfiction books for the girls.  I checked out a book about soy beans.  One about farm machines.  One about the international space station. 2 about orangutans.  Several on horses, goats, pigs and bees.   And, one titled “Prehistoric and Egyptian Medicine.”    All from the nonfiction children’s section of our closest library.

The girls of course chose a lot of books for themselves.

The printed list of books. Note Ava’s pants. She took off the boots for a little extra comfort since we were back home.

When the Best Thing Becomes the Worst

The beauty of home school is that it doesn’t have to start at 7:30.  The early start was in my top 2 least favorite things about public school.  Fundraising is also very close to the top.

I make weekly lesson plans for us to go by.  Both girls have a lesson plan book that maps out each assignment for each subject for the day.  We work together and go over the work when something is new but a lot of it they do on their own and I just grade when its convenient for me.  Then we discuss and make corrections as needed.

Heres the problem, and I really didn’t see this coming-  The children have been getting up early and doing almost all of their work before I even come down for coffee.  Now at 9:18 they’ve both been done with the work for 28 minutes.  They are currently running the loop that our house makes through the kitchen and living room.  I’m only halfway through my second cup of coffee.  Just get ready.  Next week they’ll probably be trying to sell you cookie dough and wrapping paper.

The Guard Dog

We got a dog this summer.  Not a puppy. We don’t like to work that hard.  He’s a grown up house trained dog.  He’s your standard mixed rescue dog- thats to say no one really knows for sure what kind of dog but we think some sort of mix between a sheltie and a terrier.  His name is Freddy McDogface.

He watches over the house and the chickens, sort of.  He has protected us from the mailman, a vacuum cleaner salesman and many a squirrel that would have liked to dig up my plants and chew holes into the chicken yard to eat chicken scratch.

Shelties were bred to be shepherd dogs.  They are very loyal, hard workers.  Terriers were bred to catch and kill small creatures.  Things like mice, rats, squirrels, pretty much anything thats sort of small and runs around on the ground.  You know, like a chicken…

We took several photos with the chickens and the dog and in every one Freddy looks like he can hardly keep himself from a fat chicken dinner.

 

My suspicision is that Freddy would prefer to hunt and eat the chickens rather than shepherd and protect them.  In a family photo recently taken we had the chickens and the dog in with us. McDogface couldn’t bring himself to look away from the ladies and I don’t think it was because he felt they were in danger.  He spends a good part of every day chasing them in circles from the outside of their yard (he can’t get in there with them- they live under a tree house- I’ll show you sometime).  Its good for them, they could use the exercise.  Plus, maybe the threat of being eaten will motivate them to pander to us a little more and earn their keep by stepping up the egg production.