Day at the art museum

We spend a good deal of our day at the art museum. Share a few of the highlights.


Amazing wood work! Look at the details. I love the finish of the wood.


Learning about the Art of Dinning. This was really cool. Seeing the 6 courses sure makes me hungry.

Wish I can play the harp. How many people can sleep there on those bunk bed? The kids wish they can climb on there.

Play Eye Spy! A favorite with the girls though J always tries to look at the 2nd clue.
Another amazing wood work.

Copying statues or people in the painting is another favorite thing to do with the kids.

Relaxing at the atrium cafe. It was a great day spent with friends.

A little fun with mummy

As an activity to our study of Egyptian's ritual of mummifying, the kids tried to mummify their stuffed animals. (This idea is from The Mystery of History) I love the activities in there.


Here is W's first attempt at mummifying his fox. See how much paper he used? My goodness. The second one is a later attempt with a some mommy help.

Here is J's bear fully mummified with some help. W didn't want his fox's head to be wrapped up.


Here is me trying to mummify W. :) I guess he enjoyed it by the look of it. He had fun trying to unwrap all the paper too. And that mound of paper left afterward is cave/haven for their animal friends.

2010-2011 homeschool resources

This is what I'm planning to use for the 2010-2011 school year with my 2 kids. J will be 3rd grade while W will be 1st grade if they were in public school.

1. Rod and Staff (Building Christian English series 3)
2. The Easy Spanish / Collins Spanish Club
3. Apologia science and science experiment kit
4. Drawing with Children
5. Select sections of Marsha Johnson's 2nd grade curriculum guide (avail. free on her yahoo group)
6. MEP math/ Math It for math practice
7. Sonlight for World History (Core 1)- 2 year program
8. Chinese (we use a wide variety of resources. Leave a comment if you are interested to learn more)
9. Color the classic (music)
10. Christopherus 2nd grade Saints & Heroes (plus other saint/hero books)
11. Fables (Aesop's fables for young children, books from library, and Jakata's Tales from 2nd grade Main Lesson)
12. Form Drawing (Enki 1st grade, Form Drawing by Hans R. Nierderhauser, and Melissa Nielson's Journey Through Waldorf 2nd grade book)

Our day

I had planned to blog about form drawing but blogger is having some trouble and I can't upload any picture except one while you will see below.

So I thought I'd share a little of our day.

J recalled an Enki 1st grade story to me before breakfast prior to W waking up. Both kids are pretty good at recalling and does it pretty easily. J tends to tell me the whole story. After breakfast, we sang a few of Enki 1st grade spring songs and then did Sing Song yoga. This is the first time I did it with the kids. It was nice getting some stretches. Being that it spring (though it doesn't feel like it today), we read Princess Spring from Enki K nature story collection. The kids also took turns reading the story. I think every year we read it, we understand the descriptions a little better.

Then it was time for a snack break. While the kids ate, I read them Enki math story Grandfather's family(fact family). This is mainly for W as he hasn't heard it , but it is good for J to hear it again.

After that, the kids started doing form drawings from Enki 1st grade. The kids really enjoys doing the form drawing for the most part. Sometimes, W have a little frustration over how his forms look. But with a little imagination (i.e (me) what does the shape look like? Looks like lobster claws to me. (W) looks like scissor to me), he is doing really well.

Then while I tend to the laundry and leave them be, they wrap up form drawing and move to free drawing. My kids love to draw, esp. W. But J is not far behind either.

Then we ate lunch and the kids are playing. Later, we are going to go to the library and then to playground for the afternoon. J also have dance class in the afternoon. She is loving to dance now.

This is J's work from yesterday. She used Lyra fantasy stencils and painted it with watercolor pencils.

form drawing

Form drawing is something unique to Waldorf schools, invented by its founder Rudolf Steiner. It's also good prep for cursive and geometry. Many people said doing form drawing is therapeutic but I'm not exactly sure what that means. But I do think they are fascinating and beautiful. I like doing them too. :)



J says sometimes when she does form drawing, the pencil controls her. Hey, no one says it is easy. These are only a few of forms for 1st grade from Enki Education. We have also tried to walk the forms but found it easier to just copy it.

Oops, this is upside down. But I think you get the idea.

This is W's. See the 2nd row? He says those look like scissors.

For some more form drawings, see here (for grade one) and here (for whichever grade. (millennialchild.com)

All about animals (vet. school visit)

We spent a great deal time at a veterinary school learning all about different kinds of animals with a few of our friends.

Here are some of the highlights:

Milking the cow

Germs/Virus/Bacterial stuffed toy.

Cute ferrets



1st time seeing a snake eat a rat...

Isn't he majestic?

A favorite: stuffed animal repair. J's lamb got bandaged while W's lamb had surgery for a "hole in his armpit".
And our very own Fluffy. We got him a new cage and the kids had a renewed interest in watching Fluffy as he explored his new home/toys. See how stuffed his pouch is with snacks?

Enki curriculum links

This is from Beth. I thought I'll post it here to remind myself and for anyone else who might be interested in this or in Enki education.

If you look at the curriculum and skill development charts on the main web site
you can see the basics of what is covered every year
(http://www.enkieducation.org/html/arts_integrated_ed_4.htm and
http://www.enkieducation.org/html/sensory_integration_2.htm). If you have a look
at the curriculum descriptions (The Grades -
http://www.enkieducation.org/html/arts_integrated_ed_1.htm) on the main site,
you will see something of why we have made these choices.

Spring in our home

Few signs that spring is here in our home...



This is J's pottery project for Easter. She says it's suppose to be a candle holder. She wanted me to take a picture with the silk as background so here it is for comparison.


Happy Spring!

J's first piano performance

Yesterday was the end of the winter semester for our homeschool class. There was an art show and music performance by the students.

J played 2 songs, the Spanish Guitar and Sailing in the Sun. She did a wonderful job. I'll see if hubby can help upload it. Surprisingly, J said she wasn't nervous. Her teacher said, she is more like oh, this is what's this about. :)

Here she is with her lovely piano teacher. J loves her piano teacher. See the silk we dyed? :)

In the fall, J will be taking piano class at a homeschool group much closer to us so we will have more time home instead of splitting our time between 2 groups.

More birds spotting

We have spotted more birds. The first one, the cardinal is actually a bird we see quite often, other than robins.



But this one, I didn't see it at all at first. But it sure is a beauty! Any one know what kind of bird this one is? By the time I went outside, he's already gone. Good thing I have a powerful zoom.