amazing....

Ok, I'm having NO luck embedding this, so I can't make it come up and play here, but do yourself a favor -- go watch this truly amazing sand animation by the winner of the 2009 Ukraine's Got Talent competition, Kseniya Simonova. Bring your tissues and get ready to be moved:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=518XP8prwZo

And then click on the related links to watch her other Sand Animations presented during the competition.

I've never seen anything like it!

off color

I can hear the head-scratching. "She writes a fairly clean blog, what can she possible be saying that's off-color?" But I'm not talking about things that will make you blush. I'm talking about the fall colors -- and the fact that they are just off this year. As in, not right.

It was a very rainy year. Excessively so. Which means that trees that are used to having their roots dry out regularly, and even be stressed a bit during draughty late summers, had soggy feet for most of the year, and no real droughty period. That makes for a lot of unhappy trees. And even more obviously, a lack of proper color in the autumn foliage.


Here's a pretty good example of one such unhappy tree. This is a 20-yearish old Sugar Maple in our front yard. It changed color early, and it was never the brilliant orange color it should have been. And then all the leaves fell off. At this point it should just be starting to color up. It fared better than the other Sugar Maples on our property, whose leaves are, for the most part, changing from yellow to brown and then shriveling. Curiously, the Sugar Maple that normally has the hardest time, because The Map Man and I stuck it in a location that is too naturally wet to be ideal for Sugar Maples, is the only one on the property that is behaving like a normal Sugar Maple. I guess it's become accustomed to having it's toes in the water and this year wasn't much different for it than every other year.

This is a Red Maple (also known as a Swamp Maple). Which are known for their blazing red color. This year, not so much. And this is a tree that actually LIKES being wet. But this year it's acting like a sad Sugar Maple, turning an off-shade of orange. Pretty, but not quite right.

In fact, "not quite right" pretty much describes all of the foliage thus far this Autumn. Here's a batch of White Birches that lines our horse pasture. They are playing the turn-brown-and-shrivel game, just like the Sugar Maples. Only in their case, they're dropping their leaves almost as quickly as they're changing. Which is just not right. Normally a White Birch is ablaze with brilliant yellows this time of year.

Oddly enough, the Oaks, for which turning brown is normal, are coloring up fairly well. Check out the interesting reds and yellows on this young White Oak. It's just not right!

The view up our street this morning. The color is coming, but it's the wrong colors. It looks sort of like Fall in the Mid-West.

Yes, the leaves are changing, but it seems they've put on costumes for Halloween this year.

Which is as interesting as it is disappointing. There's a few things you usually can count on in New England -- the weather being unpredictable, the winters being hard, and the Autumn colors being brilliant.

Makes me wonder what the winter will be like....

score!

Lookee what we found whilst on our morning walk -- a really cool chess/checkers table that one of our neighbors put on the curb. Look at the excitement on the boys' faces. If only they weren't with me when I came across it, I could have saved it for a gift!






Better still, one of the drawers was full of these carved wooden chess pieces. It took a concerted effort to get them to not set up a game right in the middle of the road. The boys rolled up their sleeves and helped me tote our heavy (and I mean HEAVY) find home.





And this is how they spent the morning. The table (and even more so the drawers) needs a bit of clean-up before I'll allow it in the house, but that didn't stop them from sitting down to a couple rounds of Chess. They seem to actually know what they are doing, although I didn't sit down and monitor them to know for sure. But what bits of conversation I heard made sense, and the game seemed to be progressing in the normal manner. My Dad showed them how each piece can move and explained the basic rules to them at some point, and apparently they retained it all. And Zoo Boy in particular seems to have a knack for picking up these sorts of games.

So much for getting any actual school work done this morning. But hey, when you discover treasure, it's pretty much mandatory that you abandon all your plans to enjoy it!

musings on painting

I've been trying to find some time to post about the very interesting topic (to me anyway) of painting and more generally creative development in children, at least according to the Enki Education model. This should be taken as my own interpretation of what I've learned, and not as quoting the Enki educational model (it's just my understanding of it).


This first photo is of one of Zoo Boy's paintings from this past month (in fact, it was this week's painting). In Kindergarten the purpose of working with wet-on-wet watercolor painting is to allow the children to explore the color interaction and qualities in their own right, without the distraction of form or formal instruction. If the child continues to paint in this fashion into first grade, it's perfectly fine to let them continue this way (and into second grade and beyond, for that matter). Zoo Boy's painting has always embraced this spirit of discovery and creativity. Seriously, I would pay money for his paintings, I think they are incredible reflections of childhood and wonder. I'm so lucky I have them decorating my walls for free!


Last year J possessed a similarly free approach to painting (although he tended to "name" the painting). This fall, when we load our paint boards with paper, his first question has been "What are we going to paint?" I give an appropriately uncommitted answer ("Whatever we feel like"), but as you can see from his most recent painting, he is looking to paint SOMETHING. Which leads me to realize that it's time to provide a bit of guidance. Sure, eventually the kids WILL be painting things. But right now the goal is still experimentation. FEELING the process of painting, rather than producing a recognizable end result.

The transformation had already begun over the summer. Even though the art classes that I signed the boys up for (few and far between, as I feel like we get PLENTY of art during our time at home) were heavy on the process and lite on the product, I could still see a difference in what they created during their own "free time" at the end of classes. Here's one of Zoo Boy's watercolors done after a summer class. Another masterpiece of creative experimentation.

And here's one of J's.

So I'm giving more thought to my approach to painting for the coming months. Enki suggests telling "painting stories" as the kids paint, for inspiration and gentle guidance. For example "Little Red was so excited when she got out of bed that she ran to and fro and jumped up and down with excitement. Grandpa Blue saw Little Red's excitement, and wrapped her up in his big arms to calm her." While telling this story, I would be working on my own painting, using quick, up and down and back and forth strokes for Little Red's portion, and smooth, rounded strokes for Grandpa Blue's.

I'm kind of hoping that this story telling method will be useful in guiding myself to a less-contrived style of painting. This painting is mine, and is pretty typical of all of my paintings. (Ignore the blotches -- although it's probably the most interesting aspect of this painting -- it's caused by my experimentation with using cheap watercolor paper -- NOT worth it!) I just can't seem to capture the essence of creativity that Zoo Boy can with his work, despite the fact that we're using the same method and the same paints. For some reason I tend to freeze up and semi-panic when it comes time to lay brush to paper. Hopefully telling a story while I paint will help me forget my self-consciousness, and I won't be so embarrassed to publish my next painting for the world to roll their eyes at.

Stay tuned....

The Snake Prince

Our final story for our first Language Arts block of the year was "The Snake Prince", and Indian Fairy Tale from the Enki Education 1st Grade Fairy Tales collection. J's drawing shows the princess weeping by the lake as her Snake Prince swims away. In the background is, and I quote J here, "the far-away kingdom where the Princess grew up."

Zoo Boy's drawing of a similar scene -- the snake is in the lake -- but in his version, the princess is crying in the house of black stone that she had built for her by the lake so that she could be near the prince she mourns. I'm amazed at how far Zoo Boy has come with his drawings in just a month's time -- he repeatedly told me he was going to need help drawing the princess, and I kept saying, "Ok, when you need help let me know." Yet in the end, he wound up doing the entire drawing himself.

Even more amazing his how far his writing has come. He's still using all capitals, but he's working right along without complaint, is almost doing the entire verse himself, is forming all of the letters correctly, and has a pretty good pencil grip (which is a HUGE deal for him!). All in all, it's been a very successful start to our year!

My drawing, for comparison.

We're on to a math block next month. When we return to Language Arts, we'll be working with the "Word Families", which I'll explain further when we get to it. After the holidays, we'll be starting our Grade 2 materials, so this is pretty much the end of the 1st Grade Fairy Tales for us (although I will probably sprinkle in a few throughout our math blocks here and there as needed, because they are such a lovely fit for Zoo Boy right now). We've gotten SO much out of using the Fairy Tales, I feel very blessed to have come across this curriculum when I did so that my children could be nurtured by these quality stories.

The Princess in the Tower

I've had a couple of complaints about my text not lining up properly with my photos when I use the medium sized photos, so I'm going to try to stick to the smaller size as much as possible from now on, so that hopefully things make more sense!

For the first half of the week (the last week of our first Language Arts block of the year) we worked with the Indian Fairy Tale "The Princess in the Tower" from the Enki Education 1st Grade Fairy Tales collection. It's your classic King-locks-Princess-in-tower-to-prevent-her-from-marrying-a-poor-man-as-prophesied-only-to-have-tower-key-in-fulfilling-prophesy story. Here in J's drawing, you can see the Eagle who brings the Princess's fabled love to her (while he was hiding in the carcass of an ox to stay warm -- the dude was SERIOUSLY poor....). There's the ox on the roof of the tower, with the hero peeking out.

Zoo Boy's drawing. The top of his tower is vastly wider than the tops of ours, and it's hard to see with the picture reduced to this size, but the princess's window is drawn in there, at about the same location as in J's drawing.

Zoo Boy's verse. Despite the longer length of this verse, he again did not resist writing two words, so he technically wrote half the verse on his own. Still using all capital letters, I realized that he's now bearing down harder on his pencil, and so is writing darker, almost as dark as I write.

My drawing for comparison. This was a gesture drawing with embellishments, the straight lines of the tower as one movement, and the movement of the waves as another. The kids made me draw in the drips of blood from the ox carcass.

farm shots

It's been awhile since I've posted photos from around the farm. I'll be back later with some more substantial posts (as usual, I have lots to say!), but for now, enjoy some photos taken this first day of October.


Our new Rhode Island Red rooster, whom the kids have named "Big Crest".

Our current duck flock (although the six Indian Runners in the front are already sold -- we'll keep the other ten ducks).

Butterscotch, cute as ever, starting to get fuzzy with his winter coat.

Annie, and our house, and trees just starting to change color. The past two days have been really cold, reminding us all that winter is on the way!