The Australian Museum- Sydney

We had a lovely visit to the Australian Museum with our

glowing friend,

here we are looking at a Thylacene.
It was such a treat for my rural remote boys to get to see some of the city's cultural highlights, sadly we were crowded out by school groups, who were noisy and unruly.

Art in your homeschool

Art can be easily overlooked in the homeschool, some parents have shared with me how they find it difficult to fit it in, it is very valuable to your child's education though so I thought I would share some thoughts and resources here. I am passionate about art in ourhomeschool.

Most of the subjects we focus on have well defined procedures to follow, rules and regulations leaving little room for creativity or mistakes.
Art is wonderful to open a child's mind to freedom and play; to allow them to experiment and to use their own imaginations without any fear of getting it wrong-
ART
is
FUN,
SPONTANEOUS
and
RELAXING.

Why study Art?
Learning art provides a foundation for visual perception, the ability to recognise and understand images, these may be found in many places- art works, plans/ blueprints, symbols, words.......

Art education helps a child to develop abstract thinking skills-
the visual arts combine abstract thinking with real concrete materials
to create the idea in their imagination,
using convergent, divergent, evaluative and visual thinking skills.

Art education provides a window
a connection into people in another place and time.
Art education encourages creativity using art skills and knowledge-
in order to create children utilise other Key Learning Areas
Maths- patterns.
Science- colours- mixing, tones, opposites.
Language Arts- communication- expressing ideas, discussing art works
reading or listening to directions.
HS&IE - history- people have made art in most cultures and most times, studying art from different times is like a window into that time and kids notice details they wouldn't pick up from a book or lesson. Recreating art from times past is also a 

Jan van Eyck

Triptych Panel

In the 1400's Jan van Eyck was the most famous painter in northern Europe.
He is said to be the inventor of oil paints.

He painted many portraits, religious scenes and self portraits.

One of his most famous works is the Ghent Altarpiece,
an amazingly detailed and intricate triptych on a wooden screen.
We used recycled cereal boxes to make our triptych's

Illuminated letters- Book of Kells

The Book of Kells, a 9th century illuminated manuscript of the gospels,
and it is so intricate and beautiful.Letters and pages are decorated with fantastic creatures, angels, and religious figures, outlined in brilliant colors of blue, green, red and white, yellow .

The boys and I did illuminated letters inspired by
the Book of Kells before we went away to camp.
I am trying to catch up on our blog,
we are far too busy making art and coping with the heat to blog about it lately.

The Fig Tree

Fig Tree

We are a creative homeschooling family of 3. I have homeschooled my 2 boys from the start and we do lots of unit studies and get out into our beautiful part of the world as often as we can.
As the boys are getting older and we are getting busier I find I am posting less about our journey but will continue to update occasionally.