Games Galore

A.M. ART: Recently on the Seattle Homeschool Group email list, there has been a discussion about curriculum for art instruction. I've been following it, as I'm always looking for positive reviews from other people regarding resources.

This morning, one SHGer posted a link to a blog "ART with Mrs. Smith." Mrs. Smith graciously shares art projects she does with her class with the whole world. Often, her lessons are based on ideas she's culled elsewhere - in other words, she's hunting down the leads and trying them out, saving me all that time. I love that. :)

From Mrs. Smith's blog, I found out about "The Art of Silliness." It's billed as an online class, featuring 25 "activity sheets for adults." However, it looks like people of all ages could do it - and you know how CJ loves silly! Accord to the class creator, "Each day I will create an Activity Sheet just for you. Worksheets may include one (or more) of the following: drawing exercises (can’t draw? YES YOU CAN!), journaling prompts, a poem to illustrate, writing exercises, spelling words, drawing games, collage prompts, puzzles… (just to name a few). FUN!"

I'm tempted to sign up. Of course it costs money (I was laying in bed this morning trying to total up the cost of our a la carte approach to education and the monthly cost of music, yoga, ballet, museum memberships and so on and was a bit paled by the total). This worksheet class is "only" $25, and maybe after we did one session, I could generate some similar worksheets/ideas to do with the kids. Maybe.

I also found a BUNCH of other online art resources - including KinderArt. There are so many ideas, it's positively overwhelming.

For today's artwork, we ended up borrowing Mrs. Smith's "stacked shapes" lesson. The kids were to pick two shapes and then draw this in an A-B pattern in a stack (the stack didn't have to be straight up, and the shaped didn't have to be all the same size). CJ chose circles and triangles; Bee chose hearts and stars. They drew those in pencil, and then drew a small circle in the middle of each shape. Then they traced their pencil with black ballpoint pen, and added shading on half of the middle circle and the opposite half of the stacked shapes. They colored the shapes and then added some art to the background. CJ added colored Ms and Ls (for Mario and Luigi of Nintendo fame). Annabelle decided on something a bit more complicated - multiple unicorns. I think she was regretting her choice by the time she started her third unicorn. "I'm not a professional at unicorns," she sighed.

FILL 'ER UP: The kids got their fill of fresh air today by helping us fill the 100 foot trench in our yard (hey, at least we didn't make them help DIG the trench). Bee raked dirt back into place and CJ paced along the trench, compacting it.
We joked that if he sank far enough, he'd be in China or thereabouts - maybe Mongolia instead of Magnolia. He got a kick out of that, although he voiced concern that he doesn't speak Chinese. (Tonight, I learned that the official language of Mongolia is Khalkha Mongolian. CJ doesn't speak that, either.)

MY KIND OF MUSEUM: Oh so tired of digging and filling ditches for the past 4.75 days, late this afternoon I told Christian it was time for us to go do something fun. The "something" I had in mind was visiting the just days old Seattle Pinball Museum (SPM).
I'd read about the museum in the Seattle Times. The exhibit is the pet project of Charlie and Cindy Martin of Federal Way, and it was made possible by Storefronts Seattle, which is a community-driven initiative to revitalize empty retail spaces in the International District and Pioneer Square. Under the program SPM has three months of rent free residency. I heard one of the proprietors telling a guest today they hope there's enough interest in the enterprise to let them stick around beyond that time frame.

Admission to the museum is $5, and that buys you unlimited play on any of the machines. As of today, SPM has 16 vintage pinball machines on display, as well as three pachinko machines. We played them all!

The oldest pinball machine there "Bumper," a rare, wooden machine with art deco styling giving a clue as to its age (1936). There are no flippers - to play you have to shake the table to move the ball and try to get it to bump off coils. The game's so old, it takes a nickel, rather than a quarter, to play.

Next up were a couple of machines from the 1960s, including Rack a Ball with its bowling theme. The '70s machines were great. CJ loved playing Time Zone by Bally (1973).

I just loved looking at the Harlem Globetrotters' machine! Oh-so-70s!

And of course the Flash Gordon machine based on the wonderfully awful movie from the early 1980s was absolutely captivating - though the game itself was just as merciless as Ming.
Other nice touches at SPM - they had a vintage (70s era) jukebox, an old Coke machine and this candy vending machine that is SUCH a throwback to my childhood.

After getting our fill of flippers, we headed over to Uwajimaya, an enormous Asian market, just a couple of blocks away. Wandering aisle after aisle of things labeled in symbols that meant nothing to me, it was like being transported to a different place. I'd like to do a full on field trip there some day.

MUSIC MAJOR: This afternoon, out of nowhere, CJ asked me, "What's a G major?"

The quick and easy answer was, "It's a music chord." And so I told him that - but I didn't want to leave it at that. I wanted to explain what a chord is (combining individual notes and playing them together), and show him how you make a G major. Bless the Internet - it was easy to do so when I found a Web site, Hobby Hour, that shows how guitar chords are formed, and you can even 'strum' the individual notes in the chord and then the chord in its entirety. So, so awesome. After playing a few versions of G major, I told the kids about G minor and told them that often minor chords sound "Halloweeny." CJ dug the minor chords.

PC POETS: Thanks to a Facebook post informing that tomorrow is International Literacy Day, I was reminded about the ReadWriteThink Web site. There's a gold mine there for educators and learners. I settled on an interactive Shape Poem activity for the kids. The exercise explained that a shape poem is a poem that describes an object and is written in the shape of that object.

First, the kids each got to choose a category of poem to write about (school, sports, nature or celebrations). Then they had to choose a shape within that category. Annabelle chose sports and a soccer ball. CJ chose celebrations and a balloon. Then they each had to generate 8 words or phrases that remind them of that shape, and finally they were ready to construct their poems.

Soccer by Bee Bee Kisky

I like soccer

I use my foot

I play on a field

oh soccer

Ballons by CJ

I love balloons

They are so colorful

They remind me of cake

They remind me of parties

CJ CHIMES IN: This morning, CJ insisted I come in his bedroom and take a look at the computer. Upon doing so, I saw on the screen a picture of a game within a game. Specifically, CJ was watching a YouTube video which showed that in one part of a Super NES game called "Super Mario World" there is a Gameboy sitting on a small plateau.

CJ thought that this news was something blog readers would most certainly be interested in and asked me to post it. So I did. :)