More Art Work

As you can tell from my numerous posts about art, this is where Grace's passion lies as well as her fathers. She has been attending private art lessons for 5 weeks now and is enjoying it very much. At the last lesson her teacher instructed her on gesturing and for homework she was to practice sketching people and items but not putting details in to the pictures. The above picture is a gesturing pose she did at the art teachers house of her dog.

Grace is still fascinated with dragons. This is one of the wooden boxes I mentioned before that my husband makes for Grace to paint or draw on.

One of her many manga characters. This one is actually an illustration for a story she is writing through her Create a Fantasy workbook.

And again dragons. Every free moment is taken up with drawing or creating. So great that we homeschool and she has all this time to devote to her craft.

Frog Sitting, Birthdays and A Magic Show

Close friends of ours have gone camping - so we are frog sitting. This is a tree frog that eats two crickets each day and must be spritzed with water twice a day.

Yesterday both kids birthdays were celebrated. Travis turned 20 a week ago and Grace turned 11 today. You don't see many pictures often like the one above.

Today was the opening activity for our local library's summer program. Every year they start off with a magic show. It was really good. Brought mom along with us. Went out to lunch and by Walmart for Grace to spend some of the birthday money that was burning a hole in her pocket. She bought some flip flops and a game for her DS.

Gold Museum and Gem Grubbing

Many of you may not know that before the 49er's went to California for gold there was the 29er's in the North Georgia area. The first real gold rush happened right in our neck of the woods. A small town named Dahlonega was at the core of the gold rush in Georgia. Today the Gold Museum was hosting "A Day in a Miner's Life". In the above picture is a man blacksmithing many items that miner's might need. Horse shoes, shovels, axes, etc.

The picture above is a man demonstrating some of the old wood working tools that might be used to make tables and chairs.

Of course this guy was the highlight of the event. Panning for gold. He actually found gold flakes in just about every pan and gave each child a small flake in a tube of water to take home with them. He was from a local mine that is a tourist attraction where you can go panning for gold or gem grubbing. At the time of the Georgia Gold Rush there were many mines in this area that are all gone now. We also went into the Gold Museum today and watched a short film about The Georgia Gold Rush and saw many interesting relics from that period. This event couldn't of come at a better time - we started two books on The California Gold Rush this past week. Now Grace and Scott are hankering to go out in the local streams and do some panning themselves. They will probably go tonight after dinner. One of the blessings of living in the area that is rich in nature and history.

Summer School

This week we are doing three days of school about 1 1/2 hours each day. Each week will probably be different days because of a loaded summer schedule. Mostly we are doing these things:

• Finish reading By the Shores of Silver Lake
• Finish reading Young Brahms
• Started two books on the California Gold Rush
• Easy Grammar
• Math Review Worksheets
• Bible
• Fantasy Literature Writing
• Activities related to the library summer reading programs

I hope to do a post soon on the Fantasy Literature Writing notebook that we bought from a used book sale and some of the activities from the summer reading programs. So far we have joined two library programs and hope to join one more at the big library.

Grammar - Land

I was reading a blog this morning that I routinely go and visit - most recent post is about Language Arts choices, what has worked and what hasn't worked. She included a link to Google Books for a free download of "Grammar - Land" by M.L. Nesbitt. It is a story about all things grammar put into a sort of fairy tale. Looks very interesting. Then she also included a link to worksheets that another blogger has put together for the book. The new blog I found with the worksheets is www.dontneednoeducation.blogspot.com. There are so many other treasures on this blog. I have added it to my favorites also. Looking forward to reading Grammar - Land for the new school year.

New Website

Just came across a new website that promises to be very interesting. I fail miserably at teaching my daughter home making skills. I come from the school of - If I want it done right I just do it myself. But I know that thought process is not doing any good for my daughter. Hopefully this website will help me out. It just kicked off today. When you have a chance check it out: www.raisinghomemakers.com.

Projects Over the Weekend

Over the weekend Grace produced a couple of new projects. Found a great blog from another blogger www.legoquestkids.blogspot.com that gives out challenges of things to build with legos and then send in your photo. This is our first challenge which was to do a flag. Grace did the flag of Panama because she thought it was an easier one to do. We will try to keep up with the challenges and post as we do them.

Grace and Scott also did some painting over the weekend. Scott has been making her small wooden boxes and painting them white. That way they are easy to hang on the wall. This time Grace decided to paint something with an impressionistic style. I think she has already started another one with a dragon on it. I am sure the dragon choice doesn't surprise anyone.