Art Excursion

I graduated from the University of Pittsburgh.  So, it's always a joy to go back to the campus and look around with my kids.

This week I decided that since we were going to the public library that is essentially on campus, we might as well check out Pitt's art gallery.  The Frick Fine Arts building is home of a few Art departments at Pitt.  I remember taking a history of architecture class there.... I have almost ZERO memory of the ridiculous facts that I stuffed away and regurgitated from my short term memory in that class.  Now that I homeschool, a few of those facts might be nice to have.

My homeschoolers were genuinely impressed by the first collection we saw.  It was a collection of stick figure art (artist Gertrude Quastler)... even a stick figure sculpture.  Any kid knows how to draw stick figures.  It's our first (and probably still my) ONLY way to draw people.  Afrikah makes stick figures all the time.  Seeing an "artist" whose stick figure work was on public display made her especially happy!

We then saw some severely less interesting art.  Probably the only interest was "who is that?"  And when they got the answer, "How?!"   But we walked through the extensive collection of Europeanized biblical art portraits anyway.

After we came out the building, the kids ran around the fountain outside.

Then Hizki grabbed my camera to do some photography.  He started reading the plaque and snapping pics of a war monument. Afrikah decided to jump in.

We had a great time exploring the art gallery.  Afrikah loves art, and loves creating things.  Who knows, maybe introducing her to the art of others will inspire our little artist to step out and create new ideas without inhibition.

Museums, BUGS, and Fine Art!

Somehow, in this blog I will tie together the museum, bugs, and art!

I've already discussed my new discovery of Free Admission days in Pittsburgh.  The Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh (Oakland location) actually has free days quite often.  We have gone to the museum 3 times this school year... for FREE!  The museum has several exhibits relating to... bugs!

Now, I'm squeamish about insects.  Yuck!!!  We talked about insects in science this year.... their anatomy in particular.  I tried my best not to show how I felt about bugs to my kids.  Hizki likes bugs.  Afrikah.... If it's not a butterfly or a lady bug, not so much

Afrikah was so excited to see an exhibit on monarch butterflies and milkweed.  She has become an expert on monarch butterflies over this school year.  They are her favorite!

Hizki isn't as focused as Afrikah.  He likes pretty much any bug...


but when he saw stick bugs in the museum, he wanted me to take a picture so that he could look them up later.

Afrikah loving the monarch butterfly and milkweed exhibit.

Hizki pointing at his new favorite bug.. the stick bug!










I've been wanting my kids to paint with watercolors all year.  But I also wanted a project that involved them tying things together into a painting.  This seemed to be the perfect opportunity.  Hizki wanted to learn about stick bugs.  Afrikah actually had interest too.  So, we googled stick bugs and learned about them.... Also branched off into leaf bugs.  When it came time to paint, Afrikah decided to paint a leaf bug instead of a butterfly...

I bought the watercolors and paint brush/sponge set from Michael's using a 30% off RetailMeNot coupon.  If you don't have the RetailMeNot App on your smart phone, I highly suggest that you get it!

Paint and children go hand in hand.   Writing reports has its place, but sometimes allowing children to use their imagination in other ways enhances their interest in the environment around them!

Here are their masterpieces!

And that's how we interwove the museum (yeah, we aren't going back a FOURTH time this school year!), bugs (Yah has to have a reason to create those dreaded things), and art (creative ability, flowing from within onto a blank sheet of paper).

Why We Are a Homeschooling Family

The commandment to teach our children diligently comes right after the Sh'ma (Hear of Israel, YHWH our Elohim, YHWH is one!) and the V'ahavtah (And You shall LOVE YHWH with ALL your heart, and with ALL your mind, and with ALL your soul!).

Moses then goes on to say that we should teach that we should "teach the commandments diligently" to our children.  My husband taught on the Hebrew word used for this phrase before... It means to IMPRESS or IMPELL the commandments into our children.  To make it a priority to REPEATEDLY and CONSISTENTLY instruct them in the ways of YHWH!  And the commandment goes on to say that we shouldn't just say the Sh'ma at bedtime, or even when we wake up, but we should instruct our children as we are in our home and also "along the way", i.e., step by step through life.

We started homeschooling in 2015 as a way to better keep this commandment.  I'm finding that I can teach my children the LOVE and FEAR of YHWH in every subject.  I'm enjoying them being around me 24/7.  I can see room for character growth and development.  We can focus on their weakness, dive into their interests, schedule around the Biblical feasts.  Overall, the experience has been amazing.  If Homeschooling is something you can do, I highly suggest you try it.  Or find an alternative like cyber school to keep your children home with you, so that you can teach them the things of YHWH at home and along the way.

I hope this blog will document some of the things that I do with my children, and help moms to discover things to do with their children... along the way.

-Tirzah Lewis

Pi Day Festivities 3.14.2016

Let's face it....Pi day (March 14 every year) is for nerds!  Am I a nerd?  Although I hate to say it out loud.... I probably am.  As a math and physics major, I think most people would declare that I am.

So.... I wanted to make Pi Day extra special for my children.  Even though they are only 8 and 6, I wanted to somehow make this number that YHWH created from scratch and that pops up in the universe over and over because of it's fundamental nature actually MEAN something TANGIBLY to my young children.  Maybe it would help them unlock some deeper understanding of physical laws later down the line.... Maybe they'll just forget about everything we talked about in a few days... I don't know.  To me, it was worth a shot.

Here is my board.  I started with how to even say Pi.  Then I showed them that it's a Greek letter and has a meaning of 3.14.

My children already know what a line of symmetry is.  They also know that a circle has an infinite number of lines of symmetry.  So, it was easy to just say, let's call the line of symmetry on a circle the "diameter".  If you wanted to measure this you could use a ruler....

The next major feat was to figure out how to describe the circumference of a circle.  I told them to imagine taking a piece of string, and tying it around a circle.  Then, measuring the string.  That would be this mysterious "circumference" number.

Now.... let's put it together.  For ANY Circle, no matter what size, the circumference and the diameter are related to each other in the SAME EXACT way, and that is by the number pi.  My kids don't know the term "ratio" yet.  I had to just say, "circumference divided by" or "over" diameter to them... Even my six year old has seen fractions and understands simple division.  This whole ratio thing might make sense in a couple years, but for now, since my kids understood what I was talking about, I considered it to be a victory!

Now.... Bust out all the circles in the house so we can test out this "theory"!

Afrikah Measuring the diameter of a clock.

We used string to measure the circumference of our circles.

Some Circles were so big that we needed to use measuring tape.  Here, Afrikah is drinking out of one of the circles we measured...

Hizki measuring a diameter.  After about three circles (you can see there's ELEVEN circles even in this picture) my kids got the point that 3.14 really kept coming up!

That Peanut butter jar's lid actually gave us the closest number to Pi.  I kept this in mind.  My children probably didn't notice it.  But they enjoyed all the measuring and using a calculator for the first time.  They wanted to keep measuring circles, but I had a FUN packet for them to do.







I found a Pi Day packet on teacherspayteachers.com.  I decided to go ahead and spend $4.25 for a packet that is appropriate for younger elementary school students.  It was worth every penny, and I can use it next year.  I only picked out a few activities to do from the packet.  I figure we can use it for the next few years until we've done all the activities we want to do from it...

Here's a link to this fabulous packet!

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Pi-Day-583799

 

My kids LOVED Pi Day!  So, I really consider this a success.  Circles will never be the same, and maybe I inspired my children to from a young age love math and be ready to conquer it!