Snow!

The snow in our backyard on Monday night.

The snow was a bit deeper to play at a friend's place, closer to the hills!


We have been enjoying snow in our neck of the woods this week! Apparently it has been 35 years, some say even up to 80 years since snow has fallen in our town! We didn't get a lot at our house, but we took a drive around the local area and found some deep snow to play in.

On the Dunes

... where we spent our weekend.

Guest Post at Educating Mother

I have a guest post up at Educating Mother today, where I have shared about a few of our sewing and quilting activities.

A White Kiwi!

Check out this beautiful little WHITE kiwi chick. It hatched just this month at Pukaha Mt. Bruce. It is officially a brown kiwi!

Cartoon Drawing Workshop

We had a wonderful time at our Graham Braddock Drawing Workshop!
First of all, Graham guided us through drawing different cartoon facial expressions. We were encouraged to make the expressions ourselves, and study the person next to us to see what happens to their face.

Here are the results:

Next, Graham guided us through drawing three different types of cartoon characters. First, we drew "Mr. Cool", then "Mr. Tough" and "Mr Braddock":

The next session was all about cartoon figures. After watching a couple of students act out certain actions, we practiced with "Mr Stickman." We then transferred the same actions to "Mr T" (the Potatohead):
Last of all, we put some "surprise" action figures on paper as a "blob family, excited about the prospect of going to Disneyland":

Graham's workshops are so much fun, and he is such an excellent drawing teacher. Do go if you ever get the opportunity!

Cartoon Workshop!

We are looking forward to attending our 5th workshop with Graham Braddock. Tomorrow he will be teaching us how to draw cartoon faces and figures. Stay tuned for the end results!

Here are some pictures from our previous workshops with Graham:

Bushmen's Huts

Colour Wheels and Portraits

Perspective and Vanishing Points

And here are some of the lessons we have completed using Graham's instructional DVD, How to Draw Really Well:

Still Life
Portraits

A Living Bookshelf

A living book is a book that opens your mind, inspires you to read more, or to learn more about a person, event, or time in history. A living book will ask to be read again, or quoted from as you read through it. A living book will be re-enacted by your children in the backyard or the living room theatre. A living book will sprout ideas for a new project or writing lesson.

Many of you are aware of the great booklists - especially Ambleside Online's booklists. These lists have been the backbone of our read-aloud books over the years.

But we have also come across many books that are not on those lists. I would like to share a little bit about some of the books sitting on my bookshelf in the picture.

Nestled between the big Matthew Henry commentary on the book of Matthew, and one of the girls' Bibles, is a red & black book called "People in History" written by R.J. Unstead. This is what he writes in his introduction:

Every age has its heroes who stir the imagination and shape the lives of ordinary people. For a child in particular, tales of heroism and adventure, of high courage and achievement, are an important and essential part of his development, as well as his first introduction to history.

Unstead then goes on to "tell the stories" of many historical characters, from Boadicea, to William the Conqueror, to Florence Nightingale. The stories are accompanied by black and white, and some colour illustrations. Unstead has written many other books on different time periods, and they are always a delight to read.

Another book on the shelf - infact a set of books, are those by Arthur Mee. They are the red and green books, three of which are without dustjackets, toward the right hand end of the bottom shelf. One of them is called "The Wonderful Journey". This is Arthur Mee's introduction:

Here we will let imagination do its work; we will roam among the great sights of the world. This is no guide-book. It is a picture of things that a busy man has seen when he has found the courage and the time to say Good-bye to Little Treasure island, and to run over the hills and far away. It is a look-back to happy days and far-off things...

...from this hilltop [in Kent] with all its thrilling wonder, we may pass in not many hours to stand among the ruins of Time and her ancient empires. We can be in Egypt or in Rome. We can walk among the ruins of Pompeii, and look upon the monuments the Romans left behind. Within a week we can stand in the heart of a mountain and gaze on the face of Pharoah lying where his people left him long ago. We can see the shadows of their mighty walls creep across the sands of Egypt. Let us imagine we are there again. Let us go together on this journey through Time and some of her wonders.

"A Wonderful Journey" is another book that tells the stories of historical characters, but also makes you feel as though you have been to all the places and seen the characters!

Arthur Mee also wrote a children's newspaper, about all manner of different subjects. They were eventually published as "The Children's Encyclopaedia", which we have a copy of. The girls spend hours pouring over these books!

I always look out for these two authors, because I know they will not disappoint!