Visual Presentations, Part 2

What a night! The highs! The lows! The laughter! The tears!

When all was said and done, there was a great showing by the Muddy Paws crew! In Ella's room, four kids (out of 8, in six categories), went on to State VPs. They were all four from Ella's 4-H group, Muddy Paws. There were a bunch of first time VPs that went on to states. It was all very thrilling.

Some very proud girls!

Last year, Ella did a visual presentation for 4-H on Duct Tape (The Duck That Doesn't Quack - Duct Tape). She won at the State Competition, so the pressure has been on. Well, self-imposed pressure as always *grin*.

This year, she did an entire presentation on Artist Trading Cards. It was beautiful. She had sponge-painted all her "boards" (the posters that the kids use as an outline for the presentation). She made one HUGE Artist Trading Card so that everyone could see what it was. Then she found a great way to mount all the atcs so that they popped off the display.

But, then, in February, she decided to do a visual presentation on the eye.

Deep breathing exercises were used.

And then she set off to work again.

She ended up making a beautiful cross-section of the eye from large pieces of that foam paper (why didn't they have THAT when I was a kid?).

She worked really hard, and set up a whole new project. We are going to the county visual presentation this weekend, and if she does well then she'll go on to the state competition.

We'll keep our fingers crossed.

This is one of her "visuals" for the VP. It shows an image of the inside of an eye and some fruits and veggies that contribute to eye health. as she says (every time she practices), not only are they good for your eye, but they provide nutrients for your body to keep your eye healthy."

This is her title page (ohh....it feels like you could be right there listening to her, doesn't it?)

Oh, yeah, baby, feeling like a winner. With a carrot.

Spiraling Around Fairies

Spirals are so wonderful and organic and somehow cozy and scary all at once.

I have always loved the educational notion of a spiral of learning as opposed to a linear progression. After all, isn't that how we learn in real life? I love the image of swirling around ideas and falling into them as one falls into a whirlpool, reaching deeper and deeper (maybe even scary) levels of understanding.

One thing that we have revisited over and over is the Spiderwick series of books. They are captivating, and as they captured the imaginations of Ella and then one friend and then another and another, or then she was given a field guide, the interest would be rekindled.

I remember feeling that way about gnomes. I still have the Gnome Gnotebook that Meg's mom gave me when I was about Ella's age.

Now that Spiderwick is going to be a movie, we did the books with our Coastal Free Learners homeschool group. We also found out it is going to be a game and I am so excited! It 's going to be very fun! There is so much information about the books on the internet, along with games and downloads, etc. What is so wonderful about these books is that the kids seem to take them so seriously, and really feel connected to the Grace children and the invisible world all around us.

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We had a blast today making Sprite outfits. It was so fun to hear the children earnestly discussing the merits of leaving milk out for Brownies, and whether or not fairies liked fairy houses or felt that they were some sign from us that we thought them incapable of housing themselves. Ella has researched the authors, their influences and even their pets (pugs, of course!). Even the boys had fun drawing and making the Sprites have warrior helmets on their head..

Plimouth Plantation

We had great weather for a visit to the Plimouth Plantation. It was really nice there today. I am always a bit uncomfortable talking to the people in costume, but we were able to have a nice chat with a young woman today about kids games, and a gentleman in his house who was talking about his neighbors (the Wamanoag emissaries sent by the tribe sachem to communicate with the newcomers). It was actually a family of ten that lived there in the Hockamock settlement.

In was an interesting stream of events that led us here today.

Yesterday, we were inspired by the Curious George show to make some instruments of our own and I thought of this paperbag book I had seen at our library with instructions to make Native peoples' instruments. The book had some information about different tribes, and we talked about the Wampanoag Nation that was involved with the Pilgrims in 1627. Our little library was gifted by patrons with some passes this year, so we were able to reserve a pass for the Plimouth Plantation for today.

These beautiful woven mats on the inside of the We-Tu (whee-two? spelling unknown to me!) provide a path for cool and hot air to flow through the dome-like structure. There was a man in Native dress today who was making a new structure. He asked for Declan's help. I love hearing about how the children were raised alongside the adults learning by observing and playing.

In this particular structure we met a great collection of fellow homeschoolers. They were snapping pictures of all the differently shaped We-Tus because they were going to make one of their own when they got home.

Note the chamber pot! That is the green pot under the bed, which has its curtains drawn. The kids were very interested in this, along with the conversation they overheard about "snot" being fluid from the brain. Yuck.

Declan *loved* this treasure chest and the thought of it sailing over the ocean. There were only blankets in it, tho.