Tales from out table #4
Family art and lots of cats - This months creative projects; successes, failures and the mess left behind.
In these monthly tales from our art table (aka. The Kitchen Table), I hope to share an honest insight into the creative projects we embark on; successes, failures and the mess left behind. Creativity is at the heart of our family life, not just literally because it takes over the place where we eat, sit and talk, but also in the way we live and approach learning together. It permeates everything; mathematics, science, literature, the way we fix things that are broken and solve problems together as a family. So inevitably the paint covered brushes of our artworks will be mixed with the politics of our daily lives in these stories from our kitchen table.
When writing these tales, I hope to find a balance between sharing an honest insight into our life whilst also respecting the privacy of my children. I will try to focus on my story; their story is theirs to tell. For some context, I have two children, H who is nearly 10 and F who is 6. We currently live life without school in South Australia, along with my partner.
This month we have been leaning into family life. With the children’s Yiayia visiting from the UK, we have been enjoying time together as a family. Having another adult around the house has created some ease for me and contributed to calming what has felt like months of bickering in our home. This focus on family has been reflected in our creative projects this month.
(Note: In these posts I occasionally share Amazon affiliate links so you can find the books or art supplies we use. But if you can, please consider supporting your local bookstore or art supply shop.)
PROJECT - Family Tree
With the children’s Greek grandmother visiting, we collaboratively embarked on creating a family tree. With projects like this, I find it best to keep it simple and do the prep work before we begin. This allows the project to progress quickly and for my children to maintain interest. My daughter, in particular, moves on in her focus very quickly to her next creative idea. So to keep the family tree creation low demand and engaging, I printed out photos of family members in advance. We then cut out and arranged the pictures gluing them to a large sheet of paper and drew the tree. I assisted in writing some of the family members' names.
I want to add a disclaimer here, the picture of my children harmoniously drawing our family tree was a rare moment in our day. It’s easy on social media to curate an image of family life and parenting that is totally unrealistic because, understandable, we only want to share the good bits. I’m not going to whip my phone out and take a picture when my son is dis-regulated and burying his head in the sofa or when my daughter is crying and screaming that I am the worse mother ever and I’m very unlikely to take a selfie as I loose my temper and shout at my children. But all these things happen much more often than my children quietly drawing together.
PROJECT - Painting Cats
My daughter loves animals. She is particularly into cats; being a cat, drawing cats and cuddling every cat she sees. So, inspired by her interest and an art competition in our local library, we launched into creating a series of cat artworks. We painted ginger cats, purple leopards, cats in funky hats, cats with glasses and many more. I painted alongside my daughter joining in with her love of felines. I feel the whole gang looks like they should be in a Blues band.
The competition at our local library was to create a cat drawing inspired by Garfield, so F chose her favourite ginger cat painting to enter. We were so excited to get the call last week letting us know that she had won the competition! The prize was a family pass to see the new Garfield movie.
In the last month I have noticed a big leap in my daughters artistic abilities. Although I’m not keen on my children being in a position where they are compared and judged against their peers, in the context of this little local competition that my daughter freely chose to enter, it felt fun. Winning was such a huge boost to her self esteem and growing confidence in her creative skills.
PROJECT - Family Portrait
With our current focus on family time, I suggested we paint a portrait. Excited by the idea, I guided my daughter through the process. Using a similar technique to our cat paintings, first I helped my daughter sketch the outlines, she then added colour using watercolour paint. When the paint was dry, F added details with coloured markers.
Books we loved this months:
Over the last few weeks, my daughter F who is 6, has taken a huge leap in her reading skills which has been such a pleasure and privilege to witness. It has been so joyful seeing her confidence in reading grow and she has pretty much done it on her own with minimal formal reading tuition. She used Reading Eggs for a short spell but soon got bored. She then moved onto Nessy Learning and dips into that on occasion. I read to her every day, but mostly she has taught herself whilst cuddling up on the sofa looking at books. I feel so privileged to have witnessed this process, for me, it is one of the most exciting parts of home education life; having a front row seat for all those joyous moments of learning.
Two books we have loved reading together this month are Runt by Craig Silvey and The Wild Robot by Peter Brown.
Runt is the story of 9 year old Annie Shearer, and a stray dog Runt, who go on to compete in the Krumpets Dog Show in London in an effort to save her family farm. It is a heart-warming and hilarious tale of kindness, friendship, hurdles, hoops, tunnels, see-saws, being yourself and bringing out the best in others. We all loved this book.
In The Wild Robot, a robot named Roz finds herself stranded on a wild, uninhabited island with no memory of how she got there or what her purpose is. After enduring a violent storm and narrowly escaping a bear attack, Roz understands that she must adapt to her environment and learn from the island's animal inhabitants in order to survive. Gradually, as she befriends the animals and learns their language, the island begins to feel like home. However, her mysterious past unexpectedly resurfaces, threatening the peace she has found. We absolutely loved this book and are about to begin reading the sequel, The Wild Robot Escapes.
My daughter is currently loving reading the Little People, Big Dreams books. They are such a wonderful way to introduce a diverse selection of inspiring and influential people from history and the present to young readers.
I know we are late to the party with this one, but my son who is 10 and an avid reader has just begun reading Warriors Cats and is enthralled. If you're not familiar, the series is written by several authors under the pseudonym of Erin Hunter. It tells the adventures of four clans of feral cats living in the forest; ThunderClan, ShadowClan, RiverClan, and WindClan. Later, the fifth Clan, SkyClan, is introduced. The Clan cats mark their borders, defend their lands and adhere to the warrior code; a set of rules each Clan cat must follow. They believe the spirits of their dead reside in StarClan, who send prophecies and signs to guide their living descendants. Each series follows one of the characters as they struggle to grow up and survive the dangers that threaten their Clan, both outside of their borders and within. The stories include elements of war, politics, revenge, doomed love, and religious conflict.
Continuing our long held interest in Greek mythology, H loved reading Myths, Monsters and Mayhem in Ancient Greece by James Davies, a graphic novel style retelling of classic Greek myths. He also regularly rereads two of his favourite books, Homer’s Odyssey and The Iliad, adapted for children by Gillian Cross. These books both have very different but fantastic illustrations.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
After what has felt like a turbulent few months, I’m really enjoying the relative ease that has slowly permeated our family life. I say relative, as things are still often not easy in our home taking into consideration neurodiversity, the stresses of life and the world around us. Having an extra pair of hands, in the form of Yiayia, and dropping a few activities at the request of my children, like karate and piano lessons, we have reduced demands on all of us which has lead to a few more moments of much needed calm.
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Thank you for reading this months ‘Tales from our Table’.
Eleanor x
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