Tales from our table #6
Tales from our table #6
Rainbows, Pegasus and Tiny Houses - 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.
For some context, I have two children, H who is 10 and F who is 7. We currently live life and home educate in South Australia, along with my partner.
It has been 2 months since I last wrote one of these ‘Tales from our table’ articles sharing an insight into our family life and the arty projects we get up to at home. I just didn’t feel I had much to say. We have all been ill for weeks with flu, which left me feeling totally depleted of energy, creativity and enthusiasm for most things. It took me a long time to feel energised again, but slowly we are back in action finding new projects to feel excited about.
Along with illness, the past month has been filled with questions. Why do we live in Australia so far from our family in the UK? Do we like where we live? How do we fit into the community here? Will we ever move to a different country? Are my children happy growing up away from their extended family? If we stay in Australia, will we have any support when we are old? Will we ever be able to afford to buy a house? Are all my children’s needs being met with home education? Sometimes where we live in South Australia feels very isolated from the rest of the world; Is this a good thing or a bad thing? I acknowledge, all of these questions are filled with privilege; being able to debate which ‘safe’ country to live, or to choose between home education or free public school is such a huge privilege that I don’t take for granted. Nevertheless, I’m still questioning everything.
These questions are in-part fueled by my recent 45th birthday (half way to 90, yay!) and my youngest turning 7. I’m no longer a mother of little children. We are all changing, growing and getting older. Maybe I’m having a mid-life crisis!
ARTY PARTY DECORATIONS
To celebrate my daughters 7th birthday, we had a party in the forest with friends. Her chosen theme was ‘Ocean & Sky’, so we created magical decorations to hang in the trees. There were Pegasus, rainbows, mermaids and beautiful dragon flies.
To create the decorations we used an old cardboard and fabric scraps. The rainbows are very simple; just cut an arch shape, paint rainbow colours and glue fabric strips onto the bottom to create streamers. The flying Pegasus are a bit more complicated, so I made a template and instructions which can be downloaded from my website:
FAIRY HOUSES & FURNITURE
My daughter loves all things magical and fairies at the moment, so we started work on making a fairy village. Instead of doing all the ‘important’ life stuff I ‘should’ have been doing, I spent a few hours helping her make little houses from wooden craft sticks and hot glue. After completing the houses, she wanted to make furniture and started with a bed. However, after making it, she realised it was way too big to fit in the house (to great amusement at her silly mistake), so it became a bed for Snoopy. I’m hoping the village evolves but there is an equal chance that it might not, if her interests move on, and that’s OK too.
BOOKS WE LOVED THIS MONTH:
Whenever I feel any doubt about our decision to home educate, I buy books. Not parenting books or books discussing different styles of home education; children’s books. When I question our choices, the one thing I fall back on is that both my children LOVE reading. I remind myself that if all we do is read books and play, that is enough for now. That is enough on those hard days, in fact, that is enough on most days. We do do a lot of other things; horse riding, karate, Dungeons & Dragons, watching documentaries, trips to museums, park plays, swimming, camping, singing and lots of time hanging out with friends, but reading books is our bread and butter, and my excuse to buy all the beautiful children’s books!
Below are a few reads my son (who is 10) enjoyed last month, he’s mostly into Si-Fi, magical adventures and fantasy at the moment. His top pick out of this selection would probably be Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. This one is definitely for slightly older readers but he LOVED it so much. When Stars are Scattered and Illegal are beautiful graphic novels sharing stories about refugee children, which I really recommend.
My daughter (age 7), has just got to the stage of reading longer books independently. She loves graphic novels like Barb the Brave and Investigators. The longer novels here, like Mr Gum by Any Stanton (which is so funny) and Blueback by Tim Winton (which is such a beautiful story about protecting the environment), we read together.
If you have any questions about the books or have recommendations of your own, leave a comment below.
FINAL THOUGHTS
I’m still filled with questions. I feel like the next year will be a period of flux for us but now I’m feeling more ready to embrace change. I will leave you with these cute drawings that I found on the breakfast table this morning and the thought that creativity doesn’t need to be an epic, elaborate craft project, simple drawings are enough.
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