Robert Bateman Centre

We once again took advantage of our Pass it Around Victoria passes and went to the Robert Bateman Centre. What a great experience! Not only to see the incredible paintings and marvel at the talent that it took to paint them, but to see the heart of this man Robert Bateman and the love between him and his wife in the many love letters on display.

The Gallery has lots of light and the paintings are hung with maximum impact. I came around one corner and saw two paintings and thought, wow, Robert Bateman was a photographer too! Then realized as I got closer that no, they were paintings that were so well done that from a distance they looked like photos.

I loved the variety of sizes of the paintings. The gallery added small boxes under many of the paintings where you could hear the song of the bird that was painted. That made the paintings come alive even more.

I loved the section of Bateman's early work, and the different painting styles the experimented with. Having a daughter that experiments with a by different mediums and styles, this section really was encouraging! 

There was also a great explanation of a variety of prints, numbered prints and originals. 

We were there about an hour and it was well worth the time spent! I think we all walked out in awe of this amazing artist!

Art Gallery of Greater Victoria - Field Trips in British Columbia

On the same day as going to Craigdarroch Castle, we visited the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria with our Pass it Around Victoria passes. 

The main reason for going to the art gallery was to see the Emily Carr exhibit. We didn't know that several of her paintings had been removed and are now in London. Emily Carr seems to be taking London by storm right now in the world of art!

What was interesting was, they replaced the missing paintings with ones of her students and her contemporaries including Lawren Harris and several others.

We didn't have a docent for the whole gallery, but she did introduce us to Emily Carr and her life which was very interesting. She asked questions of the students and she gave information about how the paintings in the gallery reflected Emily Carr's life.

The rest of the gallery housed a wide range of Chinese and Japanese art.

Immigration - A great start to our Co-op year!

Our first Co-op this year started a new chapter with the addition of Biblical Hermeneutics. For the first hour of the morning we had the benefit of a wonderful pastor teaching our children about Hermeneutics. It is pretty deep first thing for these teens but it will be such a great addition to our day!

This Co-op centered around Immigration in Canada. Each of the students told a story about how their ancestors came to Canada.  For this session the students were asked to be prepared to answer:
Who had come? (how many generations ago?)
Why had they come?
Where had they come from?

The students ended up hearing immigration stories from many different generations, countries and reasons for coming to Canada. I think this was such a visual representation of diversity in this relatively small sample of BC. 

After lunch, the students learned about Picasso and started on their Picasso-like self portrait collages. As always our art instructor sets up the lesson with the life of the artist and facts about the art that our students will be creating. There is always a lively lesson with one so gifted in art and drama!

Then the students "went to town"! Such a great lesson and lots of opportunity for creativity!!
After art it was off to the ball diamond for a great game of softball to finish off a full, but very fun day!! 
Blessings!!

Grade 9 Electricity Co-op - Such a great day!!

It was such a great day this month for Co-op! I love the way all of our moms and our PE dad teach our children with such passion for their topics! It is such a blessing to have devoted members of a co-op!

Our topic was Electricity and our two moms that were teaching set up 4 stations and divided the students in 4 groups. 

The first station used the card game AC DC to learn about circuits. You can learn more about this card game here. This took a little explanation but once the students got ahold of the rules away they went!

The second station was several experiments testing static electricity. They certainly had fun with those balloons! They  learned about bending water and static charges and our moms had provided a sheet to record their findings. Great fun!!

The third station they tested a wide variety of items for electrical charges. Our students then recorded their results. 

The fourth station was using Squishy Circuits to create electrical circuits. This was awesome! Our moms had made up conductive and insulating play dough ahead of time and then the students used is as part of the experiments! It looked like alot of fun!!

So much learning took place that morning just from listening to the students interact with each other and experiment in different ways! Such a great morning!!

In the afternoon the students finished up their Sunflower (Van Gogh) or Scream (Munch) paintings from last month. It is always a joy to see our students embrace this art time! 

Over the years our students have learned about so many artists and then tested their skills! We have such a gifted art/drama mom who really encourages our students to be creative and do their best!

Spring means baseball and so our students got the opportunity to play baseball together! I love the team sports aspect of our co-op! Many of our students don’t participate in a team sport so co-op has been such a great way to learn a wide variety of sports! Each year I think the experience get’s richer for them!!

One of the greatest blessings of co-op are our families - meeting with the moms each month gives me such encouragement - they are a committed, loving group of moms!! Seeing the students learning and interacting with each other gives me such hope for our future leaders!! We are truly blessed!!

Henry VIII and the Beginning of Divorce Co-op

We had a great time at Co-op this month studying Henry VIII and the beginning of divorce. 

I started by using a powerpoint from this site to teach from. The title is  “Why did Henry VIII divorce Catherine of Aragon”. I then made up this note sheet based on the powerpoint so that the children could make notes on the lesson.

I then had them do a “Chatterbox” and a Timeline of Henry and his wives. The Chatterbox I got here and the timeline here.

I then created 2 sets of task cards based on the powerpoint above. They are available here and here.

I divided the group into 4 groups and gave the groups 15 minutes to discuss the questions. I also gave the groups that were exploring divorce statistics to look at about divorce around the world. They were shocked at how high some of the divorce rates were. They did very well in citing reasons why they thought that Henry acted the way he did. I love that these students move beyond what is presented and give ideas of their own. Many of them have done their own studying ahead of time. It makes for lots of discussion!

Finally I had the children get into groups and create a jingle, a song or a skit about Henry VIII and his 6 wives. I ran off these as flash cards (6 per page) just to help them remember who was beheaded, divorced, died or outlived Henry. These presentations were ingenious!! 

We all had lunch and then the fun began. Our art and drama mom taught the group about Vincent Van Gogh and they began their paintings based on "The Starry Night". 

The kids have such a great time painting, but beyond that they are learning about the life and times of the painter. Today was just putting on the first steps! Next month they will continue with their Starry nights!!

PE today was floor hockey. Lots of great exercise for the kids!! Lots of great exercise for our gym dad as well!!

Another wonderful co-op with the "Tremendous Twenty"!! Blessings, Natalie!!