Monet Unit Study – Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs..

Hello everyone!

It’s been a rough week – I wasn’t feeling very well and I am starting to feel a little better. I have mentioned in the past that I struggle with anxiety and this week was very very bad for me. I managed but I didn’t have much left in me for extra things, like blogging. I feel terrible that I couldn’t participate in mine and Lisa’s Jane Austen January, and left Lisa hanging but she is a good friend – and actually helped me through the week with lots of chats online and prayer.

So, let’s focus on the good things that did happen. We will throw it back all the way to last Friday, when it snowed like crazy here!

We took Wyatt for a sled ride through the woods which was super fun. We all enjoyed being outside again, even though we were very cold! Wyatt also enjoyed throwing himself off the sled into the snow which was hilarious. He was red cheeked and happy to get that hot chocolate afterwards!

Then that Sunday, we hopped over to the zoo early in the morning to see the penguins! We have been studying them all month so it was a fun field trip out to the Penguinarium.

We saw king penguins, rockhoppers, chinstraps, and gentoo all bopping about the penguinarium. We loved watching the chinstraps playing in the bubbles, and then a king walked right by us! It was so darn cute!

And finally on Wednesday, we were able to get little Oliver! Wyatt and I picked him up at our local FedEx when he arrived as an overnight delivery. He couldn’t be delivered to the house because of the weather so he was a pickup but that was ok. He is so cute and tiny and hilarious. He is also very curious and friendly, and a bit of a goof. He and Applejack share a giant tank, that is separated by plexiglass in the middle. Well, the first night we had him I woke in the morning to find him on Applejack’s side! She was so confused, and looking out of her little coconut house, like who is this little interloper trespassing! So Billy and I had to go through and find any spot that he may have used to get over there and shore it up to prevent anymore visits! I don’t know how Applejack would react if he did it again, and she is full grown while he can perch on the tip of my finger.

We love him (or her!) and are so glad that he is finally here.

I also sold my first unit study you guys! Someone purchased my Monet in Winter Unit Study and I am so excited! My first sale! I am going to be working on my Matisse one this month – they take me a long time as I practice them with Wyatt first, but hopefully it will be online and in my Etsy store by March. We will see though, we have a lot of appointments between now and then, and when it gets done, I guess it gets done.

If you know any homeschoolers or just anyone with children who may want to do some fun Monet inspired activities, here is the link to my store! I have a Frida Kahlo one up too, as well as some other fun things.

We have been playing board games like crazy around here this winter. Wyatt loves board games and got so many fun new ones for Christmas. We were also lucky enough to receive a free board game from Storytime Learning, that is called Story Time Backgammon. We have not played it yet, but we hope to try it out tomorrow together! It looks super fun, with pirates and vikings and a whole picture book of stories. It is really neat!

One game that gets played a lot is Pigs on Trampolines. It cracks us up, and Billy and I really get into it, bouncing those little pigs off the trampolines. Wyatt likes to talk a lot and hoard the pigs and laughs more than bounces but I think that is because Billy and I are going nutso bouncing them around.

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I hope you are all doing well!

When Wyatt was given the opportunity to start a new intensive therapy this month, I had to rethink my whole plan for school. The new therapy is fantastic and definitely worth it, but it also reduces the instructional days down to three. As homeschoolers though, we can do this without missing anything, and this flexibility is just so perfect with Wyatt’s life.

However, having to rethink things actually took us on a wonderful new adventure together we wouldn’t have had. Instead of following his regular science curriculum, we have spent the month studying penguins, all the different types, where they live (Wyatt LOVES his new globe his grandma got him for Christmas), just everything penguin. So far my favorite penguin is the Little Blue Penguin; Wyatt’s favorite so far, he says, is the Chinstrap.

Penguins have even waddled their way into our reading! Our read aloud is Eve of the Emperor Penguins, part of the Magic Tree House series, and we are having fun reading it together in the middle of the day. It’s a nice little break in between subjects.

Art however, has dominated for fun this month. I created a Monet in the Winter Unit Study for Wyatt, and seriously, it has been awesome. Not to toot my own horn or anything. So far we have done in depth looks at Train in the Snow, and Sandviken Village in the Snow, but we have also looked at and discussed a few others, including The Magpie and The Road to Giverny in Winter. Next week our final art project and in depth study will be on Skaters at Giverny, and I am looking forward to it, but I will also be sad when we are done!

For Wyatt’s Train in the Snow study, we read Claude Monet: The Painter Who Stopped the Trains, and then Wyatt and Billy worked on a version of it together using oil pastels. I knew I wanted to include this one because Wyatt loves trains; Monet painted trains because his 8 year old son loved trains too! Billy helped with the form of the train and the rest was Wyatt. I love how industrial it turned out!

Next up for our in depth look, we studied Sandviken Village in the Snow. I love this painting, I think it is absolutely beautiful and tranquil and cozy. I had something a bit different in mind for Wyatt to do with this one….

I think it turned out so beautiful! It took us a heck of a long time to do together, but it was a very pleasant and fun way for us to spend a snowy, very cold afternoon. We had hot chocolate, and just cut and glued and planned. Wyatt loved this project more than I can express, and was so excited to show his dad when Billy got home from work. He did not like pulling the cotton ball apart to make wispy snow and gluing it down though, so I had to do that for him. It was just too sticky and weird feeling. He picked the locations for the pictures himself, with the exception of the bridge which I guided him to put into the correct placement to match the painting. Then we built a riser so that the diorama would be staggered in height, and I love the effect!

This section includes affiliate links. If you were to purchase something I would make a small commission to help support my family (and my son’s art habit!)

Resource Round Up:

I am excited to say that one of the Unit Studies we used was the one that I created!