Who's Who and What Did They Do? {Biography Fun}

Some of you might remember that I have a year round pencil shaped tree in the house which I decorate to match the season. When the kids were younger, they were plain decor items which were seasonally appropriate. Now that they are older, I like to put things on the tree that let us do some extra investigating whether that be one illustrator or artist, an author, or a combination of people.

This month I decided to print out items that represent authors, composers, and artists with a birthday in December or January.

I use Literature for Lively Lessons as a great starting point for finding people with birthdays each month. This book has a pretty comprehensive list for famous people of all sorts including authors, artists, composers, historical figures, and even some scientists. However, the internet is a treasure trove of information of this sort so feel free to strike out and search on your own!

The next step is to use the internet for snagging pictures and facts about the people you choose- sometimes I focus on one person and sometimes a set of people. Once you have the facts and pictures, it's time to print and pull out the laminator!

In addition to the facts, I like to give the kids assignments to go along with the items on the tree. Here are a few examples:

• Find out where an author was born
• What else the person has written or painted or composed
• Tell a special fact about the person not found on the tree (I usually leave something fun out that they will certainly find in their own reserach)
• Listen to a particular song or set of songs a composer has written
• Try out art in the style of an artist on the tree

For December, 2012 and January, 2013 our featured folks are: Jan Brett, Mozart, Beethoven, Henri Matisse, Rudyard Kipling, and Arthur Ransome. 

E14 did some research for me and found the photos (I consider my pencil tree fair use in terms of copyright). Some of the assignments on this month's tree include:

• Read Rikki Tikki Tavi by Rudyard Kipling (which I have downloaded on my Kindle for the kids)
• Try out some collage with Henri Matisse (along with some FIAR reminders for a book in the same style)
• Listen to music by Mozart and Beethoven
• Read Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett
• Make gingerbread cookies 
• Read Swallowdale together- we are enjoying read alouds with tales of the Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome

At first friends and guests doubted my pencil tree. I simply have a fondness for evergreens and Christmas tree lights and felt sure I could make it happen year round. Then one day I had a brilliant notion to use it as a another way for my kids to do art/nature/composer studies.

Not many people ask about it anymore...except to see what's on the tree when they visit!

And already my kids have been visiting the tree and peeking at what they'll have a chance to do when there is time for reading and projecting.

Artist of the Month: Garth Williams

In keeping with our new tradition, we celebrated an artist's birthday in April. Garth Williams was a beloved children's book author, born on April 16th. This was another great way to incorporate all of our Charlotte's Web festivities- by studying the book's illustrator.

I found a few sources about Garth Williams including his publisher's page and the wiki page- not great for really important stuff, but just fine for what we wanted. I made some fact cards about him.

For our personal use, I made some prints of his book illustrations and laminated them.

I also made up some questions about him and placed those on a card.

On the library shelf I laid out some of the books he illustrated. This is a great place to "strew" some things you want kids to discover!

I couldn't resist another peek at our library shelf- which is home to our library books, our Fred collection that isn't being used and the horizontal books at the bottom are helping to press flowers. There are a few others we own on there too.

We've enjoyed getting to know Garth Williams since April. It'll be time to switch out to another artist. Right now I'm trying to picture where our library shelf will go in our new house (the one we don't have yet though our house is under contract!) and where the pencil tree will call home there. We might have to take a break on the artist tree displays until these items (and us!) find a new place to call home.

Artist Study March- van Gogh

I've really been enjoying the book Literature for Lively Lessons since I acquired it from Paperback Swap sometime last year. I love the list of famous birthdays which include authors and illustrators among others. I used it to put together some craft kits for R11 and I've found useful for choosing some artist study themes.

You may or may not remember that we have a year round pencil shaped evergreen tree in our dining room and I like to change it out for the seasons. Although, with the house on the market, I really thought it was time to make sure folks knew it was not a Christmas tree we'd been too lazy to take down. Or...that I really like the tree and it totally makes that corner of the room. And if all else fails, hopefully their imagination will remind them it won't be there when they move in! So, I decided it was the perfect place to share art prints and biographical information about our artist of the month!

I used some van Gogh prints on stickers to make cards for the tree.

Along with the prints and fact cards, I decided a project to go along with the artist would be fabulous! We've been doing this toward the end of the month that the artist is feature and we talked about the prints and the artist while doing the project. It was a great follow up to some purposeful placement learning!

Two family favorites!

We did this one years ago and I thought it would be fun to revisit it.

Plenty of information to go round as the kids worked and I read and shared.

van Gogh liked to work with a thick paint call impasto. He used to apply paint to his paintings by using a knife and scraping it on. To make our impasto, we put craft glue in with the paint. There are recipes to make it with a thickening powder like cornstarch or flour as well and I'd like to try that next time. The book pictured above, Discovering Great Artists, is a great resource for trying out various techniques of famous artists. We also like Storybook Art which focuses on children's book illustrators.

Making impasto

We started with drawings...

The answer to your question is no. Coffee filters do NOT work for this task. Don't try this at home.

Love our BioColor paints from Discount School Supply- it's time to restock a few colors.

The thick paint lets you put texture in your painting. R11 really liked playing with the texture.

Lots of colorful results!

J6 really liked the swirls.

Once the paintings were dry, which took half the day outside in the breezy spring air, I put them in the art gallery frames in the dining room. They sure are bright and cheerful!

Our current artist of the month is Garth Williams- the beloved children's book illustrator. His work is very fun on our tree and he led a really interesting life! Stay tuned for our report on his project (which is yet to occur).

Gratitude

I wanted to make sure and share our gratitude tree before showing off the Christmas decor! Our pencil tree is here year round and I make some efforts to change its decorations to match the seasons. Each of us made a list of the things we are thankful for to reflect on at Thanksgiving time. This year we were at home and had the pleasure of some local company for dinner.

The pencil tree- a year round friend

Our turkey friend made by R10 at her sewing co-op class. She reports he was fun to make!

The tree's lights are on, though I'd love to add another strand, and we are about to put up our Jesse Tree ornaments there in addition to the FIAR ornaments. Stay tuned.

I hope each of you had a lovely Thanksgiving and I hope you are enjoying this season of Advent as you await the coming of Christ!