Primitive Pottery!

 

The kids and I have loved pottery for years, and we have taken a few classes at the Pottery Studio, but have always dreamed of firing it ourselves, in our own backyard.

Well, after years of dreaming, just yesterday our dream became a reality!

We ordered some chestnut clay online, and when it arrived, we could hardly wait to get our hands in it! Rowan had also harvested some clay from the lake and made a pot out of that too!

Rowan made some pinch pots, I made some slab mugs, and Rosie even made some toys out of clay!

Rowan even made some teacups!

I used flowers from the garden to print a slab!

Here is Rosie making her clay "picture"

I carved fall leaves onto this one!

Finally, our pots were bone dry and we were ready to fire them.

We read a lot of different ways to fire pottery the primitive way, and decided to start by preheating the pots first. We built a small fire in the center so they could come to temperature. We didn't want to take any chances!

We had to tend the fire a lot to make sure they heated evenly.

Finally it was time to cover the pots and let the fire grow bigger. We had previously cut small pieces of firewood so that they wouldn't fall on the pots and break them.

We let the fire burn down to coals and left it to cool.

It was like Christmas morning this morning when we went to find our fired pots in the ashes!

Thankfully, we only experienced a few minor breaks- one of Rowan's pots had a few chips come off of it, and a handle fell off of one of my mugs, but other than that, they turned out great!

Making and firing primitive pottery was super fun and we hope to do it lots LOTS more!

What do you think?

Do you want to try it too?

Happy Learning!

~Beth & Family

Fynn is... Driving??

 

I can't believe I am actually the mother of a teenage driver!

How did my little boy grow up so fast??

Yes, little boy who made all those planet models and rode his bike all over the mountains is now driving!

 

We just spent the summer letting Fynn drive us around town, and that was really fun. Now, let me tell you, he is probably the safest driver I know! He knows the traffic laws better than you or I, and has a map in his head!

 

While he was studying for his permit, Fynn had to take an intensive online safety course, which was extremely difficult and emotionally draining. But he wanted to overcome, so he pushed through it, at his own pace, and finally got to the end!

 

We are so proud of Fynn and who he has become!

 

Last Spring, Fynn was invited to be a guest speaker at a local school's Pi Day celebration, where he recited 1000 digits of pi and did other math tricks to get kids excited about math. (He actually knows 4800+ but there wasn't time for that.) At the end everyone cheered and I never heard such an applause!

 

And as always, Fynn loves a challenge. He has his own YouTube channel where he speed solves ridiculously big Rubik's cubes. Check it out!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oz5UeqTLTQA&ab_channel=Mr.E.Fynn

So, that's what Fynn's up to these days :)

Happy Learning!

~Beth

Summer Throwback~ Rosie's Bubble Art~ And More!

 

Rosie had an idea to do some bubble art- something she saw on one of her favorite shows- probably Ryan's World or Peppa Pig :)

Luckily, it was a beautiful day and we had all the supplies already~ so we headed outside to do our project.

Rosie knew what she wanted to do. She had me help her fill cups with a little paint, some soap, and she filled them with water and gave them a stir.

Then she put a straw in and blew bubbles!

Careful not to drink it!

(Rosie is four-and-a half, so she's good at not drinking paint) :)

Next, pour the bubbles out onto the paper and see what happens!

(I guess this is what they call Process Art?)

Spread out the papers, and now we have a rainbow of bubble art!

Add a little glitter to make it sparkly :)

(This was a good project to do outside)

We really enjoyed this project.

Do you want to try it too?

Since we had the paints out already, we decided to do another project.

(The boys were busy and this was our "Fun Day" together)

Here Rosie is making "green apples"

Here is Rosie's finished painting:

Mama and Rosie are inside the house and the sun is shining on us and the apples are outside. <3

What will you create next??

Happy Learning!

~Beth