Forms A'hoy!

We're chugging along with our form drawing. So far so good, though it's a bit premature to tell really. However, just two days into the lesson I'm already struck by how this form drawing stuff never ceases to surprise me. It's like some kind of magic.

I thought the first form I came up with, good old Giovanni juggling, would prove to be a bit more challenging. But no. We warmed up with some forms we did last year. Then we took our new form in parts, drew it in the air with our fingers, with our feet on the floor, used the chalkboard and finally pulled out those huge sheets of newsprint and went to town. Sunburst figured it out fairly quickly:

I like to let each form sit overnight before we draw it in the main lesson book. The forms seem to fix themselves overnight and just flow the next day. This is how it came out in her book:

Then I presented the crowd form. Whew! She said to me, "It's only the second form, shouldn't it be the second easiest?" Well, you never can tell which ones will be hard. Everyone is different. To her credit, Sunburst worked on it pretty steadily for quite awhile. I could tell right away though that it was a tricky one for her.

We worked inside for a bit then took it outside on the front porch. I drew it really large so that she could trace over it a few times and we could walk it with our feet.

While we were doing that, Moonshine (age 4) was busy at work drawing chalk bunnies. She came and pulled me away to show me that she had made Giovanni all on her own.

Obviously I let little sister listen in on our stories and lessons. I give her paper and crayons and she goes to town drawing her own things. Once in awhile she will draw an image from a story, but for the most part she is happily lost in her little dreamy world. Oddly enough, Moonshine drew the first form from Sunburst's first grade lessons, too. My curiousity piqued, I pulled out the newsprint Moonshine was working on while we practiced Giovanni.

Two females. Normal 4-year-old stufff, I think. Can you see them? See all the horizontal lines on that dress? Now check out the hair. Little spirals on the ends, like curls. She has started making these little spirals lately, as well as decorating dresses with layers upon layers of frill-- or running curves. I can't help but wonder what it will be like to teach her in two years.

Meanwhile, Sunburst was still having fits with this "crowd" form. "It's too hard! I'm trying, but I can't do it!" And then came the tears... not a bunch, but they welled up in her frustration. I've figured out that's my cue that I've selected the right form for her. And also, that it's time to shift gears and change the presentation.

I ushered her back in the house for a cup of warm tea and a snack. While the tea was brewing I asked her to practice it on newsprint again, just once more. I stood there looking at the form I had drawn on the chalkboard, and suddenly it occured to me that it was International Talk Like a Pirate Day. And oddly enough, that crowd form also looked like the edge of a pirate ship. All it needed was some help. Sunburst got so sidetracked watching me morph my form into a picture that she forgot she was "done," turned her paper over and started again.

This time she just looked at me and grinned. "Arrrr! Ship a'hoy!"