"What Catches the Eye Inspires the Hand"

"What catches the eye inspires the hand." (unknown)

This is a quote that I came across somewhere many years ago and it has had a profound impact on my approach and level of perception in daily life. We are in a chaotic whirlwind right now, trying to get ready for a trip and a big fall show. I have to be in my friend's wedding this weekend and then the very next weekend we have our biggest show and sale of the year Festival in the Park in Charlotte, NC. So that means we are going to be out of town for more than a week. I have been working late into the night lately trying to get enough pottery made for the show and to fill all the orders for the galleries and shops. I didn't even really try to start school off this week because we are leaving mid week. The flow and routine are definitely interrupted this week. So I cleared off the chalkboard last night and drew this picture and quote. I introduced some cursive writing to Cammy last week and she loved it and has been trying to read it wherever we see it so I wrote the quote in cursive. It made her so proud that she could read the cursive writing. The eye is a very powerful symbol in a lot of my art. In this picture the eye contains a heart for the pupil symbolizing the love that I have for all that I see around me good or bad, ugly or beautiful we have something to gain from it all. Around the eye I subtly introduced the roman numerals (Cammy has come across them several times recently and asked what they stand for and seems to understand some simple addition concepts with them) we are also working with time. Inside the eye I drew the mountains because that is where we are going on our journey. Under the eye I traced my husband's hands and mine as trees of knowledge losing their leaves for the upcoming fall. Cammy is really interested in finding purple leaves and wants to prove that a fall leaf can be purple. We did end up doing schooly stuff this week we always do around here sometimes without even trying. Monday we watched the nature documentary Earth by Disney.We also went on a nature walk each day.....it has become a very good habit. Cammy insisted on checking on the crab apple tree up the street (she thinks the apples are going to be ready every day we visit it). I find that if I don't come up with an assignment for Cammy she becomes bored easily and asks if she can do at least three workbook pages. She is so hungry for knowledge. I only hope that I can help to teach her to observe and to keep her eyes and heart open to what every encounter or experience has to offer as inspiration. No matter how insignificant something seems at the time it can lead the mind or the hands to broader matters like a chain reaction. I often find that when I am in the studio and I am supposed to be making a specific soap dish the images of my day will inspire my hands to work in a different direction. I see this tendency in Cammy as well. She can become so excited about something and spout off these grand project ideas that are often out of reach in their entirety but I try to find something to pull from that is attainable and that we can make happen or try to do. I try to let her row her own boat to a certain extent and go with the currents of her creative mind. So far it has taught me a lot about the development of ideas and how to help them grow into fruition. I am loving homeschooling so far.

We ate caterpillars today!

At the start of the week I was at a loss as to what to put on the chalkboard this week but then I found this little poem in one of our Kindermuzik handouts. It has fit with our continuing study of butterflies. So keeping with our theme we found a really cute snack recipe idea in the very same handout "A Garden Flower"


Yes it's true, we ate caterpillars today but not the kind you usually think of. These caterpillars were the snack creation of Cammy herself. I set her to task on making grape and raisin caterpillars for our snack today and she went to town....full creative license. She used bananas, grapes, raisins, pretzels, goldfish, honey and puffs to create her edible caterpillars. She loved it and so did Karma and I. Yum!!!

Finding our Place

Ok, so we are new to this homeschooling and routine is what we are trying for here but there is not always going to be a set curriculum exactly. When I taught in Wilmington for several homeschool families, what I loved most was finding that special something that really peaked a kids interest. You can tell the difference when you find what they are really diggin at the time. Teaching for me is a lot like going down a river...sometimes the flow is slow and smooth and sometimes it's like class 4 rapids. I must be a closet adrenalin junkie because sometimes I like the rapids more. Things are flowing smoothly in the Muddy Schoolhouse for now which is fine by me because my rapids are in the pottery studio right now trying to get ready for my fall show season and making enough to keep my galleries stocked for the end of the year....whew! I could use a few more people to row the boat with me right now.
So over the course of this week...we have been taking it one day at a time and really talking about how we want to have each particular day flow. To make the routine thing stick we have kinda themed each day with a fun name like "Muffins, Music and Math Monday" or "Wacky Word Game Wednesday". We have made Tuesday and Thursday "TV Free" that means no one can watch any television on these days. Thursday is slotted to be the day with an emphasis on science and nature so today we talked about butterflies. Cammy has been nuts about the butterflies in the yard lately....and this is where I am going with the flow ...I didn't plan on studying butterflies yet but it's what Cammy has a spark for right now. This week she has been screaming for me to get the camera everytime she sees a new butterfly. She is convinced that she has seen "that really rare one that flies to the mountains in Mexico every year" so we delved into the world of butterflies today. We greeted the day with a new poem on the chalkboard. I found this beautiful poem and wrote it down in one of my journals but do not remember where or when I found it, but it fit the day perfectly.It reads:

Come bright butterfly close to me
Your beautiful wings I should like to see
You fly like a bird, You sip like a bee
But you're really a flower the wind set free

After breakfast and reciting the poem I had Cammy rewrite the poem in her journal. We practiced folding paper in half and cutting and then painted these beautiful butterflies Rorschach ink blot style. We only painted wings on one side of the paper and then folded it in half so it would copy itself and print onto the other half. Cammy loved these...it was so magical the way they copied themselves.
Karma could only watch for so long before she had to get her hands into the paint as well.
They came out so beautiful didn't they!
I told you she really got into it ....there were more than this...I didn't have enough clothespins to hang them all.


This one is one of my favorites. Cammy thought it looked like a praying mantis and insisted on teaching me how to paint this special design.
While we were busy painting butterflies Karma got into the bag of pipe cleaners that were intended to be antennas. Cammy offered to clean them up but she had ulterior motives ....
She was so proud of this butterfly that she constructed from the pipe cleaner spill.
Cammy fancies herself as an author and loves to write chapter books. Her current book in progress is called Karma Kong and features her baby sister as the main character. Today just for fun and a break from writing in her story journal we got out the clay she was to create a line of Karma Kong toy figurines. Great fun was had by all upon seeing Karma Kong change forms.
The work in clay inspired even more Karma Kong forms to reveal themselves. Here she has made Bouncy Karma Kong and Bluehair. We had a lot of fun learning today balanced with some old school style book work as well. Cammy wrote her spelling word sentences. We did some fun math with a timer seeing what kinds of things could be done in a minute ie. put on your coat? tie your shoes? write your name 10 times? say your abc's? count to 100? You get the picture. Maps are frustrating her right now because she wants to be able to draw a really complex map but just doesn't have all the skills she needs yet. I am going slow on this one and introducing one or two very basic concepts at a time.
Cammy has been begging to do a science experiment from a slime chemistry set that I found at the thrift store. Today was science day so we got down the set and made our own version of silly putty.

Here is a little glimpse of what Muddy Mama is up to in the afternoons. Most of our intense schooling is done in the morning by lunch time and then after I get Karma down for her nap promptly after lunch I get "Muddy Muse Time". This has been working out great for us. We are homeschooling and I'm getting more mud time. Mark does his work in the mornings...shipping and computer work or any sales calls we need to make and then he takes over on kid duty in the afternoon.

First Day of School

So it begins and it was wonderful! We started our first official day of homeschooling in the Muddy Muse Schoolhouse today. Mark and I stayed up late last night getting everything ready to surprise Cammy this morning (we were going to start when the public schools started which was only one days difference but we decided to go ahead and get our new routine rolled out with the start of the week.) Let me tell you halfway through the morning Mark and I were floored...we were amazed that instilling a little routine in the day can do beautiful things for your spirit. We are loving this homeschooling gig...it rocks!!! By lunchtime we were asking ourselves why we hadn't buckled down and done this before now...Mark's response "we're still learning"
How true, how true! I am finding that I am learning just as much from my kids on a daily basis as they are from me. To explain the picture above....I wanted Cammy's first day of homeschool to be magical, so I painted this beautiful picture welcoming her to her homeschool journey. It said
"Welcome to the world of learning in freedom. There are no limits to what your mind, body and spirit can explore. I look forward to being one of many guides that you may encounter on your journey for knowledge.
Love Mom"
I tied up two sparkle pencils with gold thread and laid them all across a handmade pillow that Mark got for her. The pillow has a beautiful African influenced face that the artist called "Superhero". The eyes on the pillow are closed and Cammy has been using the pillow as a medi tating pillow...she goes to it when she is angry and needs to calm down...which is often. The painting is symbolic with an earthen eye awakening and opening to all the possibilities that the universe holds for us. Cammy's response to seeing this in the morning was "Mom....why did you tie these pencils together ...don't you know I have a drawer full of magic pencils already."

Here she is still in her pajamas seeing the message on the new chalkboard.
Mark stayed up late with me and helped me draw some of the beautiful artwork on the chalkboard last night. I loved it, seeing his eyes and heart light up about this adventure into homeschooling. I found this amazing poem sometime last year when I spent my nights researching the whole concept of homeschooling. I regret that I did not notate where it came from but thank to whoever wrote it. It sums up how I feel about this completely.

Grab hold of a magic pencil
Open your eyes and mind
For now begins the journey
Of the most exciting kind
A journey into learning
A step...a start....a glow
And we will be there with you
To help and watch you grow.
unknown?

Here she is busy working after breakfast. We are starting off the year learning about maps, globes and geography and basically our place in this world.

We have had a great big world map up on the wall all summer that we have been marking our Etsy art sales on.
I put some cubes under it and voila.....baby Karma can delight in shelved toys to play with while I'm teaching. It's working for now...that and the kitchen drawer full of sippy cups and tupperware.
We are book lovers in this house....this is just one of many bookshelves in our library. There are bookshelves in every room of the house...the bathroom and pantry included!
This corner of the living room is the main library for Cammy to pull from, but she reads anything these days. She loves to pull out my books and looks through them for hours. This kid takes the dictionary in the car for fun reading:)
This is my station. This is where I keep all the books that I am currently reading through and pulling from. It is occasionally where I make jewelry as well (mostly in the winter when the clay in the studio freezes the bones in my fingers).
All in all our first day of homeschool was awesome. I am even more excited about our year than I could ever have imagined. This first opening topic about maps and globes and geography with it's far reaching themes is helping to center me again in this world. I have really struggled with finding our place, our groove or routine and we are finally getting a handle on it. It has taken writing out many lists and calendars and trial and error and many scheduling mishaps along the way. Somehow taking on this new seemingly impossible task of fitting homeschooling into our lives has actually calmed it down and made it run more smoothly than before. I'm smiling through and through right now. I was so nervous all summer about how this would all work....How was I going to find time to make pottery and fill my orders? How was I going to be able to handle Karma while I'm trying to teach Cammy? and so many other pressing questions. It felt like the right thing to do in my heart of hearts and upon starting officially today I know this to be the ultimate truth for my family right now. We are happy when we are together, living and learning together. Why do we have children and families if we are just going to send then off to someone else for 8-12 hours a day? I love my children and want to be a part of helping them grow as whole people in mind, body and spirit .