The pottery guy

As part of the four year plan homeschool group we went to visit a pottery guy. He is amazing. I will try to bring out some of hte thoughts he shared..

To make a pot (a metaphor for life)
The clay has to be centered and still, then it can be opened and prepared for what it will be. Gentle hands make a straight pot scars and blemishes can be fixed once the pot is centered again.

Kinds of clay and degrees of glory
Porcelain-pure
stoneware-semi pure
earthen-not as pure
The more contaminants in the clay keep it from being fired at a higher temperature adn thus not lasting. If a contaminated clay is melted at too high a heat it will melt.

pottery is fired at 2,345 Farenheit 2385 would metlt it...silicon melts at 3,000

One particle of clay is .025 microns.

Lord Byron's poetry we are "The precious porcelain of human clay,
Break with the first fall: they can ne'er behold"http://www.photoaspects.com/chesil/byron/djcanto4.html

vocabulary related to pottery
sincere-literally without wax-when a pot cracked they would put wax on it and the fix it. If it didn't have wax it would "ring true"

ballot-or cast lots-literally throwing pottery shards.

He had an F in pottery and art in highschool because the teacher thought he could do better, he did get an A for raising pigs...

1st patented medicine was in Grteece-Kaopectate 99% clay

The story of the pencil...after the civil war red cedar forest would was scarce (the wood used to make pencils). People would buy old bars and tear them down to turn them into pencils. Pencils have clay bonded with graphite. Farber found a wonderful graphite stockpile in Mongolia. To indicate the difference of his graphite he painted his pencils yellow.

Harold B Lee's grandma had 11 miscarriages, her last child lived and was the father of Harold B Lee..she had the one goal to bear righteous children.


Chidlren's response...
Lydia-- I thought that he got the clay from the same place we did. I thought that he bought the thing (the wheel). These guys that live far away..we touched a broken pot form them (they lived in Jerusalem from the time of Christ). (she was very detailed in her painting and took a long time)

Raymond--He was nice. He was nice to help us iwth the pots nad sutff like that. I liked painting the pots and watching him make them. I thought the pencil story was cool.
The whole group...

Another week in review...

Monday...We woke up really grumpy Monday. There were voices i didn't want to here and morning routine was going badly. So I declared we would clean out the hommeschool closet. Everyone helped, it ended up clan and our attitude changed Of course it tok us a few hours, but it worked.

Tuesday...We read from ome Indian legend books as wellas some African legends.

Wednesday...We read in the book my mom used as a child about Indian culture. This prompted the best dicussion yet about different styles of Indian houses and ways of living.

Thursday choir...

a

Yesterday and today

Yesterday:

Spiritual:We worked on our memory scripture:Abraham 3:22. We discussed premortal life-I think we need to read the gospel principles book on that.

Sharing what's mine: We were supposed to start AFrican and ancient American myths. I have been reading Clash of Cultures. I decided to talk about oral histories and how it doesn't work! It just doesn't last. We talked about our favorite family vacations-arches and the beach this summer. We couldn't remember what happened every day. We talked about events in our extended family and we couldn't always remember the month!

We decorated journals and talked about the importance of writing our histories. Very little actual writing took place, so we need to set aside time for that.

Today

Spiritual:family devotional with dad ran into learning time-so that was that.

Kalani and I started working out her life skills learning-we focused on cooking. We wrote down the basic things she needs to learn before she is 12. Of course everyone wanted to write theri lifeskills cooking chart...hopefully the task will be a little too daunting for them to continue (because if all four older children start working on it, it will be daunting for me!) We identified 7 main courses, 5 breads, some desserts, appetizers and breakfasts for each child to learn.

Sharing what's mine: We focused on family schedules today. This was much needed. Our kitchen time chart was destroyed and our fhe chart had died. We worked out the laundry schedule. We still need a daily rhythms chart...so that will come later. Lots of writing and measuring and coloring and discussion of what we need to do.

umm...someone isn't too good at the daily blogs...

I knew this would be a challenge to do something daily. I'm going to keep trying.

Books we've read together:

Daniel and Nephi by Chris Heimmerdinger-We liked looking at Daniel adn Nephi realistically-thinking about Jeremiah and Lehi as prophets-sorresponding the Bible and the book of Mormon. This was definitely a book for everyone. I was glad to have Kalani so involved. There wasn't a lot of chemistry here, but Thales got a passing mention, geography, war and peace and prophets.

Tales of the Arabian Nights-UGGH This was too violent for us. As much as I felt we should read some to get the idea, Raymond was the only one who appretiated it, and I didn't like that he appretiated it. The heroes were frequently in the grey area, and any wrong was frequently VERY harsly punished.

I read the Baghavad Gita-I need to blog about that myself.

Our history project for October was making bricks



Our science was static electricity. We made water bend, and had a good discussion (but mostly after the children went to play.

We had a great party. Raymond dressed as Galileo, Ben was a king (a wicked one he said), Natalie, Kalani, Lydia, Susan and REbecca were gypsies. We ate hummus and tabouli, and chicken in pitas.

At the hero party Kalani and Natalie were Ruth and Naomi, Raymond was Nephi, Lydia dressed how she pleased, and the littles were home sick with dad. We played night games and ate not a stick of sugar.

We have memorized Moses 7:18 and Moses 1:39. We are working on Abraham 3:22