Do yourself a favor and don't teach your children anything

Because when you teach them things, then everyone has an overwhelming desire to go see those things in person, and it can be frustrating when it's just not possible. Our latest item on the family Bucket list that we want to see? A starling murmuration in England. We were all amazed at them in the movie we just watched this morning and really want to go see one. (The movie, by the way, was Flight: The Genius of Birds. It was really well done and I recommend it. You can also rent it on Amazon.) Anyway, if you haven't seen a murmuration (cool word, huh?) you should do a search to see some videos. It is so cool.

What else is on the list that everyone in the family would love to do or see? Well, there's Guedelon Castle in France, the pyramids, Venice, and hiking the Chilkoot Trail. Of course there are a lot of other places that would be fantastic to see, but this is our short list. Sigh. Someday.

The other thing we did was to have an art lesson. I found a great book that discusses how to draw birds and I decided that working through it would be a great applied drawing project the year. The book is The Laws Guide to Drawing Birds and today we worked through the initial lessons. Here are some of the results. You can tell which children are more compulsive about following step-by-step instructions verses the children who want to just draw what they want to draw.

First, mine, because I find that if I do activities like this along with everyone, they are more likely to participate.

I love this bird that D. drew! He has such personality and movement. I was also thrilled because D. is not always excited about our art projects.

H.'s... I also find this impressive given where she began.

K.'s attempt at following the step-by-step directions.

K.'s true style. Is this not the cutest cartoon bird?

L. was taking the instructions extremely seriously and it shows.

Y's bird. She had done little drawing up to this point in life, so this was also pretty impressive.

She followed it up with this mother and chick pair.

G.'s picture, which she is very reluctantly letting me share. Definitely the most frustrated by the morning's activity.

Wanna guess who drew this? Yes, TM, who just kind of whipped this out. 

He followed it up with a peacock. 

Today is H.'s 14th birthday, but I'm going to do her birthday post tomorrow when I have pictures to share.