Tuesday, December 27, 2011

A Poem Shared...



I'm a member of a great homeschool coop. We study all kinds of things together, including great poets and poems. Here are our readings of Willam Blake's 'The Tyger' and Emily Dickinson's 'I Shall Not Live in Vain.'





Sunday, December 18, 2011

The Lion, the Witch, and Me!


Yesterday, I was in my second Reader's Theater production at Woodstock Library. The play was The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, and I played Edmund. He's a bit of a bad boy and a traitor, but it was fun to play a bad boy!



Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Shakespeare in the Fall

Over the last month or so, I have been watching lots and lots of Shakespeare! It has been super cool. A homeschooling mom (thanks, Emma Goldman-Sherman!) organized for a bunch of homeschool kids and their families to get tickets to 5 Shakespeare productions being put on in the city.
The first we saw was Love's Labor's Lost. The BBC version really wasn't very funny, but the production at the Public was super funny! I loved how the actors ran around all over the stage, but also through the theater too. We got to meet the director too and learned lots about how the production was put together.


Then we saw King Lear. I really like this play and the production was great. I nearly cried when Lear brought his dead daughter, Cordelia, onto the stage. 


Next we saw Cymbeline. I wasn't sure if I was going to like this one. It's a really complicated story with tragedy and comedy and mix-ups and ghosts, but this production was awesome! Only 6 actors played all the roles and there was lots of great singing. I really liked the sword fight too.




Last night, we saw Titus Andronicus. It was super bloody - literally buckets of blood - but I closed my eyes in those parts. But I liked the man who played Titus and the boy who played Titus' grandson.
We have one more play to go - Henry V. I have the same birthday as Henry V (although I don't think I would start a war over tennis balls!).

Friday, October 14, 2011

A Midsummer Night's Dream: The Video!



This summer I played Snug the Joiner in a production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. I had so much fun! Thanks to Lesley Sawhill and everyone else at New Genesis Productions.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Thich Nhat Hanh and me!

Last week, we went on a 5 day Buddhist retreat at Blue Cliff Monastery - one of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh's monasteries. Thich Nhat Hanh (known as Thay) was at the retreat, so we heard his dharma talks evey day and did walking meditation with him. It was very cool!








The best part of all was when I got to ask Thay a question (I was one of three kids to ask him a question in front of 1000 retreat-goers!)...


Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Occupy Wall Street - We are the 99%!



This weekend we joined the Occupy Wall Street protests! We went on a march and hung out in Liberty square. I took all the photos at the end of this video. Rume the dog and I loved our first protest! Visit Occupywallstreet.org.

Thursday, September 8, 2011

3D Drawing Class...Online!


Jojo and I recently signed up for this very cool website where Mark Kistler teaches 3D Drawing through online videos. It is really, really fun! Here are some of my pictures. A shark (above) and Fat Cat below:


Two simple houses:


A crazy house:

A sphere (with planets and rockets behind):

Space Hamsters:


Crunchinators:



Homeschool History Studies Part 2 - Ancient Rome


When Jojo, Baba, and I got back from our trip to Spain, England, and Greece in June (where we saw a lot of things we learned about in our homeschool history studies - part one), we moved on to studying the history, culture, and philosophies of the Hellenistic era and Ancient Rome.

We still use Gloria Fiero's Humanistic Tradition to start us off, but then we read and watch lots of other cool stuff.

Books:

Epictetus Art of Living: The Classical Manual on Virtue, Happiness, and Effectiveness
Seneca Letters from a Stoic
Alain de Boton's The Consolations of Philsophy (chapters on Epicurus and Seneca)
Marcus Aurelius Meditations
Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
Shakespeare, Anthony and Cleopatra

Films, TV, and Documentaries:

Julius Caesar (the 1953 movie with Marlon Brando as Mark Antony)
Anthony and Cleopatra (the 1980s BBC production)
I, Claudius (the 12 part TV series - we watched it all, and I loved it!!)
Alain de Boton's Philosophy: A Guide to Happiness - Seneca on Anger (30 min TV show on Seneca - available online)
Alain de Boton's Philosophy: A Guide to Happiness - Epicurus on Happiness (30 min TV show on Epicurus - available online)
PBS series (four episodes) The Roman Empire in the First Century

We're now studying the fall of the Roman Empire and the birth of Christianity and Buddhism...

Saturday, August 20, 2011

Surreal Summer - Part Two

My surrealism camp (see the post below) was so fun and inspiring, Baba, Jojo and I went to see surrealist art at New York's MOMA.


Here's an exquisite corpse like the one we did at camp.

And, of course, Dali's famous melting clocks!


We sat in MOMA's sculpture garden and drew our own melting clocks:



And when we got home, we made some surreal sculptures. Here's a Pop-Lego-maker!


And "Sink with Light"!

And "Red Oven"!

Surreal Summer - Part One

A few weeks ago I went to a fantastic Surrealism summer camp at the awesome Painted Cloud Studio.

Here is my surreal collage:


And an "exquisite corpse" done my classmates and I (each person adds a part - head, torso, legs - to the picture):


My surreal firetruck-tree!


Decolamania is a technique used by surrealists where you spread paint on a surface, then press it onto another surface, and then look for imagery in the blots. Here's my decolamaniac monster:

And here are my surreal Bat-Cobras:


And a surreal poem!


We all did 3D surreal landscapes. Mine is the one at the right at the back with the orange stalactites and green stalagmites!


You can see more of my classmates and my work at the Cloud Kids blog.


Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Lost in Time



Our latest movie starring Rume...of course!

Monday, July 25, 2011

A Midsummer Night's Dream in the Catskills

I have just had the best 2 weeks ever. I took part in New Genesis Productions' Summer Shakespeare Intensive. We rehearsed every day for 10 days and then put on three performances of A Midsummer Night's Dream.


I played Snug the Joiner, one of the players.


And Snug plays a lion in the play within the play!


One of my best friends Zoe was in the play as a fairy called Moth.



Here's the fabulous director, Lesley.
And the production assistants. I worked with Brandon (on the right). He's awesome!