Eggleston-ish

 

At my art class at NY's Children's Art Museum, they let us loose with fancy SLR cameras! Here are some of my shots. I really like the photography of William Eggleston - and I think these are quite Eggleston-ish!

 

Homeschool History, Religion, and Culture Studies (Part 8): The Romantics

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In our Homeschool History, Religion, and Culture studies, we have been studying the Early Modern era in the West (which has included reading John Milton's Paradise Lost and studying the English Civil War, among other things). However, because we had a trip to England and the Lake District coming up, we fast forwarded a century to the Romantic era. Before setting off on our travels, we read lots of books and poems and watched documentaries about the famous Romantic poets (Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Byron, and Shelley) and painters (Blake, Turner, Constable). We also learned about the French Revolution that inspired the Romantics.

As usual, we used Gloria Fiero's Humanistic Tradition to start us off with our studies, but here are the the other books and resources we used: 

Books: 

Lyrical Ballads, Samuel Coleridge and William Wordsworth

Poetry for Young People: William Wordsworth

Poetry for Young People: William Blake

Poetry for Young People: Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Songs of Innocence, Songs of Experience, William Blake
The Grasmere Journal, Dorothy Wordsworth

A Very Short Introduction to the French Revolution, by William Doyle
The Norton Anthology to English Literature: The Romantic Period, edited by Stephen Greenblatt

Documentaries 

The Romantics - a 3 part BBC documentary by Peter Ackroyd: Episode 1: Nature; Episode 2: Liberty; Episode 3: Eternity 
Singing for England - a BBC Omnibus documentary about William Blake. See part one of 5 here.
Bright Star - 2009 movie about John Keats
Byron - 2003 BBC TV movie about Lord Byron
William Wordsworth - documentary made by Wordsworth Trust.

The Rise and Fall of Versailles - 3 part documentary about the run up to French Revolution
The French Revolution - History Channel Documentary. 
La Revolution Francaise - French 6 hour movie that dramatizes the French revolution (available in its entirety on You Tube). 

On our travels in the Lake District, we visited Dove Cottage in Grasmere, the home of William Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy, who was an important inspiration and contributor to William's thoughts and poetry. Dove Cottage is the place that Wordworth wrote his most famous poems. Many of which appeared in the Lyrical Ballads.

At the museum attached to Dove Cottage, we also attended the Dorothy Wordsworth Festival of Women's Poetry, where we saw Britain's poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, read some her poems, including one about Dorothy! We also visited the house in Rydal, where Wordsworth lived as an older man.

And of course, we saw a lot of the beautiful lakes and views (and daffodils) that inspired Wordsworth.

On the way from the Lakes to London, we stopped at Tintern Abbey - the Abbey made famous in Wordsworth famous poem. Here I am, reading the poem!

In London, we got to visit Keats' house in Hampstead Heath, as well as seeing and drawing a whole lot of Romantic artists' work at the Tate Britain and National Gallery.

And don't miss our "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" outtakes!

A Strasberg Young Actor

I just finished a 12 week acting class at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute in NY. Every Saturday, my class and I did 2 hours of method acting, 1 hour of movement, 1 hour of acting-on-screen, and 1 hour of musical theater.

  

High Noon

I was just in Arizona with my grandparents and we made this movie: our very own postmodern version of High Noon! Their friends, Jack and Mary Ellen Landry, helped us out and played cowboys in a saloon. We had a lot of fun.

 We also made a music video to go with the movie!

 

 And here are the bloopers..

 

Dragon Art!

 

I just had a piece of my art work go up in an art show in New York City! My installation called "Journey of the Dragon" is part of the "Assembling Identity" exhibition at the Children's Museum of the Arts. I made a stopmotion animation featuring dragons (made from different media). The animation and the models I used will be on show for the next month. Last night, the show opened with a very fun party to celebrate.

Who-tastic!

Dr. Benny with his sonic screwdriver!

I love Dr. Who, especially the 10th doctor played by David Tenant (who also played Hamlet, another of my favorite characters, in this amazing RSC production!). Here's a Lego TARDIS that I made:

And here's a picture of the TARDIS I drew on the computer (click on it to make it bigger!):

I also made two "how to build" videos. The first is "How to build a mini Lego Dalek":

The second is "How to build a mini Lego K9":

Homeschool History, Religion, and Culture Studies (Part 7): Ancient Americas

Over the past few months, I have been studying the Ancient Americas (in other words, the civilizations and cultures of North, Central, and South America that existed before the arrival of Columbus and the Europeans). I attended a fabulous really fun and interesting class on this topic led by a very nice and clever professor from City University of New York, Wendy Raver. Every week, our class of about 10 homeschooled kids met at the Metropolitan Museum of Art or the American Natural History Museum or the National Museum of the American Indian. We would talk about different Ancient American cultures and civilizations and look at amazing artifacts. We covered the aleo-Indians; first nation tribes in Canada; the Olmec, Mayan, Teotihuacan, Monte Alban, Toltec and Aztec in Mexico and Central America; the Chavin, Moche, Inkan and other Andean peoples in South America; and the ancient Caribbean.

Outside of class, my family and I read the relevant sections from Gloria Fiero's Humanistic Tradition (the book we always follow for our history studies) and then we read a bunch of books and watched some great documentaries.

And of course, my mum, Grandma, and I traveled to Guatemala last month and got to see the Ancient Maya ruins at Tikal!! We made a movie (see above) while we were there, inspired by the Popol Vuh: the ancient text of the Maya culture.

Books

The Popol Vuh 

Charles C. Mann, Before Columbus: The Americas of 1491

Joy Hakim, A History of US: The First Americans: Prehistory-1600. Volume 1

Emma Carlson Berne, Christopher Columbus: The Voyage That Changed the World

Elizabeth Mann, Tikal

Laurie Coulter, Secrets in Stone: All About Maya Hieroglyphs

Dorothy Rhoads, The Corn Grows Ripe

Fiona MacDonald, Inca Town

Ted Lewin, Lost City: The Discovery of Machu Picchu

Vicki Cobb, This Place is High

Ann Cameron, The Most Beautiful Place in the World

Ann Cameron, Colibri

Documentaries and Movies

The Popol Vuh (episode of the Invitation to World Literature series on Learner.org)
Native America Before European Civilization (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FItlStGMY4)
Michael Woods' Conquistadors: Cortes
Michael Woods' Conquistadors: Pizarro
Michael Woods' Conquistadors: Orellano
Michael Woods' Conquistadors: Cabeza de Vaca
Werner Herzog, Aguirre Wrath of God
Secrets of the Ancients (BBC documentary about the Olmec)
Dawn of the Maya (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVMt-_11CFI)

Guatemala: Volcanoes, Ancient Maya Ruins, and Coatimundis!

 

I just got back from a really fun trip to Guatemala! I went with my mum and Grandma, Cati. I have been studying the Ancient Americas (more on that in the next post!) and so it was especially amazing to see the ancient Maya ruins (and other Mayan artifacts) at Tikal. We also visited Antigua, Lake Atitlan, and the famous Mayan market at Chichicastenango. One day, we climbed a volcano and I got to ride a horse and eat marshmallows that we roasted on hot volcanic rocks! Here are some photos and check out the video above.

In Antigua

My soccer friend

My horse was called Chopo!

Volcanic marshmallows

Fresh Tortillas!

View from breakfast at Lake Atitlan

In the jungle at Tikal

Roar!

A cute coatimundi!