A couple years ago, we implemented a habit of each student doing a Weekly Painting to practice our watercolor skills regularly outside of nature journaling and brush drawing time.
Each week, each student chooses one subject from any of their readings for that week. They paint in miniature: just one Artist Trading Card, which is a piece of paper pre-cut to baseball-card size.
The small format makes the task doable -- it only takes 10-15 minutes -- and it much less intimidating than a large project would be for a young or perfectionist student. It is thus a pleasant and simple part of our week rather than a burden.
These can definitely be considered a form of narration, but in our home, they don't take the place of narration. This is scheduled on Thursday afternoons, one of the last tasks of our school week. It is always fun to see what they pick -- they go back and forth all week deciding what their subject should be! (And you can imagine the mental effort happening during that culling and selection process!)
At the end of our first year, I purchased a three-ring binder and some baseball card sleeves, and the kids collected their cards into the sheets and added them to the binder. We have continued to add each term and the binder is now a wonderful record of not only what they have learned, what ideas have inspired, what topics have excited them, but also of their drawing and painting skills, and how those have improved over time.
And of course, their creativity! Each card is so delightfully different. (You can see a page-through from last year below. We have over twice that many pages now!)
We love our notebooks, but this binder is so very special for our family. It has become such a treasure and we all love sifting through it and remembering the ideas, stories, moments, characters, events...
~~~
Does this sound like something your family might like to try? Here's all you need to get started:
:: Pack of Arist Trading Cards. I buy both Bristol and watercolor cards to have on hand. Both will take watercolor without any warping, but the Bristol doesn't allow any lifting of paint and will get a bit nubby if the student isn't used to using a wet medium. The watercolor version is definitely better for washes and such, but it is also about double the price.
:: Paints and brushes. We just use the same kit we do for nature journaling. Some kids may like to use pencil and/or waterproof marker. I have our favorites here.
:: Plain binder. I like to get one with a see-through window cover so my kids can make a nice cover page. :)
:: Baseball card sleeves.
That's it!
If you have taken up the same habit or something similar, I'd love to hear about it. Let me know in the comments below. :)
(I have shared lots of #ourweeklypaintings on Instagram over the past couple years. Click over if you'd like to see more examples!)
