Pagoda Magic

Ds has been working over  a very long time to complete his Japanese pagoda. It is still a work in progress and will remain that until he is totally convinced he has done enough. At our recent Education Department Review he was commended once more on his skill and dedication to detail.It is always good to have praise from people outside your family. I will add more pictures to this post so please come back to check progress!

Here are some updated images as promised:

The Jungle Book Part Two

 As I mentioned in an earlier post. Ds has had to prepare a Jungle Book theme diorama.Above you can see some of the trees.

 The next step was to attach the cave(having first removed the balloon of course!)

 Some of the trees were less stable than others9note: make sure you have attached planty of paper mache to your foil!)

 Blue tac was applied to the base of each tree.

 Next the trees were added to the shoe-box

 again this required a lot of patience!!

 Ds decided to add some vines to make it a very jungly diorama. The ones we used were rafia.

 Here is the jungle prior to adding the animals.

 Add the animals.

The completed diorama. Can you tell what scene from the book is taking place?

Monsoon Afternoon

As part of our ongoing study of Asia we read Monsoon Afternoon by Kashmira Sheth.. While this was probably designed for a younger reading age both boys examined the artwork with delight. We liked the note at the end of the book which described how the monsoon in her childhood meant the end of the mango season and the start of school.We nearly always read these notes by authors at the end of books as they either add to the information within the text or as in this case give us a peek into the authors own life. Altogether this is a very pleasant book to read. The text in which the small boy asks his grandfather a series of questions is beautifully complimented by the watercolor paintings of the artist.

The Jungle Book Part 1

 As  part of his grey wolf award for cubs(which is I think the highest award you can receive in cubs) ds had to prepare a diorama of part of the Jungle Book to show to his pack. Cub scouts are very loosely based on the characters in the Jungle books(Baden Powell and Kipling were actually friends)Ds painted the inside of a shoe box a good jungle gree. Next , using advice he gleaned from the internet and other makers of dioramas(!), he made some tree shapes from foil.

 These were then covered with papermache.

 It proved quite a sticky business!

Below are the trees waiting to dry. while they were drying ds covered part of a small balloon with paper mache. This would be the cave of the wolves.

 Finally ds made the figures he was going to put in his jungle. He had to blend plasticine colours together to make just the right wolf colour!

Above you can see the painted box with the figures.

We were fortunate to view an exhibition of the artist Tomono Tadakuma Wynn at the Migration museum recently.In the 1970s Tomono Tadakuma left her traditional, patriarchal Japanese family and came  to Adelaide to study print-making and painting.This was not an easy choice for her to make. Her art and the exhibition encapsulates her   life. The exhibition includes samples of her art, including her beautiful calligraphy but it also has some of her kimonos and some belonging to her mother as well as beautiful dolls her mother makes.

Tomono’s first impression of Australia dated from when she was a child in Tokyo.  She saw an image of a remote desert Aboriginal man lighting a fire.  To Tomono, as she grew up within the strict conventions expected of a young Japanese woman of samurai ancestry, Australia came to symbolise freedom.







Tomono also asked some of her friends to come along and perform the traditional tea ceremony. She challenged us in our busy lives to find something to do, such as making our own cup of tea(western style) and really think about the elements involved in the activity. To slow down and consider the pouring of the water into the jug, the waiting time for it to heat the pouring of the water into the cup over the tea and waiting for it to steep and finally drinking slowly and really focusing on what we are tasting. A useful exercise I think.

The Japanese tea ceremony takes many years to perfect. One of the ladies said she had only been learning for 6 years. Another said that they all had children at home, families to look after and work to do and it may seem strange for us to consider why they would take time out to practice an activity that is not going to achieve anything visible.

But she said "this is for us, pointing to the women doing the ceremony, this is time for us...and we take it back when we go on with our lives"











 Finally Tomono asked for volunteers to be dressed in traditional Japanese dress. My oldest son was chosen because he was the tallest male there but  you can see he was a little too tall for the costume.









The morning was a lot of fun.

I'm not sure how T. felt about having all these people to dress him!

                      Don't they all look wonderful!

Below is a wedding komono. Apparently there are 40 layers of clothing needed to dress for your wedding.As it was the ladies said their own dress for this morning had taken well over an hour to get ready!

Food webs and other curiosities at the zoo

At the zoo: we looked at Food Webs - learned about the relationships between plants and animals of the South East Asian Rainforest

 and the outcomes of changing just one small factor....using string!!!



And no trip to the zoo would be complete for ds without a quick viewing of the reptile house .

A castle or pagoda?

As part of our study of Japan ds has been reading historical books about Japan. He has particularly enjoyed looking and comparing medieval Japan with Europe in the same time period.





Some of the books he has read are: "The boy and the Samurai" by Erik Christian Haugaard. "Te Samurai's Tale"(by same author. "The Ghost in the Tokaido Inn" by Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler , "Castles of the Samurai" by Jennifer Mitchelhill and "Commodore perry in the land of the shogun" by Rhoda Blumberg

He thinks Japanese castles look way more cool and so decided to construct his own interpretation of part of one. It has involved a lot of  design and maths, even protractors were brought out to assess angles. We haven't been able to find a similar project online so the ideas are all his own.The small cardboard tiles on the roof were a real test of time and patience and they are yet to be painted.