Our Spiral Path

There's just something about spirals...beautiful, geometric, artistic, mathematical, magical, mesmerizing....

This past year, we studied "phi", the Golden ratio, phyllotaxis, and spirals. Now, we see spirals everywhere...flowers, leaf patterns, shells....

We built a labyrinth at our old house (great homeschooling project!), but we don't quite have enough space at our new house for a labyrinth.

Labyrinth at our old house

So, instead, we have built a spiral! Daddy and the kids carved out a path in the vines, spiraling towards the fountain near Rabbie and Navy's cage. We collected rocks from the river and the yard to line the spiral. Mommy planted some wildflower seeds in the dirt areas and they are starting to sprout!

The spiral may be seen from the deck and from Joey's room. It's a meditative reminder to us whenever we see it.


Where do you see spirals?

Form Drawing and Balance

We really enjoy form drawing every week! This week, we worked on balancing the right and left sides of our bodies. One of the exercises we did was form drawing.

We started with a large spiral on our chalkboard with our dominant hand, beginning on the right, moving from the outside of the spiral in towards the center. Then, we started at the center and traced the spiral back to the beginning.

Next, we drew the spiral in the opposite direction, starting on the left, first outside in, then inside to out.

Then, we switched hands and repeated the above spirals, first starting on the left, then a spiral starting on the right.

Each time we drew, we talked about how it felt. Using the non-dominant hand brought up feelings of awkwardness and hesitation. Then, as we practiced, the spiral drawing felt really good using either hand (yes, Mommy did this too)!

Finally, we did a curlique drawing to a story about water nymphs in the ocean. We did the form one way, then the other way. Finally, we did both curliques with the non-dominant hand in both directions.

We talked about the things that we like to do with our dominant hand (writing, eating), our non-dominant hand (everyone had a different example), and with both hands (playing piano). A discussion arose about how Wilson is left-handed and the rest of us are right-handed, but our dominant feet did not match our dominant hands.

Next week, we are going to do games with bean bags and walking to work on balancing and coordinating our right and left sides!