Fun With Paint

After postponing the mess for a few too many days, I finally pushed up my sleeves, stripped the kids, and tackled the painting portion of the globe project.

I put the paper mache ball in a basin to keep it from rolling away across our beige carpet as Hannah gobbed on the blue paint. I also gave Ben a sheet of paper to paint so he would not feel left out.

Then, I had a brilliant idea! Ben had studied the color blue (which was the color paint we were using) and the letter "b" this week in preschool, and I had an idea for a project that would incorporate both concepts. I decided also to teach the kids the concept of symmetry.

First, we used a couple of practice pages to learn how to paint on only one half of the paper and then fold the paper in half to create the same pattern on the other side. Next, I folded a piece of paper in half and cut it into the shape of butterfly wings ("b" is for butterfly...). Ben painted a pattern on one wing, and we folded it in half to make the matching wing. We talked about symmetry and how a butterfly has two matching wings that are the same on each side.

When we finished that portion of the lesson, Ben spent the rest of the time just painting a page solid blue. Meanwhile, Hannah worked hard and covered her globe with blue paint.

Once the paint on both projects dried, we moved on to the finishing touches. I helped Ben glue the center of the butterfly wings to his solid blue page. Then, we attached a popsicle stick, colored it brown, and drew a face and antennae to complete Ben's blue, symmetrical butterfly.For the globe, I cut out the shape of North America from craft foam, and we glued it to the globe. We will be using straight pins and little paper strips to label all of the places we discuss, and we will add the rest of the continents as we learn about them in future units.
I am excited by how well both crafts turned out. Maybe I will be a little braver about tackling more fun and messy projects in the future!

More Word Creation...

Hannah made some more words today with the post-it cards that I have. She just had to add a letter or two at the beginning to create a word. Again, I'll put her letters in bold, then a dash, and then the letters she was given.

b-ug
n-ot
qu-ail
n-est
r-ip
y-ay
p-ink
w-ell
s-ick
f-in
sp-ill
c-at
s-ap
p-ack
r-ing
c-an
s-ock
k-it
f-ake

When we were done, I had her tell me a story, using each of the words in sentences. It was all about a bug stuck in a spider web that got out when the web ripped, and then the spider made a new pink web. I think a cat had sap spilled on him at one point, and a quail built a nest... it was pretty wild. But, she got the point, and she seemed to enjoy creating a story, no matter how fanciful and crazy it might have been.

First Day at Preschool

Hannah and Ben had their first day at the one-day-a-week preschool program. Ben was especially thrilled, as this was his first time attending. He went in the morning, from 9:00-11:30. I worried a lot about dropping him off, because he is so sensitive and hesitant in new situations. I worried needlessly, though. The fact that he cried last year when we dropped Hannah off because he could not stay with should have given me a clue...

We arrived nice and early after some pictures outside our house. I paid his tuition and started to walk him down the stairs to his classroom. He turned to me and said, "Why are you still here? Aren't you going home?" I laughed and explained that I at least wanted to walk him downstairs and help him get settled first. Inside, I felt a mixture of pride and sadness that he wanted to go by himself. We organized his backpack and school materials, and then I left. I did manage to get a quick, half-hearted kiss before I walked unnoticed through the door.

I picked Ben up after his class and he bubbled with enthusiasm about his day. He painted and played games and learned about apples. I think this will be a great fit for him this year!

A little over an hour later, we returned for Hannah's 1:00-3:30 class. What a crazy day! I spend about an hour and a half driving on Mondays just dropping off and picking up each kid from preschool.

Hannah has a great opportunity this year at the school. Because she completed the 4-year-old class last year, her teacher allows me to send kindergarten work for her to do during seat work time. She can do crafts and activities and games with the other kids, and then she can work independently when they do what she has already mastered. Additionally, the teacher lets her read parts of the stories to the class, because she is reading so well. She can still make friends and interact with kids her age, but she will not feel bored repeating the same material.

I am excited about this year and so are the kids. Now if only I can survive all of that driving...

Hannah the Zoologist

Hannah loves animals, especially cold-blooded ones. For the past several weeks, she has spent hours nearly every day poring over two books I recently purchased: National Audubon Society field guide to North American Butterflies and National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Insects and Spiders. She sits and reads the name of every bug she sees and studies its appearance under a magnifying glass so she can absorb all of the details.

When we were camping, she informed me that the bugs another little girl had caught were common water skimmers, and she was correct! She also can tell me the names of many different ants and butterflies and even scorpions. In fact, she told me that her favorite bug is a scorpion... shudder!

In addition to her love of all things creepy and crawly, Hannah has a remarkable knack for catching these specimens as well. Moths, butterflies, millipedes, caterpillars, crayfish, and other invertebrates inevitably end up in her little grasp for further study. She even had a tiny butterfly land daintily on her outstretched finger and remain perched there for a few minutes before fluttering away.

We visited my parents' cabin this spring just in time for the tent caterpillars to hatch, and we caught hundreds during our stay. I think my grandmother cringed every time she saw Hannah with the insects crawling all over her arms and hands.

Because of her fascination with bugs, she learned two new vocabulary words during our camping trip, and she has been using them appropriately: exoskeleton and endoskeleton. We had been planning our insects and spiders unit for the spring... but I think we may tackle it now. I'd hate to waste this time of interest just because I want to stick to a schedule!

Hannah Loves

Hannah wrote this on her white board today:

Ben Does "School"

Ever since this school year started, Ben has been begging to be allowed to do school too, but he rarely has the patience to do more than about one worksheet without getting bored or frustrated. That is, until yesterday, when I remembered Hannah's unused Kindergarten book for Sing, Spell, Read and Write...

When Hannah began this reading program, she already knew all of her letter sounds, so we skipped over book on in the curriculum. I pulled it out yesterday, though, and discovered that it is at the perfect level for Ben. We gave it a try and he just loves it! He has done it for an hour straight two days in a row now, and he cries when I make him quit!

It focuses on patterns, basic writing, and letter sounds, and it involves enough varied activities - including cutting and pasting - to keep Ben interested for a long time. Today, he learned the short "a" sound - "A-a-apple." I think he does a very good job coloring in the lines.

He also really enjoys anything that involves scissors and glue. He had to find words that began with an "a" in a magazine and glue them on this page. They were supposed to be short "a" sounds (apple, apple sauce, apple juice), but we cheated and added "airplane" because we couldn't find any other a-words. Ben loved this activity!

Making Words

The other day, I gave Hannah a bunch of post-it notes with groups of letters on them. She had to add a letter to the beginning to make a word. Here is her list (I will make the letter she added bold and put a dash in the word):

m-an
r-ing
qu-it
st-ick
l-ip
w-ell
p-an
c-ake
t-op
p-ot
w-ay
f-it
qu-ack
cl-ock
p-ill
p-at
n-ail
p-op
p-in
w-est
f-at
d-ug
w-ink
fl-ap