A little Nature Time

We are all feeling better... Thank goodness. Last week we ventured out to the pond for some nature time and tried not to breathe on any of our neighbors. David and Lia really liked this pink dragonfly.

I like this library book we got called, Grandfather and I. It talks about how everybody hurries but not this little boy's Grandfather...

But Grandfather and I

never hurry

We walk along

and walk along

and stop...

and look...

just as long as we like.

. Here is the beautiful white bird that hangs out at our pond.

And the always hungry, very agressive ducks that David likes to terrorize.

Drawing Lessons

This post is primarily for my Mom because I thought she'd be interested in the "formal" art lessons I started giving Emily today. We began my discussing the 5 elements of shape... the dot, the circle, the line, the curved line and the angle. The purpose of the book is to train your eye to recognize these elements of shape so it is easier (less intimidating perhaps) to draw. We looked for each example around the house... like angles in the floor tiles, curved lines on the grandfather clock, open circles on Daddy's crocs...


This first excercise simply has the student copy the shape she sees in the top box to the box below. This is the level 1 excercise. You can see Emily got most of them right. She drew a horizontal line through her concentric circles when it should have been at an angle... but other than that she whizzed right through it. She looked at the Level 2 excercise and decided she wanted to stick at level 1... no use jupping into the deep end, right?

The next excercise had the student look at the shape on the left and find its match on the right. She had to look carefully, but Emily had no trouble with this either.

The next excercise had the student draw the mirror image of an object. Drawing from the Right Side of the Brain (or was it Left?) was quoted in this book and I remember seeing my Mom doing these excercises when I was still at home. As you can see these didn't stump Emily...

This one was a little bit more challenging for her. She drew the curvy "bubbles" and the triangular shape at the bottom inward instead of outward. She realized right away that it didn't look right and gave it another shot. She figured it out on the 2nd try though!

And last, because she still wanted to keep going... she copied these drawing of familiar objects and recognized they were just groupings of the 5 elements of shape.... and nothing to be intimidated by.

And then she wanted to know if we could have Drawing lessons every Saturday with David.

Pumpkin Placemats

My Aunt Val sent us a care package with 8 beautiful pumpkin placemats. To make it even more fun, she included some black iron-on fabric that we could use to make faces for our pumpkins. We used the pumpkin game on Starfall to come up with the pumpkin design and then I helped sketch and cut out their creations. I think they came out great!



Pumpkin heads!

And yes, Lia designed her own pumpkin on Starfall too. She completely understands how to use her pointer finger to tell me what kind of eyes, nose, and mouth she wants for her pumpkin. I thought it was funny she chose to make a "mean" pumpkin. I had a little trouble getting her to let me take a picture...Emily thinks this picture is hilarious. The big kids follow instructions for our photo shoots a little better than she does.

When Chris does the shopping...

Since I was sick, I had to send Chris to the grocery store a few times. It is really funny what he comes back with. Here is what he brought us on Saturday:

Fancy Wine - well that was for him
Exotic Fruit #1 - Crab Apples (childhood memory - neighbor had a tree)
Exotic Fruit #2 - Pomegranate
Exotic Fruit #3 - Pluot (Crossover plum/apricot)
Peanut Brittle (craving...?)

The kids really like to try new and strange fruit so they get a kick out of Daddy doing the shopping. They didn't care for the peanut brittle but I liked it. He put together fabulous dinners for us on both Saturday and Sunday and I am very grateful for that.

Sick Family - We think it's the flu.

David got it on Wednesday, Emily on Thursday, and I got it on Friday. We all ran high temperatures (102+) for 2 days and have maintained a low grade temperature throughout the weekend. Yes, what fun. Since the high temperatures have subsided, we will probably not see a doctor and determine whether or not we all had swine flu... but I hear it is going around, it is highly contagious and our symptoms match all that I have heard described.

I can't speak for my children, but running a 102 temperature is really uncomfortable. All I can say is that I have a wonderful husband who literally took over for me on Saturday which was my worst day.

Being sick isn't all bad though. We all stayed home and spent lots of time reading books, doing crafts and art lessons... I'll post that stuff next.

Update the Calendar

David and I are falling into some good routines in our efforts to do preschool at home. Since we're not enrolling him in a formal preschool program, I didn't want him to "miss out" on anything and I have been teaching him at home in a more formal manner. As parents, we are always "teaching" ... just going through our day to day routines they learn a lot but I have felt compelled to do more and I am so glad that I have. It is so easy to engage David in these activities and his desire and capacity to learn humbles me. He's sick right now but it isn't slowing him down. He was chomping at the bit to get started this morning at 9:00!

I have heard a lot about "calendar math'... the schools seem to make a big deal about it so I got a calendar. Since it is a new month, we clear the old one off and he puts it back together for me. We use the one from the Starfall website as a reference so he can see what day of the week the 1st falls on. Then he puts the numbers on the calendar and marks special days. We are going to start marking at least one feast day so we can learn more about the Saints too. This is an excellent activity for number recognition as 12 and 21 are still kind of confusing... as are the 6 and 9. We talk about what today is, what was yesterday and tomorrow, etc.. Sounds like calendar math to me!

Emily lost her 2nd tooth!

For the last couple of days, there has been a very wiggly tooth in Emily's mouth. Last night, it came out. Not sure if you can tell, but she has lost the two bottom center teeth. It is so funny how exciting this is for her! I don't know if I mentioned it, but she had no interest in putting the first one under her pillow so we kept it in a little bag for her. This go round my big girl realized the monetary potential of these teeth... so she put both of them under her pillow. The tooth fairy left a whole dollar! Very exciting.