At the end of the week, the kids always do an illustration and narration in their journals (they dictate, I write). I thought I would share their entries from today on Johnny Appleseed.
Johnny Appleseed and a Friend Picking Apples
Johnny Appleseed planted apple seeds. He talked to his friends along the way. Then he gave his friends apple trees. He talked to them long, long ago. He carried his bible and his bag of apple seeds. He did not carry a knife or gun because he liked all the animals. The animals were nice to him.
Fairy
He picked up apples and seeds. He walked around and planted apples. He was a nice stranger.
This week’s Unplugged Theme was Soft. When I was picking up a few art supplies last week I ran across some magic sponge kits. I remember thinking that they were fun as a child. I choose the farm kit to tie in with our harvest activities we are doing for school.
The kids had fun watching the magic unfold, as the sponges came to life in the bowl of warm water. They were squealing and trying to guess what each one was before it opened all the way and I believe there were some sponge races going on…. “Look, look, mine’s opening first!”
After all the sponges were freed from the capsules, we dipped them in finger paint to make farm animal prints. The images turned out fuzzy at best but it was a fun and easy activity.
Unplugged Guests, I know I’m supposed to be linking directly to the post, not my home page but I am in the middle of moving my blog from free hosting to self hosting and I am having a few issues. One is that the domain name is masked due to the transfer. For now, you can use my Unplugged Category link on the side and I have made it where you no longer need a wordpress account to comment.
It is so exhausting being a Princess!
‘L’ had Princess Camp last week at her dance school. Each day was focused on a different Princess, they got to wear dress up clothes, they did a craft, an outdoor activity, had a snack and learned a special ‘Princess Dance.’ She had a lot of fun but was exhausted by the end. The families got to come for the last 10 minutes to watch their dance of the day and many of the girls were yawning away. They were all sooo cute.
Dressed up for Mulan Day.
Normally art around here is basically free play. We get out the paints, play dough or crayons with little to no direction. But today I decided we were going to make more of lesson out it. So with aprons on, paper in front of them, I read the story “Mouse Paint” by Ellen Walsh. I then placed out red, blue and yellow paint. We each painted “mice” in the primary colors… and then mixed the paints to produce the secondary colored ‘puddles’ from the book.
I think all the kids enjoyed having a more structured art assignment and I am going to try and incorporate more lessons in art (or maybe more to the point… more art in lessons). Not all the time though. I still think they need plenty of free time with art, but maybe once a week I will have a destination in mind when we start.
I think it is fun to see the difference in the art produced from the kids at very different stages (spread over 3.5 years). My example is the one on top, then ‘A’, ‘L’ and ‘B’s.
Here is L’s first Dance Recital… Tiny Tots Lucky Duck Dance. This is actually the rehearsal… cameras and videos were not allowed during the ‘real deal.’ She knew her dance well and did a great job. Actually I think she did better in the rehearsal because they were really trying to get all the girls to dance the night of and it was a bit of chaos and confusion… totally cute though! She loved it all and was excited to dance for so many people. Not an ounce of stage fright in that one! For her it was pure joy (not sure where she got that from). And the perfect hostess, as always. She thanked everyone for coming to see her without any prompting. Actually to my dad she said, and I quote… “Thanks for coming. It was so good of you to show up.” LOL.
