Lilo, DD and TP are working on a 'Penguin Project' atm ~ I thought it was fitting with all the cold weather :D TP would like to go on and look at all the 'cold place animals' ~ I shall encourage her and see where that leads :D Meanwhile, today we were talking about Penguins being birds and how their feathers help them to keep warm and dry. We talked about how they waterproof themselves with oil and I took them into the kitchen for a little impromptu science. They were fascinated with the oil on top of water effect. Then I got two pieces of brown cardboard. One I rubbed with oil, the other I did not (of course). I ran them both under the tap. They were able to see how one went limp and soggy, and while the other one was a little wet it was nowhere near as soggy as the first. (Phew... that worked!) We went on to talk about the life cycle of penguins and discussed why the penguin chicks can't go in the water (i.e that their downy feathers are not waterproof) and how they have to be cuddled up to stay warm. It was a lovely lesson and I think they are enjoying it so far :D It's difficult to get DD to co-operate with anything at the moment if it doesn't involve my undivided attention, so for a lot of the penguin work he snicked off somewhere. When it came to story time ~ Mr Popper's Penguins, of course ~ I insisted he stayed and listen. At least that way he might still learn something. Maybe next time he can pick the topic!
There have been a few little gems in the past week, that I just want to document. Whilst playing on our newly-working Digital Art Studio the other day, DD was making a thankyou card for my Nan. He was doing a dinosaur picture and using the stampers to decorate a background scene. When choosing he stated "I need to make these ones really small because they are very far away." and proceeded to resize the stamp and place it on the hills in the back of the picture. I was suitably impressed that he had this perceptive understanding ~ I have never spoken to him about it as far as I am aware.
DD is beginning to recognise his numbers - now knows 1, 2, 6 & 10 fairly reliably, but I could see the penny beginning to drop, even just today, with the others :D
Stitch has been busily & independently working at learning his colours. I haven't put an aweful lot of conscious effort into this with him, but he suddenly seemed to sort out a couple at Christmas and now knows blue, brown, pink, black, and yellow fairly reliably. We are working on the others now (as he is very keen and constantly asking 'what's dat' in relation to colours) and he nearly has orange, red & green sorted too.
Stitch's speech is coming on a dream and the other day asked me, "How do you do it?" ~ I can remember my other children asking me all sorts of 'what' and 'why' questions, but I don't remember a single one of them asking me 'HOW?' at younger than 3. This says so much about him - he is such a 'how' kind of kid :D
He is also incredibly good at throwing. It's a skill he began practising at a very early age to my great distress (he throws A LOT). I have been able to tame him in recent months more, but he still LOVES to throw. Last night, as I was putting him to bed, he decided to throw a small plastic football (about the size of a golf ball) from the other side of the room and see if he could get it in his bedroom bin ~ he DID! He did it again ~ he was accurate! When he missed it wasn't by much and he got that ball in at least 5 times, from the other side of the room (about 3-4ft away). I was stunned! I don't what this little lad will do in the future, but I certainly need to encourage him to play cricket!
Anyway - back to today. Monday is our Art day. Today we were experimenting with the colour wheel. I asked the children to choose between watercolour pencils and rdinary ones this week. Lilo and Bugs chose the watercolours. The others chose ordinary. (DD went on the DACS & Stitch was playing upstairs). The challenge was to make the picture as bold as possible by using opposing colours and to 'create something new from something old', or take something from a new perspective.
Bugs painted his black and white pumps, but not black and white;
Lilo created an underwater scene (she is one amazing artist for her age). She copied some fish from a little 'stage-by-stage' drawing book we have, but she is so GOOD at copying these. She then coloured and painted this entirely on her own :D
The other choice of task was to create your own flag. This was what Bugs chose to do and he created some name for a fantasy country to go with it! He then decided he wanted to re-create it on TuxPaint and went ahead and did so. I think he did good :D
Minnie colured a 'new from old' version of Stitches beaker ~ sorry no pictures, but it was pretty good ~ and TP did a flower :D I did use the oportunity to take her outside and get her to look at how leaves are in nature and how they are joined to the stems. She always draws them as sort of D shapes - rectified that one at last :D
A bit after that Stitch came down and had a go on the DACS ~ he is SO good at it, but once he is on it's a real battle to get him off again!
DD did some tracing - for the first time. He initially kicked up a huge stink, but once he got going he really enjoyed it :D
Minnie also did a little sewing (also a Monday project) - she is making a little turtle from a kit. Body and flippers completed now! That means she done some work with backstitch and with over-stitch. She does seem to enjoy it, but like me, doesn't seem to have a great deal of stick-ability for things that require such sustained concentration and are very fiddly!
So there you go - a little insight into our day today ~ bout time too, or bored now?!
2 comments:
Hey there, all very arty I love it. that digital studio looks good. I miss HEing all my kids at their various ages and stages. Clo has had enough btw, school so doesn't suit her. She's finishing at the end of term.
They are so creative! :)
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