Friday Feature: Puzzle Piece

As a mom, I've realized that there are so many things about your children that "just are," despite the assumption that you're guiding, molding, and teaching them in all that they do. This week, Caroline brought home some art that I inferred was a part of a bigger masterpiece, a way to show that every child in her class is unique but still fits in and is an important part of the whole.

Just another reminder that my sweet, sensitive, thoughtful daughter who sometimes mystifies me because she's so different than I am is a beautiful individual, and our family would be missing a piece without her. 

Friday Feature: pictures are worth one word

So far, 2nd grade has been fantastic for John. He really likes his teacher, and from that flows all good things. Stellar behavior so far this year; enthusiasm for learning; and curiosity for the things ahead. 

They have done several activities this year where they take a word, illustrate it, and write the word below. Both his teacher and I both thought that this week's efforts went above and beyond. 

Friday Feature: Inspired Artwork

I think our recent trip must have the wheels turning in John's head about all of the different climates out there in our vast, beautiful country. I came across these drawings strategically placed on the coffee table where I would see them:

Friday Feature: John's artwork

It's almost the end of the school year, it's Friday, and everyone is tired. Today's feature is short and sweet: here's John's artwork that he brought home yesterday.

It's a turtle. 

Friday Feature: Christmas artwork

It's the season!!

John's Christmas wreath

John's Christmas tree from his school party

Caroline's ornament made at school

Friday Feature: John's artwork

Want to know what our living room looks like?

Not bad, huh?

Friday Feature: Caroline's Countdown

It's nice to know, when you've been gone for six days, that you've been missed. 

Friday Feature: John's artwork

I try hard to alternate the Friday features between the two kids, but here in the first week of school, pickings are pretty slim. Add to that my work hours this week have been off the charts, and I'm not even sure I've seen all of the school work that's come home.

I noticed this picture this morning when I was waiting for my coffee to brew:

Excellent first week of school subject, right? What I did on my summer vacation!!

Except we went to Disney World last year. And there seems to be an extra sister in our family portrait. Hilarious. 

Except John didn't think it was hilarious. When he came down this morning I could tell he wasn't his usual chipper self. I think the first two weeks back to school are tiring after a summer of setting your own schedule, and he was a little bit subdued. I gave him a hug and told him I saw his picture but, silly goose, we went to Disney last year!

Bad move, Mama... Tears of frustration, before we even sat down to breakfast. Poor little man. I wasn't making fun of him, just thought it was funny that he got his summers mixed up. So I'll find a way to reassure him tonight that I didn't mean to hurt his feelings, and keep in mind in the future, Mama's teasing words sound different to little ears sometimes. 

Friday Feature: John's schoolwork

First week of school, and not much came home other than instructions, requests, rules, procedures, and the cafeteria menu. After looking through the backpacks last night, I figured my options were to 1) force the kids to draw something at home or 2) entertain you with my own creations. Neither of those were that exciting, so I'm pretty happy this showed up today:

A booklet illustrating things John sees in first grade. 

Title page: big! Bold! Red!

First picture: complete! Creative!

Second picture: going strong!

Third picture: losing steam...

Fourth picture: out of time. 

Oh, well. It's the first week, John had great behavior and stayed on green all week, and every day he announced that math was his favorite thing that day. 

It's going to be a great year. 

Friday Feature: Up, Up and Away!

Hot Air Balloon

I saw a hot air balloon flying over my house:

Most of the time, it was quiet as a mouse,

But, every so often, its burners suddenly roared,

And higher, up into the sky, it suddenly soared.

My excitement, I found hard to keep at bay,

As, a hot air balloon, you don't see every day.

A passenger balloon floating through the air,

For me, is so special, as the sight is so rare.

The sight of the balloon, filled me with delight,

And I stood watching it, until it flew out of sight.

My eyes were stuck to the balloon, just like glue,

As it floated across a sky of cornflower blue.

I wonder what it's like to float through the sky,

Wathing the world down below gliding on by.

I've always wanted to ride in a hot air balloon:

I hope I will one day, and I hope that it's soon.

-- Angela Wybrow

Paper mâché is a mess, but man, did we have fun with it. I put this on the curriculum calendar this summer knowing it would be a mess and a lot of work, but with the hopes that it would be so much fun, the mess would be totally worth it. I remember as a girl doing a paper mâché craft with my Brownie troop, and clearly it was a highlight of my artistic career. So for this craft, I joined in the fun. 

There are a lot of steps to a paper mâché hot air balloon:

Blow up balloon
Mix up paper mache mess
Dip torn strips of paper and layer onto balloon

Taking her time, covering up the whole balloon and
keeping it smooth to paint later

Step one - Done!

Let it dry for a few days, then paint a
base coat of white

And make a monkey face
while painting 

Definitely the best part

Finally - time to paint the design on!

Given drying time, my work schedule, and missing key materials like pipe cleaners and yarn, we did it a bit in stops and starts. I think the final results, though, were definitely worth the mess.

Caroline's

John's

Mommy's 

Up, Up and Away!!

Friday Feature: John's artwork

Capturing this week's artwork in a picture was a little more challenging than usual.

Medium: chalk
Subject: outer space
Surface: the driveway

For a half a second, I honestly thought about pulling out the step ladder to get the shot. Then my Friday afternoon post-work exhaustion hit me, and I just lifted my arms up over my head, pointed, clicked, and hoped for the best.

Ta-da!!!

I'm proud of John - he did this all by himself. He has the planets in order, and the drawing of Earth is exceedingly good for a soon-to-be-1st-grader, if you ask me.

Lots of learning so far this summer, and plenty more to come!

Friday Feature: Caroline and John's artwork

How fun it's been to have an art assignment each week this summer with the kids! I've enjoyed the projects we've done so far, and the collage turned out to be even better than I thought.

This week's assignment was Collage: Colorful! My intent was to cut out pictures from magazines and paste them onto posterboard to make a collage which elicited a response of "that's so colorful!" In fact, that exactly how I explained it to the kids.

This one took a little bit of preparation - the only magazine we get is the West Point magazine for graduates, and there isn't a whole lot of "colorful" going on in the glossies of that publication. So I sent out an email a few weeks ago to a few friends at work, and BOOM - jackpot. A couple of my coworkers subscribe to the perfect magazines for this assignment: People, All You, O, Real Simple... throw several clothing catalogues in, and we had everything we needed.

Magazines - check.
Poster board - check.
Scissors - check.
Glue sticks - check.

Before we sat down to cut out pictures, though, I figured it was worth making this at least a rudimentary lesson. Out came the dictionary to explain what, precisely, a collage is. (Using the dictionary, on the other hand, is an ongoing lesson...)

It took a couple of days to get everything done, working on it in the time we had in between doing super fun things with Gramma and Papa. I think, though, that the finished products are excellent. There is no doubt that these are eye popping colorful collages.

          

Friday Feature: John's artwork

The end of the school year has brought several field trips, including one for John to a farm day. I think this puppet art must have been inspired by that trip. 

Friday Feature: Mother's Day Card

What mom doesn't love handmade gifts from her kids? The Mothers Day card I got from Caroline, though, is just about the most perfect of all handmade cards of all time, forever and ever, amen.

She gets me, doesn't she?!

Friday Feature: Caroline's Artwork

A couple of weeks late, but still a great piece of individual art. Without any prompting from us, Caroline created this for Earth Day. Maybe they talked about it at school, or maybe she heard it on TV. Either way, I thought it was pretty darn creative.

Friday Feature: John's artwork

This cane home this week, and John couldn't remember what it was. Any interpretations?

Friday Feature: Caroline's artwork

I thought I was going to have the chance to share Caroline's sidewalk art this week, until this gem came home:

She calmed my nerves when she explained that "the baby" refers to her new cousin due this summer. Would've hated to disappoint her if she was requesting a new sibling. The part of the narrative on the back about her Aunt Susannah and Uncle Justin is priceless. It's also as true as it can be:

Friday Feature: John's Easter artwork

Thursday was Parent/Teacher conference day, so I got to see artwork that was hanging in the hallway outside of John's classroom.

This Easter is going to be electric! It's electric!

In case you need the translation: "My egg is electric. It will shock you. It will hurt a lot. My egg has a lot of wires. It is big."

Now that I've typed it out, I'm trying to decide if I should be a little worried. Or disturbed. Or just chalk it up to the crazy imagination of boys. Hmm.

Friday Feature: John's artwork for Daddy's birthday

No schoolwork this week, because the best artwork of the week was John's present to Daddy on his birthday.

And yes, John. Yes he is. Love.

Friday Feature: John's artwork

I know he's only in kindergarten, but I have high expectations for my son when it comes to school. High expectations for both of my kids, but Caroline is an achievement oriented child who rarely needs an extra push to do her best.

John, on the other hand, frequently sees school as one big play date.

He's very smart, and highly capable. But sometimes his work comes home and it's obvious that he rushed through it, that he didn't give it his best effort. We frequently talk about all the reasons it's so important to do your best in school, usually ending with "because smart people rule the world."

This week's artwork I think shows John's cleverness, his ability that exceeds expectations for kindergarten level work. But look closely - up in the top left hand corners you'll see the teacher made a note that says "2nd try." Because his first try was pitiful and unacceptable.

Much better to learn this lesson early, huh?