Fairy Condos

Adding some pint size (maybe more half-gallon) magic to the property this spring with milk cartons, acrylics, Sharpies, stickers, varnish, sticks and glue gun…

Question Box

The older I get, the less able I am to multitask. Or, perhaps it’s not age but hours of sleep I miss each night (see previous posting :). Either way, after tending to the household tasks, little ones’ needs, and work prep, by the end of the day I can only focus on one thing at a time.

It’s possible that this is in fact the time of day when my daughter’s charming curiousity cuts loose and needs the likes of Google-for-preschoolers to sate her questions: “Why do princesses have so many dresses? How did the creator create the world? Where did I come from?” Truth be told, there have been times I’ve just had to ask her to stop talking so I can finish the thought in my own head.

Several days ago I vented to our beloved Auntie Beth who, without blinking, offered up the idea of a Question Box – a special place to hold the question until I have time to give her the attention she seeks.

Using cardboard scraps and a glue gun, I constructed a small box with a piggy bank type slot on the top and a flap on the bottom to access the question cards.

Elena decorated the outside of the box with tissue papers and aluminum foil. While the glue dried, she furiously worked on index cards drawing symbols and letters to record her thoughts. Thankfully, collecting her questions in the box will allow me a little time to prepare my responses. “Why did the creator make bananas? Was that before the dinosaurs?” and “How does Peter Pan fly?”. I’ve got some research to do.

Spontaneous Art Making – 101

Just before bed time last night, our daughter was inspired to make her 1 year old brother a pirate boat out of wood. In the basement wood shop she had her first lesson with her dad on using power tools. Furious that there was no time left to paint the boat before going to bed, we urged her to come up with a color plan. We drew a picture of a boat and encouraged her to plan out her colors. Off she went to bed and continued to draw, filling her notebook with countless drawings of pirate boats. Today, she had her first color mixing lesson and finished the boat. A most charming experience to watch.

Fairy Playground

Needed some magic today so we found a special place amongst the fading plants to create a play land.

Materials included objects from our last beach walk -shells, sea glass, stones, as well as items collected from around the yard – leaves, sticks, stones.

Making paths and trails…

Adding leaf boats…

Little Books = Big Stories

Years ago I was lucky enough to sit in on some book-making workshops while still living in Chicago. The process was satisfying and the product prompted all sorts of ideas to use with children. Around that same time I became interested in using stamps/stamping to tell a story.  Always looking for ways to help children tell their stories and realizing that drawing could be frustrating or intimidating, I thought about cartooning, which led me to the use of stamps and stamping.

Here I combine the media for use with my four year old. She has officially entered the magical world of inventing and reciting stories and wanting us to make up our own. And in good timing, a friend recently gifted us with stamps her children no longer use (thank you Ann!).

Here is a three point binding:

Using a piece of ribbon or yarn, come up through the hole on one end and down through the hole on the opposite end.  Then come up through the center hole with each end of the yarn. You can tie a bow or knot with the ends of the yarn to finish off the binding.  A bead or other small object can be added here for additional decoration.

For an accordion book, simply fold a long, rectangle-shaped paper, in half, then half again and again, until you are satisfied with the number of frames you have.  I glued a second folded paper to my first to expand the pages I would have to work in.

Once we had our books prepared, I made a started sample to show my daughter the concept without giving her the whole story.

My daughter quickly got to work, silent at first then chatting away about what was happening on her pages.

And here is her finished book…

“Once upon a time there was a very lonely frog and he wanted a playmate and he stayed in the water all day long. He waited and he waited and he could not miss abong.” (couldn’t get to the bottom of what that last word means!)

“The hummingbird decided she would have the day off with no one.”

“Night came and the stars came out. The frog was still waiting for a friend. He yelled out to the darkness.”

“In the morning he noticed he had a new playmate and they had a big wedding and they kissed and kissed and had big cakes and pies. They had a BIG party. The End.” – the blue half circle with symbols are the “decorations”

What would be the next logical thing to do once you’ve finished making your own book? Share it!

THE END!!

Sick Day

Amid the popsicles and PBS shows were stabs at identifying where the germs were in our bodies…not the easiest of images to see but do note the “germs” drawn by my four year old on her body tracing in the stomach, hair (!) and head spots. The elbow area is well, just her elbow!

Next we made a picture of what could help us get better.  She suggested a “rainbow salad”.  Below is her bowl full of fruits we drew together. Overall, a nice distraction and opportunity to connect with what is happening in her body and how she can help herself!