Category Archives: Arts and crafts

His Shoes Were Far Too Tight by Edward Lear

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The month of April has been full of poetry at the House of Hope, thanks to my commitment to participate in Poetry Friday and the Kids’ Poetry Challenge.  We have also just this month begun visiting another local library, in addition to the couple in neighboring towns that we usually frequent.  I’ve found several poetry books on the new shelf at this library, so this has made the challenge even more enjoyable for me.  When I saw this bright yellow volume, I picked it up immediately and added it to our stack.  Who could possibly resist this cover, I ask you?  Even if you didn’t know that this book is chock-full of the rollicking verse of Edward Lear, nonesense writer extraordinaire, could you pass up this whimsical cover?  The prolific Daniel Pinkwater is listed as the “mastermind” behind this volume; Calef Brown is the illustrator who captures the spirit of Lear’s poetry so perfectly. 

Before I shared this volume with my girls, my exposure to Lear was limited to his limericks and reading “The Owl and the Pussycat” with them.    At first glance, I thought Lear’s poetry to be a little inaccessible for my very young girls.  However, after we read through most of the poems and settled on our favorites, we had time to go back and re-read them several times so as to really catch on to what the poem is about.  The girls liked “The Pobble Who Has No Toes” and requested it over and over again.  This is the first stanza:

The Pobble who has no toes
Had once as many as we;
When they said “Some day you may lose them all;”
He replied “Fish, fiddle-de-dee!”
And his Aunt Jobiska made him drink
Lavender water tinged with pink,
For she said “The World in general knows
There’s nothing so good for a Pobble’s toes!”

What’s more fun than a toeless, imaginary creature with an aunt named Jobiska?  Oh, yes, a toeless, made-up creature that “tinkedly-binkedly-winkled a bell”! 

My favorite poem in the collection is “Some Incidents in the Life of Uncle Arly,” the poem from which the book’s title is taken.  Here’s the first stanza:

O! My aged Uncle Arly!
Sitting on a heap of Barley
      Thro’ the silent hours of night,–
Close beside a leafy thicket:–
On his nose there was a Cricket,–
In his hat a Railway-Ticket;–
      (But his shoes were far too tight.)

The accompanying illustration is of a rather dapper Uncle Arly, staring into the eyes of the huge, green cricket perched on his nose, and with a train ticket tucked into his hatband.  Funny stuff!

In addition to the usual copywork that I’ve been having the girls complete from a poem each week, we also worked together to create a limerick.  Although they aren’t old enough to do this alone, working together and with my suggestions for words that would rhyme, we came up with this little ditty:

There once was a girl named May

Who always had something to say.

She was hit by a rock

In the innermost tock

And then she was carried away.

I think Lear, the inventor of the word runcible, would approve of Louise’s coining of the word tock, which means “somewhere in your head.”  :-)   Of course, I had the girls illustrate the limerick, too. 

May by Lulu

May by Louise

Reading limericks to my girls reminded me of a limerick I once wrote for an English class assignment when I was a junior in high school.  It was for one of those “literature extension” exercises for The Great Gatsby:

There was a man Nick of West Egg

Who was really too wealthy to beg

But friends he did seek

So he looked up the street

Found Gatsby, and made use of his legs.

:-)

I’ve poked around the internet a good bit and found some good resources related to Edward Lear and this book:

I’m linking this post up to both Poetry Friday, hosted this week by Tabatha Yeatts:  The Opposite of Indifference, and the Kids’ Poetry Challenge at Brimful Curiosities.

April is almost over and with it, National Poetry Month, but I have enjoyed this little exercise so much that I think I’ll try to participate in Poetry Friday as often as I can in the future! 

Fathers, Mothers, Sisters, Brothers by Mary Ann Hoberman

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Last week we enjoyed Mary Ann Hoberman’s Fathers, Mothers, Sisters, Brothers: A Collection of Family Poems, which has been the most age-appropriate for my young girls of all the poetry collections we’ve enjoyed so far this month.  (We’ve enjoyed them all, but this one has required the least amount of work to understand.)  Hoberman was named the Children’s Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation back in 2008.  Her works are widely anthologized , and she has written a number of picture books.   Fathers, Mothers, Sisters, Brothers is a fun poetry collection that looks at families from multiple perspectives and about their different members–little sisters, big sisters, kids with messy rooms, grandparents, an only child, cousins, etc. 

My girls’ favorite poem from this collection is one entitled “Big Sister.”  It begins like this:

I have a big sister;

She’s taller and older;

On tiptoe I only

Reach up to her shoulder;

The poem continues with the little sister explaining how she intends to catch up to her big sister.  (I don’t want to give her solution away, but it’s funny!)  My girls like this one a lot, I suppose because both girls can relate to it.   They chose this one to use for copywork and to illustrate:

Lulu's picture

Louise's picture

Hoberman expresses childish understanding, attitudes, and dreams in some of these poems, and it’s refreshing for me as an adult to climb back into a child’s mind and remember what it feels like to be a kid.  Her poem entitled “When I Grow Up” captures this feeling:

When I grow up, I want to be

A grown-up who remembers me

And what it felt like to be small:

I can say with confidence that Mary Ann Hoberman’s poetry should appeal to almost any child; I know we have enjoyed what we’ve read. 

 If you have a minute, check out this series of videos hosted by Hoberman at the Poetry Foundation.  My girls and I enjoyed her reading of All Kinds of Families immensely! 

I’m linking this post up at Brimful Curiosities for this week’s Kids’ Poetry Challenge and at Book Aunt for Poetry Friday. 

 

 

 

 

 

Cousins of Clouds: Elephant Poems by Tracie Vaughn Zimmer

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When I saw Cousins of Clouds: Elephant Poems on the new books shelf at the library, I snatched it right up.  The cover artwork is gorgeous, and I almost immediately recognized the name of the poet whose works are contained therein.  I read Tracie Vaughn Zimmer’s novel-in-verse Reaching for Sun (linked to my review) way back in 2008, but it has stayed with me, which is a sure sign of the talent of this poet-author. 

I love Cousins of Clouds.  It is a series of very different poems, all about elephants.  The title is taken from the first poem, which is about some of the beliefs that various cultures have had about elephants down through the ages.  One of my favorite poems is a concrete poem entitled “Fortress.”  In it, the speaker addresses a baby elephant and recounts the way the mamas, aunties, and sisters encircle the baby to protect him.  Here’s a little snippet from one entitled “Beggars of Bangkok,” which is about an elephant and his mahout (handler) who make their living begging:

The mahout kicks the flesh

behind the tattered, speckled ears,

and the elephant turns–

diamonds of reflective tape

mark his giant hind

and swing on the metronome of his tail

so the cacophony of cars

will notice his shadowed form.

Isn’t the juxtaposition of the ancient and the modern nice?  And I love the image of the metronome of a tail.  :-)   Each poem is accompanied by an explanatory note so that the context of the poem is made clear.  Since some of the poems are about cultures or landscapes that might be unfamiliar to the reader or listener, this is very helpful.

As wonderful as the poetry is in this collection, the other part of the equation here is the fabulous artwork by Megan Halsey and Sean Addy.  The illustrations are mixed media collages, one of my favorite forms of art.  From endpaper to endpaper, every page in this book is lovely.  My favorite illustration is one which accompanies six separate haiku poems about the parts of an elephant’s body.  There’s one entitled ”Accessory” about the elephant’s tail, which the poet calls a “tapered rope of tail” and “a fancy tassel”;  the artists, of course, illustrated the tail as a rope.  The legs are called “great pillars” and “an architect’s dream,” so one leg is illustrated as a column.  This two-page spread of the book is marvelous.  You can see a little video clip of illustrations from the book here on the author’s website.

Really, I could go on and on.  I am definitely nominating this book for the poetry category of the Cybils this year, if someone doesn’t beat me to it!  This would make a fantastic addition to a study of elephants (of course!) or even if you’re just looking to enjoy different forms of poetry, since this book contains quite a few.  Highly Recommended!

Related Links:

For the Kids’ Poetry Challenge and in response to this book, the girls and I made collage elephants using my stash of scrapbooking papers.  Drawing is something that can really frustrate at least one my girls on any given day, especially when it’s something that’s prescribed.  I used this lesson plan from Deep Space Sparkle to help them draw their elephants.   Sort of.   No one is actually more eager than I for my children to simply take matters into their own hands and create, but again, an assignment to draw anything seems to sap the creativity out of them.  In fact, one of my daughters, she-who-shall-remain-nameless, doesn’t like to draw or color.  She does it only because I “make” her.  :-0  I do think that art is a very worthwhile endeavor, so it’s just one of those things that we do sometimes.  (By the way, does anyone have any tips for encouraging a child who just isn’t interested in such things?  I don’t necessarily want to make her do something she hates, but I do think there’s some value in honing these skills just a little.)

 

Louise's Elephant + My Reflection :-)

Lulu's Elephant

My Elephant

We finally replaced the chameleons! :-)

Still, when it’s all said and done, my art-avoiding daughter (‘though to be fair, it isn’t all art that she avoids–mainly just drawing or anything that requires precision) had a good time, and so did the rest of us.  There’s something very relaxing about paper, scissors, and glue.  I think I need to carve out some time for some scrap-therapy soon!  :-)

I’m really enjoying sharing poetry with my girls this month.  In fact, I’m thinking that it should be something that we don’t wait until next April to do again in such concentrated doses!  For more Poetry Friday posts this week, visit Random Noodling.  For more Kids’ Poetry Challenge posts, visit Brimful Curiosities.

Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night by Joyce Sidman

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I am happy to report that we have spent some time reading poetry this week.  Let me say up front that this is actually not something my girls look forward to.  I do look forward to it, but my pulling out a book of poems is most likely to elicit a groan from my girls, and especially from Lulu.  Louise is still very much enamored of being read anything aloud, so she doesn’t complain as much.  I believe that this is a worthy use of our time, not to mention enjoyable for me, so I soldier on. 

Most of the week we read from Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night by Joyce Sidman.  This poetry collection won a Newbery honor this year, a feat that I think is impressive, given that it’s an award undifferentiated by genre.  Of course, it was also shortlisted for a Cybil, as well as honored by several other awards which you can read about on the author’s website.  I have a confession:  when I checked this book out, I thought it had won a Caldecott Medal.  When I started reading it to my girls, I thought the library had made a mistake and had put the wrong type of sticker on the spine.  It was after I began writing this review that I realized that yes, this book did indeed win a Newbery honor.  All of this is certainly not to say that I don’t think it’s deserving; rather, it is to say that the illustrations in this book are wonderful.  Rick Allen used a method called relief printing to make the gorgeous illustrations.  It’s similar, I think, to the method used in this year’s Caldecott winner, A Sick Day for Amos McGee, which I love and reviewed here.  The illustrations in Dark Emperor are as lovely as the poetry.

So far I’ve discussed everything but what the book is about, haven’t I?  Dark Emperor is a collection of a dozen poems about nighttime and, to borrow a label from the Memphis Zoo, “the denizens of the dark.”  You’ll find a poem about a spider, a porcupette, mushrooms, and an eft.  Of course, the owl, the bat, and the moon are here, too.  One of my favorite poems is about the primrose moth, a species I’d never even heard of until I read this book.  And then there’s this poem about fungi, something my own lack of imagination would’ve never permitted me to dwell upon:

Like noses pink

in midnight air,

like giants’ ears,

like elfin hair,

Can’t you see them now?  I love these word pictures.

The other really neat thing about this book is the fact that each two page spread contains a.) a poem b.) an illustraton and c.) a column of well-written prose that gives the details of the subject of the facing poem.  In other words, this book could double as a science book.  I love that.  In fact, I could’ve used it when we studied owls or amphibians or spiders earlier this year. 

What else can I say?  I give this book a Highly Recommended.  I also have to note that this makes the fourth of the five Newbery designated titles I’ve read from this year’s awards.  (These are links to my other reviews:  Moon over Manifest, Turtle in Paradise, and One Crazy Summer.)  Go Amy!  :-)

Other Related links:

We also played along with the Kids’ Poetry Challenge at Brimful Curiosities this week.  I let the girls pick a poem from Dark Emperor to illustrate, and they both chose the lovely “Snail at Moonrise.”  I chose the last seven lines of the poem for the girls’ copywork (a stretch for five year old Louise, really, but she handled it beautifully!), and they drew their snails.  I complicated matters by offering the girls some sparkly paint in squeeze bottles, so the project suddenly became less about the drawing and more about the fun paint they got to use.  That’s a part of art, too, though, isn’t it?

This poem even inspired the girls to bring a snail shell in from outside.  Unbeknownst to all of us, the shell still had an inhabitant.  When the shy creature made his presence known on Tuesday, the girls spent some time observing it.  Unfortunately, it met with an untimely demise when I planted my size 8.5 foot upon it.  :-(    As of the writing of this blog post, I still haven’t broken the news to my girls.  :-(

Read more Poetry Friday links this week at Madigan Reads.

Read Aloud Thursday–Christmas around the World: Russia

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I am a child of the 1980s, so it’s sort of difficult for me to even say Russia without defaulting to the U.S.S.R.  ;-)   I took a year of Russian language study in high school, and this (along with the wonderfully charismatic teacher under whose spell I had fallen) birthed in me a love of the language and the country.  I can barely speak a few words and phrases of the language now, but I still find the country and culture enchanting, for some reason.   When I started thinking about our little Christmas around the World study for our homeschool, I decided that injecting a little Russian culture into our studies would be fun.  Actually, our St. Nicholas Day activities is what brought this Russian study about–reading about the importance of St. Nicholas to the Russian Orthodox got me to thinking about Russia, and then I read this post of Sprittibee’s.  It was a great confluence of rabbit trails!

When I first read Heather’s glowing recommendation (it’s #10 on the list) of Baboushka and the Three Kings by Ruth Robbins, I knew I had to find a copy of this little Caldecott medal winning story from 1961.  The book had to go back to the library already, so I’m working completely from memory here, but this story is a Russian legend about an old woman (a baboushka, or grandmother–see I do remember some Russian!) who turns away the Wise Men who invite her to accompany them on their search for the Christ Child.  Here’s a nice little summary of the legend from the Why Christmas site.    (Stop the presses!  While reading the summary, I came across a link to this article which disputes the origin of the so-called Russian legend.  The author of the article, who appears to be quite the Russian expert, says the legend is based on this 1907 poem by American Edmith M. Thomas.  Whatever.  It’s still a nice little legend.  We won’t quibble.)  The illustrations in Baboushka and the Three Kings are by Nicolas Sidjakov and are quite unusual.  They are pen-and-ink drawings with bold swaths of color.  The characters in the story are drawn very geometrically.  You can see what I mean by going here.  We all enjoyed this little Russian story, and I would love to own a copy of it for our own Christmas collection.  Do any of you know of any other Christmas stories set in Russia or any of the surrounding countries?  My search thus far has come up short.

Well, of course we had to make the matryoshkas that Heather made after I saw them.  Of course!  I own a little matryoshka that Steady Eddie and I bought a long time ago when we went to one of those traveling exhibits about the Romanovs, and my girls loveto get it out of the china cabinet and play with it.    Heather made hers out of those little paper bell-shaped ornaments that are usually available this time of year, but alas, I couldn’t find any.  We had to settle for wooden eggs.  :-)   This is yet another craft that was really too detailed and difficult for my girls, but we hung in there.  With a lot of help, the girls managed to each paint one matryoshka for our Christmas around the World tree and one to play with.  The fifth one is mine.  :-)

Since these pictures were taken, I’ve Mod-Podged them and Steady Eddie put an i-hook into the top of three of them to turn them into ornaments.  They, along with our paper towel poinsettias, now hang from the branches of our thus-far sparsely decorated Christmas around the World tree. 

That’s it for Christmas around the World at the House of Hope this year.  There was more that I wanted to do (as always–I’m waaaaaay too ambitious when it comes to what we can accomplish), but it will have to wait until next year.

What are your picks this week for read-alouds?  Tell me about them in the comments, or link up your own Read Aloud Thursday post!

More Poinsettias

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Friday, our last official day of school before Christmas holidays, was full of craftiness here at the House of Hope.  We made and painted salt dough ornaments, we made M & M cookies, and we sponge painted poinsettias.  These are our poinsettias, which I promised to post when I first mentioned them.  For instructions on how it’s done, visit here.  This project was a little ambitious for my girls, especially Louise, given their young ages (6 and 5).  I do think they turned out beautifully in the end, though.

Louise’s poinsettias painting:

Lulu’s poinsettias painting, which is just a little blurry due to my (lack of) photography skills:

I think these brighten up our little corner of the world nicely. 

What crafty things have you done this season?  Please share in the comments!

Christmas around the World: Mexico

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Hey!  Who’s in charge of this blog?!?!?

Oh, that would be ME.  :-)   After I declared last week that I was through with blogging ’til after Christmas, I began to regret not finishing a post or two I had in the works.  I didn’t want all that typing to go to waste, so here you go.  :-)

As much as I love history, I am still a little ambivalent about our study of ancient history this year since my girls are still so young.  I think the main problem I have with it is that I miss reading picture books to them and calling that history!  :-)   While we have found quite a few stories to share that pertain to our studies, somehow reading The Epic of Gilgamesh in picture-book format didn’t leave us with the warm-and-fuzzy feeling that many of our other histoy-related read-alouds have.  At any rate, I decided to take a break from our history curriculum in the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas break and just take a little cultural tour of a few countries via their Christmas traditions instead. 
First up was Mexico, a natural choice because there is no shortage of resources.   We were already quite familiar with some of the traditions because of the girls’ love for the American Girl Josefina’s story, but it has been a while since we’ve listened to these stories.  For a refresher I brought home Josefina’s Surprise:  A Christmas Story, and Lulu gobbled it right up in a couple of days.  Josefina lives in New Mexico, but of course, the traditions are the same. 

For us, of course, the joy comes in when we find “living books” to use for our studies.  In this case, these books were mostly in the form of Christmas legends from Mexico or other Spanish-speaking countries.  We read and enjoyed Nine Days to Christmas:  A Story of Mexico by Marie Hall Ets (my review here) a couple of years ago, and it was the first book the girls picked out of our library basket out of all the Christmas stories I had checked out a couple of weeks ago. In fact, they asked their Nana to read it to them one night that she was here, and of course, she complied.  We have also enjoyed The Gift of the Poinsettia by Pat Mora and Charles Ramirez Berg.  Both of these stories provide a nice overview of all the festivities surrounding Christmas in Mexico.  I was very pleasantly suprised by The Gift of the Poinsettia for a couple of reasons:  first, it goes through, night by night, all the daily activities that happen in Mexico in the days leading up to Christmas.  Second, it is in both English and Spanish.  Although I didn’t read it in Spanish to the girls, I like that it is an option.  :-)   Third, the boy in the story has a sweet relationship with his elderly aunt.  This book ends with yet another rendition of the legend of the poinsettia, and by now it’s one my girls are very familiar with. 


No study like this would be complete without a couple of Tomie DePaola titles, would it?  You probably already know the ones we used.  :-)   The Legend of the Poinsettia is one of them, of course!  I won’t mention much about this one because it’s probably one of the most well-known of all the legends DePaola has adapted as a picture book, but I did want to mention one more of his that we read and enjoyed. The Night of Las Posadas is a fictionalized account of the Mexican Christmas tradition of Las Posadas, with a twist.  Las Posadas is a festival celebrated for the nine nights preceding Christmas in which families walk in a procession throughout their neighborhoods, knocking on doors.  On Christmas Eve, a door opens to commemorate Mary and Joseph finding lodging in the place of the Nativity.  A young woman usually plays the role of Mary and a young man plays the role of Joseph.  In this DePaola tale, the couple portraying Mary and Joseph is detained, but someone does indeed play the part.  Who could it be? 

Although these legends are pretty far removed from our traditions, we enjoyed these tales.  In trying to flesh out exactly what I wanted this little study to look like this year, I decided to try to find at least one art activity for each country.  Poinsettias were the obvious choice for a craft, and ideas online abound.  So far, we’ve made this paper towel poinsettia (scroll down once you click the link).  I actually folded and glued the poinsettias, but I gave the girls undiluted liquid watercolors and some pipettes (eyedroppers) and let them have fun adding color.  After they dried (which took a while–the girls REALLY saturated the paper towels with paint!), we glued some tiny little gold beads to the centers.

Isn’t this a lovely deep red?   We also added leaves to ours:

I’d love to make these poinsettia sponge paintings with my girls, too.  If we get around to it, I’ll try to share pictures.

My plan is to have a Christmas around the World Christmas tree each year, and add to our hand-made ornaments.  These poinsettias will be the first to go on the tree. 

I think they’re beautiful.

After I had all but finished this post, I read this fantastic post at Simple Homeschool. I could’ve just scrapped my post and posted a link to that article instead.  Be sure to click over and read it, especially since it has several links for books about Christmas in other countries.  I’m definitely taking notes!

Okay, so this Read Aloud Thursday is rather unexpected, but maybe someone out there is playing along, anyway.  Link up in the comments, if you did! 

I’ll be back next Thursday, at least, with another post.  (And my regular readers will never believe me again. . .  :-)   )

Read Aloud Thursday–Birds Aplenty

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We finally left mammals behind in our science studies a few weeks ago and are now focusing on birds.  We do a fair amount of nonfiction reading most weeks, but when I can sneak in some fun fiction picture books, I do that, too.  One thing I noticed as I was searching the browser bins at my library is that there are lots and lots of books with birds (primarily ducks and chickens, it seems) as the characters.   I’m not sure why that is, but it works for us.  :-)

When Chickens Grow Teeth, an adaptation by Wendy Anderson Halperin of  a story by the nineteenth century French writer Guy De Maupassant, is funny and charming.  It’s the story of a “large, laughing man” named Antoine who lives in a small French village.  He is a café keeper and very gregarious.  His wife, on the other hand, is not.  Madame Colette’s temperament is compared to that of a wild boar, and she and Antoine are often at odds over what she judges as his laziness.  Their relationship worsens when Antoine falls from a ladder and is bedridden–now he is altogether useless in Colette’s mind.  Colette, though, does find a job for Antoine to do, and it’s one he vows he won’t do:  become a substitute brood hen for Colette’s flock of chickens.  You can imagine how funny this seems to kids.  We all had a big chuckle over this one.  It reminds me of this limerick by Edward Lear, probably because in the story Antoine has a long, Santa Claus-ish beard.  Wendy Anderson Halperin not only adapted this story, she also illustrated it, and the illustrations are gorgeous–very detailed and expressive, with lots of panels and action per page.  I’ve written about her illustrations before, and they really do bear a second look.  Visit her website for a sampling of her talent.
I’ve looked and looked online for a graphic of the cover of this next book, but I can’t find one. I can’t resist sharing it anyway. Egg Storyby Anca Hariton is one of those picture books that contains a good dose of factual information that is disguised by a fun story.  This one is simply the story of an egg and how it becomes a chick.  It contains a very gentle explanation, with just the right amount of information for older preschoolers or young elementary aged children.  I’ve read brief reviews of Hariton‘s illustrations in various places online, and they’re usually described as “European.”  (I think Hariton is Romanian.)  I’m not sure what that means, other than I think the illustrations are simple and warm.  This book is worth looking up if you’re studying birds.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Gail Gibbons’ Ducks! in this post.  I’ve written about Gail Gibbons, whom I consider the Queen of Juvenile Nonfiction, and her books before here and here and here , but for a bibliography, check here and here on her website.  Ducks! is classic Gibbons, with all sorts of factual information about ducks in general and the many different species of ducks.  We learned the difference between dabbling ducks and diving ducks, as well as many facts about the life cycle of the ducks, etc.  This is just a good title for an introduction to the animal.


I’m not sure what it is about penguins, but they are also a popular topic for children’s picture books.  In fact, I’ve blogged about penguin books a couple of times before (here and here), and it was from Janet‘s comments in one of those posts that I learned about A Penguin Story by Antoinette Portis.  This is a fun story about a little penguin named Edna who wants some color in her black, white, and blue world.  She finds it, of course, but where she finds it surprised and amused me.  I love an unexpected ending!  This book reminds me of 365 Penguins, just like Janet suggested.  :-)

This last book pulled double duty at the House of Hope this week.  I love it when books go cross-curricular! :-)   Lulu and I were talking about large numbers during her math time, and she is intrigued by the concept of a million.  I found it difficult to explain to her what a million is, and to be honest, I don’t think I quite grasp it myself.  I recently became an Usborne consultant (shameless plug:  here’s my site, should you need any Usborne books ;-) ), and one of the books that came in our first box is How Big Is a Million? by Anna Milbourne.  This is a sweet book about a little penguin named Pipkin who goes after the answer to the title question.  Of course, it is his wise mama who takes him outside to answer this question at the end of the story.  In order for the reader to see the answer, he or she must open an envelope at the back of the book and take out a huge poster.  On the poster is printed a million stars.  This is a very effective way for young children to get a glimpse of the enormity of a million of anything.  That this book happens to be about penguins is merely a cute bonus.  :-)

Last week we ended our school week with an art activity based on this lesson from Deep Space Sparkle.  We used tempera paint on watercolor paper, and I’m not sure this was the best medium for this activity.  We enjoyed it, though, and that’s what’s important!  :-)

My penguin:

Louise’s penguin:

Lulu’s penguin:

Well, I could go on and on about birds, but I won’t, at least this week.  ;-)   I will simply leave you with a list of (even more!) related links:

Link up your Read Aloud Thursday posts below!

Sketch Tuesday (on a Monday)

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At the the beginning of the school year, sketching was an intentional part of our week.  Now that I’m trying to vary the type of artwork we do each week, the girls are more or less taking the lead on their Sketch Tuesday sketches.  They enjoy doing them and seeing their sketches in Barb‘s slideshow each week.  This week, when I told my girls the assignment, they pulled out the oil pastels and got to work before the words had barely escaped my lips.  I’ll confess that when I told them to draw something with an antenna, I was thinking phones and electronic devices.  They weren’t.  :-)

Lulu’s sketch:

Louise’s sketch: