Schoolwork

Georgia has begun doing "schoolwork" out of a large preschool workbook that I bought at Costco. Mainly it is just tracing lines and letters with some coloring thrown in. I let her do it when she feels like it and she often says she needs to do her schoolwork. She often gets frustrated at writing the letters, but is getting quite good at writing the letter "O" and recognizing 23 out of 26 alphabet letters.

I bought her this for two reasons. One, many of her friends are now attending preschool and talk about school to her. I wanted to give her a reference for schoolwork and be able to converse and have a sense of what they were talking about. Secondly, I think that letter recognition is invaluable and it doesn't hurt to give her opportunities for this as well as to develop her fine motor skills.

Art

Our kids love to paint. They scribble, they slather, they drip paint everywhere and love every minute of it. If you ask them if they want to do art, they come running and are as eager as can be. I have a mixture of watercolors, finger paints, poster paints, and some unidentifiable glitter paints in our art box. All of those come out and they go to town on their splat mat in the middle of the living room.

Theo mainly likes to scoop up HANDFULS of finger paint and open and close his hands. Georgia mainly likes to paint with a brush and then proceeds to paint an entire page one color. Blue is a favorite color for her at this point.

Anywho, art around here is usually a Sunday morning experience that makes me smile. Jon and Kate get pretty nervous with it and avoid it like the plague, but I sit back and enjoy the view of happy and contented kids making a huge mess.

Friends

Here is Georgia and her friend CiCi frosting Valentine's Day cookies.

Nature Art

I try to give the kids some art time at least 3-4 times a week. I wish it were more, but in my 35 weeks pregnant status (not to mention our home is on the market), art time doesn't happen daily like I would prefer.

For me, art is about experimenting and getting messy. I find it essential to give the kids supplies and possibly some small directions, and let them set upon their own creations. Often they need baths afterwards because Theo has either rubbed his face with a glue stick and Georgia has stamped the color of her arms and hands into a darkened rainbow of hues. I don't mind that the kids are covered in paint/marker/glue/glitter and think it is evidence of time well spent.

Last week we took a neighborhood walk and gathered items that seemed interesting. I gave both of them large ziploc bags and they scavenged leaves, bark, small pebbles, empty nut shells, spring flowers (in January!), and moss. We then went home and got out the glue and glued away. Theo lost interest after the first two gluings, but Georgia glued her entire paper for thirty minutes. She did a fantastic job gluing and even showed me that rocks and large pieces of bark could be glued down with simple Elmer's glue. What did I know?