Crafty days

As anticipated, we didn't get any bookwork done the last two days. We've been busy with 4-H projects instead. Yesterday we went to the American Kids Crafts project. It was inspired by the American Girl books and associated craft projects, but due to the number of boys in the project, the leader promised to make no mention of them, lol. First the kids made clay pinch pots which they'll paint next month. Everyone had a great time with that, even Greyson. Next the kids made dream catchers out of embroidery hoops and yarn. Very cute. Cameron and Cassia both hung their dream catchers above their beds and we sprayed them with Happy Dreams spray (an aromatherapy spray that a friend of mine makes) as an added touch. Apparently they work quite well.

Today it was my turn to lead a project on puppetry. We made puppets out of construction paper cut-outs, traced from storybooks, and glued them onto popsicle sticks. Since we are coding this as a drama project, instead of arts & crafts, I wanted to focus more on the art of giving a puppet show than on the act of making the puppets. We started off with a demonstration by C&C who performed "Baa Baa, Black Sheep" for the group with puppets that I made last night.
Next I provided some traced characters from several other rhymes and told the kids (aged 5 - 7) to get in groups, pick a poem, and then they could either use my tracings or draw their own characters. It was so hard to step back and just let the kids do it "wrong" (for example, coloring and decorating the tracing paper rather than using it as a template) but I did. Next I gave them a few minutes to practice and then they performed their masterpieces. The girls did "The Five Little Kittens Who Lost Their Mittens" and the boys did "Hey, Diddle Diddle." I have to say, the girls were a bit more organized both in their puppet show production and actual puppet making. In fact, the boys didn't even stick to the right characters nor did they even realize that until they were performing the play! LOL, but it was cute and they all did a great job in the end.

So we can call all that History, Social Studies, and Fine/Performing Arts. I guess we could call it Literature too since we were reciting poetry and M7 can even call it Reading since she read the Three Little Kittens from the book while the girls performed their show. Since we're counting up "work," we also read part of I Once Was a Monkey: Stories Buddha Told as a bedtime story last night and plan to do so again tonight. We had time (and I was willing, lol) to do schoolwork after we got home from 4-H today but Cameron chose to watch Harry Potter instead. I know I keep swearing that we need to get into the habit of doing it every day but I really do consider 4-H school time... just not enough to give free video game time for it!

Tomorrow is ballet and then a field trip to another pumpkin patch, but all that is not until the afternoon so I am really going to try to get some work in during the morning. I just wish there was some way I could stop them from turning on the tv as soon as they wake up. It's so hard to get anyone motivated after that - including me. I guess I could unplug it? But I so enjoy our slow mornings. I really need a few minutes, myself, to wake up in front of the computer before I can get going for the day... or maybe I just tell myself that and I should unplug the computer too! Hmmm, food for thought.

And just for fun... Linus, week 3