We had more snow today, so stayed at home. JediBoy was looking for interesting things to do together the moment he woke up. We spent some time cuddling in bed, half-listening to NPR and watching the snow fall, and talking about all kinds of things - snow, rain and ice, holidays, days of the week, months of the year, birthdays, birthday parties, and then more specifically his ideas for his fifth birthday (not until June) - he wants a “Jack and Annie” party - bonus points for you if you know what that means! - and wants to invite the twin girls from his soccer team.
When we came downstairs, JediBoy found one of the DK Let’s Explore Science books - Make it Balance. We spent about half an hour trying things out: Can you stand on one foot? Can you balance a pillow on your head? A book on your knee? A pencil on your finger? His favorite thing was to walk along a line of masking tape as if it were a tightrope. He disappeared into his playroom for a minute and came back with a wrapping paper tube that had most recently seen use as a bo staff, and used it to help him balance.
Later in the day he asked to “do math” which is really just his code for doing something interesting at his desk. We read the four red Bob Books (level one), started a Perler bead dolphin, played with our set of foam pattern blocks (especially the green triangles, which it turns out can make the TriForce), quizzed each other with the abacus, talked about odd and even numbers, played with the wooden pieces from Handwriting Without Tears, colored, and practiced writing numbers.
I’d been leafing through my Preschool Art book by MaryAnn Kohl, and had found an art project we’d actually never tried. Naturally, my excitement was infectious, and JediBoy was game. After clearing the newspaper, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, empty water bottle, crayons, scissors and paper as well as two cereal bowls from the kitchen table…
Pour a puddle of liquid starch onto the table. (It helps that we use my grandmother’s old enamel top table in the kitchen.) Onto that, pour a small pile of dry tempera paint.
Go!
Basically, for JediBoy, it was a fingerpainting session. But then the idea is that whenever a particularly cool design is created, PisecoMom swoops in with a fresh sheet of paper and takes a print of it. JediBoy loved this, and quickly got into the swing of it, raking his fingers through the paint and hollering “PRINT IT!”
We started with blue paint…
added yellow to make green (it was at this point that I turned my back and JediBoy poured an extra cup full of starch onto the table), then added red to make first red-and-green swirls…
and later muck brown. More red, more red, and more red made a vivid deep red at the end. We printed more than 40 pages!
I don’t have good photos yet of the prints - many of them curled while drying and I’ll need to iron them flat.
JediBoy did take a bit of a break to watch two videos, but then asked me to make him his knight costume to match the one we borrowed from the parent center. I had him helping me and we made significant progress on the tunic (no sleeves, of course, just a simple sheet with neck hole…) before my bobbin ran out, and I just hate winding bobbins, so I told him we’d save that and finishing the tunic for tomorrow. Then hopefully I’ll be able to figure out the hood / helmet on Wednesday before we have to return the originals on Thursday! You’ll definitely get the pictures when that’s done, so stay tuned.
