Monday, February 6, 2012
Monday Morning Lit Review!
Friends, readers, it is time to introduce a regular, weekly feature to this baby! And what better way to spend my time than telling all of you about the gems we've found in our reading escapades?! So without further ado, I introduce you to a little something that will become a regular: The Monday Morning Lit Review [I know it's not morning anymore, but normally I will aim for the morning!].
So go grabba cuppa..... cuppa tea, cuppa coffee, cuppa whatever floats your boat. And here we go!
This first little number is quite possibly the funniest book (of any genre, kids or adults) that I have read in the last five years. A Day in the Life of Murphy, by Alice Provensen, is about an average day in the life of a small dog living on a small farm. It sounds basic enough, but it is written in such a charming, hilarious way that truly captures the essence of this cooky terrier. It is available through Simon and Schuster here: http://books.simonandschuster.com/Day-in-the-Life-of-Murphy/Alice-Provensen/9781416918004 for much less than the current Amazon price.
Another wonderful book we read recently, which coincidentally was also quite amusing, was Gee Whiz: It's All About Pee, written by Susan E. Goodman and illustrated by Elwood H. Smith. The book goes through history, giving facts about how different societies dealt with urine, and it is extremely informative.....albeit somewhat gross at times! And the pictures were a huge contribution to the book: some of them were very funny, some of them creative, but all of them really stood their own, rather than simply being a complement to the written text. And of course, reading a book about urine really played to a preschooler's interests!
More reviews next Monday...!
So go grabba cuppa..... cuppa tea, cuppa coffee, cuppa whatever floats your boat. And here we go!
This first little number is quite possibly the funniest book (of any genre, kids or adults) that I have read in the last five years. A Day in the Life of Murphy, by Alice Provensen, is about an average day in the life of a small dog living on a small farm. It sounds basic enough, but it is written in such a charming, hilarious way that truly captures the essence of this cooky terrier. It is available through Simon and Schuster here: http://books.simonandschuster.com/Day-in-the-Life-of-Murphy/Alice-Provensen/9781416918004 for much less than the current Amazon price.
Another wonderful book we read recently, which coincidentally was also quite amusing, was Gee Whiz: It's All About Pee, written by Susan E. Goodman and illustrated by Elwood H. Smith. The book goes through history, giving facts about how different societies dealt with urine, and it is extremely informative.....albeit somewhat gross at times! And the pictures were a huge contribution to the book: some of them were very funny, some of them creative, but all of them really stood their own, rather than simply being a complement to the written text. And of course, reading a book about urine really played to a preschooler's interests!
More reviews next Monday...!
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Friday, January 6, 2012
On colors...a wrap-up post
I have been MIA lately.... the little man has done the last couple of posts. To be fair to myself, in the few weeks since I've written a post, we've celebrated three out of our four birthdays, we've had finals for Mr. A and I, we've had Nana, Grandad, and Uncle D visiting, and with Christmas and New Years it has been the busiest season of the year. So yes, a little hectic around these parts.
But Bear has done me proud; he has done three posts, predominantly by himself. The blog was actually a huge project for our colors unit (as you can likely tell). In his colors Preschool Theme Kit (from the library) he had a book about mixing colors and it had a color wheel, and he would look in his book to find a color and then search for images of that color. The last two posts were entirely by himself, after having learned how to search for, save, and post images with my instruction during the first post. So it was a computer project as well, and I'm actually quite impressed that he has learned these skills so quickly.
But, alas, we have long since wrapped up our unit on colors and are about to jump into our next unit, so I thought it would be a good idea to cast away our projects to our e-memories before they are forgotten. To be completely honest, I've already forgotten some of what we did in colors, as it has been several weeks. So here are the major projects, but keep in mind that there was likely a lot more work done...!
In this unit, we had some serious fun with FOOD COLORING! I made a simple dough out of flour and water, and then Bear added some drops of dye to it. He was thrilled by dropping the coloring into the dough, a little bored by smooshing it around at first, and then thrilled again once it started to get all swirly.
We had lots of fun swirling it into snakes, and then rolling the snakes into roses, and then squashing the whole thing out and starting over again. I was supposed to be cleaning the kitchen while he was doing this, but I have to admit I kept coming over to have a turn. I could seriously play with dough all day long. Bear also found it infinitely amusing that his hands looked like this for the remainder of the day:
So did I, to be honest. We were not quite as amused by our previous colors project, however. As for the actual project, it was loads of fun. Bear's aunt had bought him a color spinning wheel for his birthday; the gist of it is that it has a rotating potter's wheel that you attach a paper to and squirt paint at. It was a blast! And I had moved everything in the vicinity.....or so I thought. It turns out that paint flies a lot farther than I'd anticipated, and we ended up splattering paint all over the [highly wallpapered] wall seen above. It also turns out that rainbow paint does not come off a silky-threaded wallpaper. Thus we have our own Jackson Pollock in the middle of the dining room. I have a feeling the landlords will not see it in this light when it comes time to return the house. But on a lighter note, this mess resulted in some awesome art:
One activity that did not involve food dye or mess was this game that we found on PBSkids.org, in the Curious George section. Although some of the mixtures are inaccurate, it's a really fun way to experiment with mixing different colors and particularly to get a grasp of how adding white lightens paint colors.
The last project that I remember was, at face value, an epic failure. I remember a project from elementary school where you put white flowers in colored water, and after a few days you end up with dyed petals; I figured this would be a fun colors project and biology lesson in one.
We went through all the steps (I think...) but after about a week and a half, we still had white flowers (albeit in slightly stinkier water). At this point, we tipped it all out. I don't know if there was some major step that we were missing, but basically, we just did: water in jar, dye in jar, cut flower, put flower in jar, stare at flower expectantly. Does anyone have advice on how to do this project?
Anyway, although it seemed like a bust, it was a good lesson in Mommy-doesn't-always-know-what-she's-doing, and in the long run it's something we can try again the next time we do colors or when we do plants. And repeating trials, researching our errors, and refining our methods, are all steps Mr. A and I wish to encourage. So the flower flop will have value after all.
In reflection, I think I need to do some more research before the next time we do colors, because it is an area I love but was not able to do justice to this time. Also, I think the blog posts were a huge success because Bear has since mentioned twice that he wants to incorporate a blog project into our next unit...hooray! So now we jump into The Human Body!! We have already hunted for materials, checked out our theme kit from the library, and read the start of a very funny book on pee. We're pretty stoked.
But Bear has done me proud; he has done three posts, predominantly by himself. The blog was actually a huge project for our colors unit (as you can likely tell). In his colors Preschool Theme Kit (from the library) he had a book about mixing colors and it had a color wheel, and he would look in his book to find a color and then search for images of that color. The last two posts were entirely by himself, after having learned how to search for, save, and post images with my instruction during the first post. So it was a computer project as well, and I'm actually quite impressed that he has learned these skills so quickly.
But, alas, we have long since wrapped up our unit on colors and are about to jump into our next unit, so I thought it would be a good idea to cast away our projects to our e-memories before they are forgotten. To be completely honest, I've already forgotten some of what we did in colors, as it has been several weeks. So here are the major projects, but keep in mind that there was likely a lot more work done...!
In this unit, we had some serious fun with FOOD COLORING! I made a simple dough out of flour and water, and then Bear added some drops of dye to it. He was thrilled by dropping the coloring into the dough, a little bored by smooshing it around at first, and then thrilled again once it started to get all swirly.
We had lots of fun swirling it into snakes, and then rolling the snakes into roses, and then squashing the whole thing out and starting over again. I was supposed to be cleaning the kitchen while he was doing this, but I have to admit I kept coming over to have a turn. I could seriously play with dough all day long. Bear also found it infinitely amusing that his hands looked like this for the remainder of the day:
So did I, to be honest. We were not quite as amused by our previous colors project, however. As for the actual project, it was loads of fun. Bear's aunt had bought him a color spinning wheel for his birthday; the gist of it is that it has a rotating potter's wheel that you attach a paper to and squirt paint at. It was a blast! And I had moved everything in the vicinity.....or so I thought. It turns out that paint flies a lot farther than I'd anticipated, and we ended up splattering paint all over the [highly wallpapered] wall seen above. It also turns out that rainbow paint does not come off a silky-threaded wallpaper. Thus we have our own Jackson Pollock in the middle of the dining room. I have a feeling the landlords will not see it in this light when it comes time to return the house. But on a lighter note, this mess resulted in some awesome art:
One activity that did not involve food dye or mess was this game that we found on PBSkids.org, in the Curious George section. Although some of the mixtures are inaccurate, it's a really fun way to experiment with mixing different colors and particularly to get a grasp of how adding white lightens paint colors.
The last project that I remember was, at face value, an epic failure. I remember a project from elementary school where you put white flowers in colored water, and after a few days you end up with dyed petals; I figured this would be a fun colors project and biology lesson in one.
We went through all the steps (I think...) but after about a week and a half, we still had white flowers (albeit in slightly stinkier water). At this point, we tipped it all out. I don't know if there was some major step that we were missing, but basically, we just did: water in jar, dye in jar, cut flower, put flower in jar, stare at flower expectantly. Does anyone have advice on how to do this project?
Anyway, although it seemed like a bust, it was a good lesson in Mommy-doesn't-always-know-what-she's-doing, and in the long run it's something we can try again the next time we do colors or when we do plants. And repeating trials, researching our errors, and refining our methods, are all steps Mr. A and I wish to encourage. So the flower flop will have value after all.
In reflection, I think I need to do some more research before the next time we do colors, because it is an area I love but was not able to do justice to this time. Also, I think the blog posts were a huge success because Bear has since mentioned twice that he wants to incorporate a blog project into our next unit...hooray! So now we jump into The Human Body!! We have already hunted for materials, checked out our theme kit from the library, and read the start of a very funny book on pee. We're pretty stoked.
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