We continued with our Art unit without doing any actual art. Neither of the kids was interested in sitting down to do arts and crafts but both were very interested in reading (the complete opposite of how it usually is). So, we skipped the hands-on activities I had planned and did reading and discussion instead.
We read Harold and the Purple Crayon and pointed out all the different lines he used. We named curvy, straight, wavy, horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines. We looked at People and Dog in the Sun by Miro and The Purple Robe by Matisse and read the appropriate sections in What Your Kindergartener Needs to Know.
We discussed warm and cool colors by looking at Tahitian Landscape by Gauguin and Hunters in the Snow by Bruegel. George had a little trouble with this concept but enjoyed making up stories about the paintings. He thought it was cold in Tahitian Landscape because of the clouds in the sky but then decided the mountain was a volcano which was going to explode.
We did MEP Lesson 8 for our Math. I used Unifix cubes to make number strips and discussed how many 2's in takes to make a 4, how many 3's to make 6, there's two 4's in 10 with 2 left over, etc. After doing the Lesson, I just let George play with the blocks and he did some on his own including some subtraction (if you have 10 and take away 2, you have 8).
To keep Vicki amused and mostly out of his hair I gave her some of the Unifix blocks that had numbers printed on them. She would take one and match it up to the number lines we have posted then call out "Mommy is this a seven?"
We did some scissors practice using paint cards (I don't remember where I found this idea). Georgie usually resists using scissors but he loved this. He liked the idea of cutting on the white line in between the colors. I did get him the Kumon Cutting book but he's been so resistant that I wanted to get him some general practice before giving him the book since I didn't want it to be a total waste.
After lunch we took a walk and looked for signs of Spring. It's a beautiful day in the 70's so absolutely perfect. We saw lots of squirrels, which Vicki called "very pretty chipmunks" and heard lots of birds including mourning doves (about the only ones I can identify by sound), a woodpecker and something going "tweet-hoo". Vicki loved stopping to listen every few feet to "hear the birdies". We'll have to check with Grandpa Charlie (our family bird watcher) on what some of the most common birds are that we hear around here. We had to take down our bird feeders last year because of the bears but hopefully we'll be able to set up something this year. We saw a robin.....
some flowers just beginning to grow, and some crocuses already in bloom.
Vicki kept bringing me interesting things she found including an acorn cap, pretty rocks, sticks and leaves. She was much more into the nature walk idea than Georgie. He just wanted to "win the race" even though noone else was rushing.
By the time we got back home (we walked about 1/2 mile, part of it with Vicki riding piggy-back) we were ready for a rest.
Everything we read today:
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