The Monsters vs Little Bo Peep

...aka The Beauty of Child-Directed Work! :)

Delaney has really been enjoying all of our monster books lately. Some of our favorites are "There's a Monster in My House", "Leonardo the Terrible Monster", and "Go Away, Big Green Monster".  (P.S. "Go Away.." is only $6.81 on Amazon right now, for the hardcover. That is a REALLY good deal. Maybe Amazon should consider sponsoring this blog. Haha.)

Anyhow, we have been reading these books multiple times daily, so I decided it was time to do some artwork. I got out a large green piece of paper, lots of different shapes, glue and googly eyes. I envisioned Delaney making an AMAZING green monster to hang on the wall.

While I put Sophie down to nap, Delaney sorted through the materials and found some pre-cut sheep in the bag. By the time I had returned, she was arranging them on her paper and looking for the glue. I told her that we were making a monster today, not a field of sheep. She informed me that they were Little Bo Peep's lost sheep, and she needed a Little Bo Peep to put on the paper with them.

What a great idea.

We said the nursery rhyme a few times, which she knows by memory, while I looked online for a printable Bo Peep. DLTK has a bunch of great nursery rhyme printables, and we found everything we needed.

She added some cotton to some of her sheep to make them wooly. Pulling apart cotton is an excellent fine motor muscle builder. It's more difficult than it looks for little bitty fingers.

Finally, she wrote her name with a little help. The "D", "L" and second "E" were independent.

I have never been the type of teacher to stick to a lesson plan at all costs... (even though I am sure this gives some teachers/administrators heart attacks)...I have always been open to new directions based on what the students are interested in, and just fit my skills lessons in with the activities we end up with. I find that everyone ends up enjoying the project more, and probably learns more because the learning is definitely less forced. I think this philosophy will be well-suited for Delaney, and we will add a little more structure in as she gets older. During this particular activity, we worked on rhyming, counting, fine motor, writing letters and a little bit of science while we talked about sheep. I couldn't have planned it better. Great job, Delaney. It was a fantastic idea, and a lot of fun.

Maybe we will make a monster next week. :)

Water Paint

Delaney hasn't really shown much interest in learning how to write, but she loves to paint and draw with chalk. While it was nice outside last week, she asked if she could water paint, and I turned it into a nice opportunity to practice writing numbers and her name.

Water painting is the least messy painting ever. All you need is a nice big paint brush, a flat area outside, preferably a lot of sunshine, and a bowl of water, and there you go.

I drew numbers 1-5 on the patio with chalk, and she named them. I painted on top of the 1 to show her how to paint it, and she painted all of her numbers for awhile.



I wrote her name with some chalk, and she painted the D, then decorated around her name.


I love this art activity. No mess, many, many possibilities, and plenty of room for creativity.

Spontaneous Glue Art!

Delaney and I were getting ready to work on a cutting and gluing project, and she began without me. I discovered a piece of paper with a HUGE glue puddle, instead of the little dots I was expecting.

But, you know, most great art isn't actually planned and carried out exactly according to plan, right?

I let her add a few more big puddles to the paper.

I took some food coloring (she chose red) and put 1-2 drops in each glue puddle. I took a toothpick and showed her house to move the coloring around to create some fun patterns, gave her a few toothpicks of her own, and set her free!

It was a good project for fine motor skills - maneuvering a small toothpick takes lots of finger muscles! It was also perfect for tracing various shapes, talking about what abstract things resemble, and definitely let her creativity run free.

Once the glue and food coloring dries, it looks like a thick gloss, and looks and feels pretty cool. We may do this again intentionally on a pattern of some sort.