Bookbag craft

Here is another one of the homemade gifts we gave at Christmas—hand painted canvas book bags. A little clichéd, I know, but when I saw the bags on sale at Joann's I couldn't pass it up.

Supplies: Canvas bag (or apron, etc.), fabric paints, pipe cleaners, sponge shapes, brushes, and fabric pens/markers.

1. First we made our stamps. Depending on who is doing this craft you could simply paint right on the bags, but with my three year old helper I decided that shape stamping would work better and we made the necessary shapes out of pipe cleaners and sponges. For flower stems I twisted one pipe cleaner into the shape of two leaves, then wrapped them around another straight pipe cleaner. For the grass I cut a pipe cleaner down a bit, then folded it in half to make two short blades of grass. With both of the stem and the grass I folded up one tip to use as a handle. For the flower heads we used a heart shaped sponge, and for the center just a dab with a paint brush.

2. Once we'd made our shapes I poured the paints onto small dessert plates, one color to a plate, and we dabbed our shapes into the paint, using a brush to make sure they were well coated before applying them to the canvas. We ended up with quite a bit of color mixing, of course. I allowed the bags to dry overnight before painting the second side, which I decided should have Calvin's adorable little hand prints, and he decided should have a few more shapes as well.

3. I finished this craft by writing on the bags with fabric markers (after they'd dried over night again). Done.

Zanzibar Road, by Niki Daly (review)

We love to look for books with animal characters at the library, and that's exactly what drew us to Zanzibar Road, with its cover of whimsically drawn African animals. As I flipped through it initially, before we brought it home for the week, I was pleased to see that it was broken into five different short story chapters, one of my favorite things about books like Frog and Toad.

As it turns out, the book is cute but pretty one dimensional; it doesn't have any of the richness that makes the Frog and Toad stories such classics, and I can't really say it's well-endowed in the arena of the plot. One might even call it vapid, but a little humor here and a little problem-solving there keeps me from fully condemning it as such.

Even after that raving review, I can't really say that I dislike the book, I just don't really enjoy it, and there are so many better ones out there. Calvin, on the other hand, seems to enjoy it just fine, and although I would say he's not nearly as engaged with the story as he is with others, we all enjoy a little light reading from time to time, and this book is definitely that, with a little enjoyable whimsy on the side.

Worksheets

I thought about titling this post "the best laid plans" and still think it is probably the more likely title. When we embarked on our homeschooling journey about a year ago, it was with the particular purpose of not schooling at all in the strict sense of the word; we consider ourselves unschoolers. A large part of homeschooling, however, specifically of home unschooling, is the ability to be flexible and to let the child lead the way.

After reading several books by David Elkind, and my favorite education book, Emile, I felt very at ease with the idea of reading and writing could and should wait. I had no qualms about Calvin eventually becoming a reader—he is surrounded by books, people who loves books, and people who love reading to him, not to mention that he, himself absolutely loves to be read to and to "read" to himself and his friends and toys. We'll get there eventually, I figured, and until then, no pressure.

So what happens when the kid starts pressuring you? When he first wrote his name by himself over a week ago it was really just the start down a slippery slope of sorts. I dragged my feet. Sure he could write his name, but I didn't think that meant open season the the first two of the three Rs. It was the very next day, though, that he started asking me to help him learn how to make other letters by writing them out so he could trace them. I grudgingly complied. Then I started to write my letters out in dots and dashes so he could truly trace over them, and then, as he was asking for more and more letters while I was trying to make lunch, I gave in fully and found a few preschool letter worksheets online and printed them. He seemed to find them almost as exciting as his train, and I had to convince him to put them aside to eat lunch.

It was then that I had to remind myself of my original goal: to let the kid lead the way. Well, here he was, leading the way while pulling me along behind him, my feet dragging all the while. Sure I'd set out to save him from rigid educational structures and from being a slave to worksheets such as these, but enjoying them wholeheartedly at his own pace was far from being enslaved. You could say that I'd missed the forest for the trees, or perhaps the learning for the worksheet, but I'm back on track...for now.

 

I'm the Best Artist in the Ocean, by Kevin Sherry (review)

I can't really say this is a sequel to Sherry's I'm the Biggest Thing in the Ocean (if you've read it you'll know why), but it's the same players in the same tone and with the same kind of twist at the end. I'm the Best Artist in the Ocean seems, somehow, a little kinder (not that the first one is really a problem, mind you). I like the bright and simple illustrations in both books, and I also love that they're just silly books—no lessons of any kind to learn. Calvin loves the characters.

Never underestimate

I was in the kitchen preparing a meal to go in the crockpot, looking forward to a day of fun and relaxing since the chores were done. Calvin was in his play room coloring on his easel and calling out every once and again about his work.

"This is a big window in brown"

"I'm using green to make hand turkeys."

The final cry announced that he was finished drawing and would move on to playing with his trains, so, out of a habit that has yet to form, I said "make sure you put your name on your artwork!" wondering, as I said it, at the futility of the statement. To whom else could it possibly belong? And he can't write anyhow, let alone spell out his own name on paper.

A few minutes later I finished with the crockpot meal and joined the little guy in the play room. Well I'll be.

Many times I have told myself, and others, to be careful about underestimating the abilities of children. In my care to follow a learning path that was unschooled and desire driven we have yet to work on any reading or writing skills, and though we've often spelled his name out together verbally or with magnets, we have never practiced forming letters in any way physically. Jon, when he got home, called this an obvious desire to learn how to read and write and declared open season on that subject. I'm not sold yet, but I do think this is pretty darn neat.