Families

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Today we began to talk about families. First we looked at the calendar and practiced our number counting and the month and date information. Once we were done with routine we read the story The Seven Silly Eaters by Mary Ann Hoberman. This is one of my favorite stories about a woman who has 7 children that all have particular tastes in food. Once we were done with the story we counted how many children she had. Then we talked about the fact that there were 9 people in their family. Each child had the opportunity to talk about their family if they were able. I asked them how many children were in their family and and then how many people were in their family total including mom and dad. Once that was established I explained the art work that we would do. I had a framed sheet of paper for each child. I put one up and drew people explaining that if they did not know how to draw their family members they could use circles for heads and ovals and triangles for the bodies. I then showed them how to add things such as arms, legs, hair, eyes, and mouths. It was a good reminder of our shapes. I passed out the paper and away they went. I turned to read M's school papers and looked back and G's paper. She a a great drawing of a person. She had just told me she did not know how to draw people she is just 3 years old. I praised her for her great job and she flatly said "AP did it for me". I was a bit bummed that I had made such a big deal about it, hoping that she did not feel bad that she had not done it, but from her reaction I don't think that she did. It would have been nice to add going over with each child what they had drawn, but with the younger 2 that was not a possibility for me. The 2 that I have posted are from my older 2 M and AP.
When we were all done with the coloring we headed outside for some fresh air. We worked on skipping, galloping, hopping, and just plain old running. They were all happy to be playing. G and AP were pretending to be the wicked step sisters from Cinderella and the mean looks they were making scared even me:0)