Artwork Extravaganza

We'll begin today's artwork extravaganza by paying tribute to Disney's acquisition of the rights to Star Wars. In truth most of these picture were taken before Disney's announcement but rest assured that our girls are always excited about Star Wars so they were certainly excited to hear there will be more.

Rachel drew this picture for Andrew while he was at a scout leader training meeting one Saturday last month:

She brought it to me and apologized for not writing my name on the paper—it just wasn't something she thought I'd enjoy.

"I just can't remember what it's called. It's like a bunch of planets up in space and...oh, why am I asking you? You wouldn't understand; it's a Star Wars thing. Trust me, you don't know this word."

Galaxy. The word she was looking for was galaxy. I might not get all hopped up on Star Wars but I do know what a galaxy is.



Last Friday, after school, Rachel made this:



It's a model of the ships in Star Wars strung right across her bedroom from the closet door to her bunk bed. The Millennium Falcon (on the far right) was added after Andrew came home and made it for her (from an origami tutorial he found online).

The next morning all three of the Star Wars nerds in our house spent some time making another Millennium Falcon (for Miriam this time).



This is a picture Miriam drew yesterday:

Once she told me it was Princess Leia (but another time she told me it was Rachel when she was a little baby and another time she told me it was Joseph Smith's mother...so I'm not really sure who it is but we'll stick with Leia for now).

Miriam's suddenly become very interested in spelling things. This is a picture she drew of The Little House on the Prairie; her words somehow say Laura, Carrie, Ma, Pa, and wagon:

The girls filled in another chore chart and their reward this time was a popcorn party while watching Mirror, Mirror (it's on Netflix). They love the last song, though they can't understand many of the words. Miriam often twirls around the living room while singing the chorus, which she thinks goes like this: "Mama-lee! Mama-lee! Mama-lee!...[and so forth].... La! La!"

This is a picture Miriam drew of Snow White. She wrote they lyrics (as to her understanding):

Yes, that's an envelope. My children draw on anything they can get their hands on. They have stolen Andrew's papers from the printer as they're printing. They also get into the envelopes. Here's another one, but this one was actually used for its intended purpose: giving something to someone else. 

Sealed inside is a lollypop Miriam picked out for me from her Halloween stash. She's constantly sharing candy with everyone; it's no wonder her Halloween bag is almost empty while Rachel's is still rather full. Just this morning I heard this exchange:

Rachel: Miriam, will you give me a Skittle?
Miriam: I already gave you a Skittle.
Rachel: But I want another one. Please? Please? Please?
Miriam: No. Get your own Skittles.
Rachel: Please.
Miriam: No. I already shared!
Rachel: Please!
Miriam: No.
Rachel: I said please!
Me: Rachel, eat your own candy!
Rachel: Fine!

I'm positive she rolled her eyes when she said that, though I was in the other room with Benjamin.

Anyway, here is another one of Miriam's drawings. It's called, "Grey, Grey Night."

She's beginning to leave her drawings unfolded (though you can still see creases in some of her pictures above) and we're suddenly amazed with her artistic abilities. Last we knew she could hardly hold a crayon, then the paper-folding stage happened, and now she's like a little Picasso. The in-between stage was so secretive; part of me wonders what her drawings looked like between scribbles and detailed drawings. I suppose we'll never know—they're all taped up, stapled closed, and sucked on.

This last one reminds me of the three muses:

Unfortunately Miriam decided that she "mess up" so it was used for letter practice. We were spelling Carrie's name on another paper and she had no problem with C, A, R, or I but when we got to E she wasn't quite sure what to do so she whipped out this paper and said, "Like this?" while she drew an upside down lowercase e (the thing that looks like a 6 or a G in the middle of the page on the bottom). I was rather impressed bu still showed her the right way to make both a lowercase and uppercase E. Like most children, she found the horizontal lines in E to be quite enjoyable to write.

And now for Rachel. She's been doing some great work at school, though her classroom is somewhat crazy. There were twenty-seven students in her kindergarten class this year. There were at least twenty-seven students in every kindergarten class in her school this year. Fortunately, the principal just hired a new teacher so the classes were split on Friday and now they're all smaller, which will hopefully make for a happier classroom situation for everybody. Rachel's still with the same teacher, which she's excited about, and from what she told me most of her friends got to stay in her class, too. Here's some of her school work from the past few weeks...

This one is describing how they made roasted pumpkin seeds...I think. I can't quite read it all (and she can't remember what she was trying to say either. As far as I can tell it says, "First I put ______ oil in the bag I shook."

This is the work she did about her field trip to Brown's Farm:

This paper says, "I like the pumpkin patch because I like the orange pumpkins."

I love how she spells because as two words: be + cus/z.

This says, "I cut the top off. I made a face."

"I see a pumpkin. I love pumpkins." Obviously they've been doing a pumpkin unit.

This is an activity that they were working on while I was volunteering in her classroom. I didn't help out with this activity but I remember hearing her teacher say, "Oh! I need to cut out some more wives for you to choose from!" and fond that an odd thing to say. But now I see why. For the record, Rachel chose Gwyneth Paltrow (whoever that is) as Peter's wife.

Here's another illustration for Peter, Peter:



This is the first paper she brought home where she used the word "because." I think it's adorable. "I like winter 'cuz I like to build a snowman."



Her class had an assignment to write about their favourite toy. Rachel wrote about her favourite blanket. "I like my pink blanket," she said.



She's never been very good at playing on her own; she prefers to do things like make crafts or play games or play at the park. She's just never been interested in toys, obviously...since her favourite "toy" is her blanket.

This picture says (at the bottom), "I am swinging," and at the top it says, "With my mom. With my sister." Our pictures are labeled from left to right, "Mom, Miriam, Me."

This picture says, "I am feeding the goat. They like leaves." I believe it is also from her field trip to the farm.

This picture says, "I see Ms. reeves. We are playing."

They studied a number of nursery rhymes this month and her favourite was Mary Had a Little Lamb. She's been requesting this song a lot at bedtime recently; this is explains that.

We need to take this girl to the beach. "I like the beach 'cuz I like watching dolphins."

And why does she like watching dolphins? I'll tell you. "I like dolphins 'cuz they jump."

Here are a couple of pictures Rachel drew at home. The first is her idea of what we should have done for the ward trunk-or-treat. She wanted to make a camel that she could sit on, as well as a pyramid that she could go inside to explore. She has high hopes.

And this is a picture that she was rather proud of because she "didn't just write mom and dad. This time [she] wrote Mommy and Daddy!" 

And with that, my desk has been substantially uncluttered. Hallelujah!