Artwork palooza

In the past I've made a list of everything we managed to remember to be thankful for on our Thankful Tree as I've disassembled it. The girls haven't been too keen on the idea of taking it down, so it's still up. Perhaps later I'll get around to making that list, assuming I can decode everything the girls wrote!

Here are the kids sitting in front of the tree:

My poor desk has been drowning in paperwork lately because every piece of paper a crayon graces is officially a Very Important Paper and winds up being deposited on my desk. I haven't done a post like this in a while so you can probably only imagine how deep the piles of papers were on my desk. These are just a few of the gems...

The girls spent last month making handprint turkeys. Miriam's still turning them out like tomorrow's newspaper, much to the annoyance of Rachel because it's December, not November! 

Anyway, Rachel made this turkey sometime last month. She listed the things she was thankful for using sticky notes. Benjamin is the sunshine in the top left corner. Sun, wrs (words?), ates (?), sop (soup), and cats are the sunbeams. The feathers of her turkey say "faxgiving" (Thanksgiving), "sol" (school), bus, and "trkes" (turkeys). The body of her turkey says dad, mom, Miriam, Rachel, my pec (?) black. The grass says potrs (?), and Ms. Avit (Ms. Avent, her teacher's aide), suk (?). And off in the sky it says "+ amunls" (+ animals). 

Miriam saw it one day and made her own picture covered with sticky notes, though she was still hungover on Halloween and drew a witch on her paper (among other things).

Here's a school assignment of Rachel's that says "I am playing with my mom and dad and my sister."

Here are a couple of portraits of Andrew and I that Miriam drew. She's been working on remembering to draw necks—it's very important that her people have necks. Forgetting to draw a neck is grounds for destroying an otherwise beautiful drawing.

Some of her drawings are very necky.

Rachel, on the other hand, doesn't care as much about necks—here she drew a neckless horse.



She also wrote her name in mirror-image form, which was interesting. She doesn't usually do that.

Here's a turkey Rachel made at school. She's thankful for Christopher G., Ms. Reeves, Mrs. Avent, and Jean.



This is a story she wrote about her Thanksgiving. It says, "On Thanksgiving I went to the tesims (Tessems). We had fun. The food wuz (was) god (good) we ate trke (turkey). We playd (played) fun games. Then  we went hom (home). Then we went to bed."



This is a picture she drew about Thanksgiving day. The caption says, "I am playing on the tramplen (trampoline) wth (with) Rile (Riley)." That actually happened.



The kindergarten pow-wow has been on Rachel's mind lately. Here she wrote about what we did at the pow-wow (but she left out everyone else but me and her; sorry everyone else).

It says, "I am at the paw-waw with my mom. We aor aving fun a the paw waw with my mom." Or in other words, "I am at the pow-wow with my mom. We are having fun at the pow-wow with my mom."



On the far right of her drawing is a totem pole...and a blue bird. I love that she always throws in extra, beautiful things to her pictures like blue birds and butterflies and things like that.

She's been obsessing about drawing totems for a while; this is one she came up with at Elizabeth's house last weekend:



And these are some others:

This is a picture Miriam drew at Elizabeth's. It is also heavily adorned with fluttering butterflies.

The kindergarten classes have been sharing teepees all month (two teepees for five classes) and sometimes the kids get to play with another kindergarten class at the same time. Rachel loves it when that happens because one of her best friends is in the duck class (Rachel's in the penguin class). Here is her picture of a co-class day. It says, "I am play ing in the TP wif my  frend Hale." Or  "I am playing in the teepee with my friend Hayley."

On the back it says, "We or having fun in the tp. My favrit prt is the paposs," or "We are having fun in the teepee. My favourite part is the papoose." 

Here is one of the poems they learned, to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.



I remember always drawing glasses on my mom because glasses kind of defined her for me. I thought she looked funny without them. I don't mind that Rachel drew glasses on my picture but it is funny that I don't feel that glasses define me; I don't even feel like I've had glasses that long. Rachel thinks I look funny without them. I think I look normal...if not a little more tired than I used to.

Here is a sequencing picture Rachel drew about raking the leaves (yes, we're still doing that here). It says, "Frst I had to rac the levs theen I jut." Or, First I had to rake the leaves then I jumped."



Here is a lovely drawing she did of our crawl space. She went under the house with Andrew to find the filter for our air system. Interestingly enough she didn't draw the house on top of the crawl space...



It says, "I am undr the haws. I am help dad." Or, "I am under the house. I am helping Dad."

The next few papers come from Miriam, who has recently become very interested in spelling. She knows how to spell MOM and DAD and usually gets the letters in the right order when she writes those words down. She also knows how to spell both MIRIAM and RACHEL, thanks in part to the songs we sing for them (Miriam's is more complicated but Rachel's is basically B-I-N-G-O, only R-A-C-H-E-L (it works, trust me)). However, when Miriam writes them down she just puts the letters wherever she feels like it so we end up with things like "RMIMIA" and "HRARL."

Oh, I suppose this paper was important because she didn't just spell MOM. She spelled "mommy"—MOMi. And she also tried to write Benjamin—BJiNM...and L (I'm not sure why she put the L on).

Here's another paper with "LHRACLE" and "MOM" and "MIIMRA" on it. There's a B and a J above Rachel's name and that big golden scribble in the middle was supposed to be DAD but Ds frustrate Miriam so she gave up.

Here is a picture of Snow White labeled with various forms of Rachel and Miriam.

This picture, believe it or not, was also done by Miriam. She used her dolls as models—on the left is Tiana and on the right is Snow White (but with brown skin because Miriam wanted both Tiana and Snow White to have brown skin that day (though she left Tiana's face white)).



This is the back of that drawing. It says "Mirami" and "mom" and "mmomi."


The rest of our papers for today are Rachel's schoolwork.

I am climbing on my tree.

I am on the bus with Stacy.

I am playing princesses with Atziri. We are having fun. (it says "fun" on the back)

I am going to school with Stacy.

1 to 100

I am playing with my sister outside. We are playing... (pg. 1)

...Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake baker's man. (pg. 2)

Here is a painting Rachel did of Brown's Farm.

And here is a picture Rachel did out of shapes. I'm the big one in the middle (I'm holding Benjamin); Rachel is on the left, Miriam is on the right. She ran out of room for Andrew. He was kind of bummed about that.

And that wraps up this installment of "random kid papers from my desk." Our recycling bin is looking rather full but I see evidence that I might have an actual desk beneath all the papers (that are still on it).