After School Conversation

Just a little note about Leia Rose after school. Often in the car, I still get the, "I don't want to tell you" speech these days, which always makes me sad. But if I sit down with her, after Annie goes down for a nap and look Leia Rose in the eyes, she'll often tell me lots of things. Like, today she told me about painting on the underside of the table last week (because they were talking about Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel). I asked her if she actually got to do some of the work (in that she was only there for two days), and she said "yes." Here are some pictures from Mrs. McDowell:
The finished product!
I love the examples of the Sistine Chapel in the books above the table!!!
And on Sarah's website, she had written: "Last week in class we talked about the Sistine Chapel and the artist Michelangelo. From Wednesday to Friday we put large pieces of butcher paper on the underside of the discovery table and let the children lay on their backs to paint and draw upside down the way that Michelangelo had laid on his back to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. It was so much fun to watch the children explore familiar mediums under unusual circumstances and to enjoy each other's company in a different environment." I just LOVE this fun art assignment. I love everything that gets kids to look at something in a different way. (It kind of reminds me of how I used to have kids find different places to sit in the classroom, and then write about it. A few always ended up on top of the highest file cabinet. Fun!)

Leia also told me about the new song they sing to get everyone ready to go outside. Let's see if I can get it right (Sarah, I'm sure you'll laugh at my rendition), "There were five speckled frogs, sitting on a hollow log, eating the most delicious bugs. Yum, yum. One jumped in a pool, where it was nice and cool. Then there were four speckled frogs. Glub, glub." They do this, I guess, so everyone isn't getting on their winter clothes at the same time. Fun song! Turns out that they're talking a lot about frogs lately! I asked her if she knew why, and she smiled and said, "Because we brought in some tadpoles." Which we did. (A story that I haven't related yet, actually. Long story short: We ordered three for school, we used our well water and they died. Yes, it had recently been chlorinated. Ordered three more and they lived. Now they're at school, the new school pets.)

Other stuff. There's a new game at school. Leia Rose calls it the "fruit game" or sometimes the "crow game" that involves everyone collecting fruits and counting them. They win if they get all the fruits and "the crow" wins if the crow gets all the fruits. Leia loved it at first, and now says it takes too long. (???) Today she was all excited about "the frog work" which made me imagine all these models of the life cycle of a frog, but "no Mamma, they were just Oliver's toys, he just brought all of his frog toys in." Oh.

Another observation, Leia Rose and I are very alike in that we both like to be in control of the situation/conversation. When you have two people like that, . . . well, you can guess the fireworks. ; ) Leia Rose and I spend our times talking either with intense love, . . . or intense fire. ; ) Ah, the teenage years are going to be so fun! ; )