Painting, Poison Oak and Poison Thinking

Last Tuesday was the only day that we actually had a classroom learning day. Wednesday was our field trip, Thursday was a big flop-- Jonah practiced printing letters and numbers, and we did a Story Bowl (kind of like Mad Libs, but with story parts drawn out of a bowl at random and pieced together to form a story) which I made into a book for Jonah to illustrate. He's done a few pages, painstakingly, and we'll finish when we finish.

I also read Jonah the story of Jonah, from one of our Alice in Bibleland books (I keep finding new volumes of this series at every thrift store we visit, and I love them. They're so well written-- with a child's attention span in mind, and beautifully illustrated). I talked with him about how Ping and Jonah were in a similar predicament, and learned a similar lesson, and showed him pictures from each book side by side which are remarkably similar. I want to make a separate post just for that, because it was that neat of a discovery for me. : )

I can forgive myself a little for such a lackluster day, since Thursday morning we woke up splotchy with poison oak from our trip to the park-- Jonah decided to limbo underneath a chain bordering the parking lot, and must've touched a plant, which I then must've touched helping him up. I really didn't get it that bad.. not nearly as bad as I have in the past, but it was itchy and it was putting a damper on my mood and my motivation. Jonah has thankfully not been too itchy, though I'm assuming it's because this is the first time he's been exposed and next time won't be so kind to him.

Writing it all out, it seems like we really did accomplish a lot, but the overriding feeling I had during the week was that I was failing. I need to accept that not every day will be like that first day, where everything flowed smoothly and it actually felt like school. We just always seem to have so much going on, and it's hard and sometimes just not possible to balance it all, and to create and stick to a routine. Sigh. I need to ease up and be grateful for what we've done so far. The important thing is that we do something, and that whatever that something is, we enjoy it.

Friday I cut out a duck for sponge-painting.

Daddy came outside with us and we painted water with a bunch of blue and green acrylics.

Jonah decided to paint a "blue rainbow", which he later covered up.

After covering his paper, Elias made sure to get good and messy by painting himself.

Mid-painting, Jonah was glomped by the Glomp of Glomp Swamp.

Then Elias' paintbrush transformed into a phone. Did he get paint in his hair? He sure did.

The sky needed another coat.

I forgot to get pictures of the actual sponge-painting, but this is Jonah's finished work. His favorite part (and mine) is the glint of the sun he painted on the water. : )

This morning we did a math and grouping lesson, counting Ping, his mother and father, 2 sisters, 3 brothers, 11 aunts, 7 uncles and 42 cousins.

Elias showing me an egg I drew a face on when I was talking to Jonah about angles used in illustration (Anthony is behind him shining a mirror onto the wall to show Jonah how shiny surfaces reflect). I talked a little about Picasso (whom I am clearly not). Elias fell in love with the egg and didn't want to put it back in the fridge. He also greatly enjoys it when I draw little faces on his fingers and toes. : )

Tomorrow is our last day of Ping, and we're celebrating with a special Chinese dinner. Yum! I can't wait.