Sunday December 23, 2012
Oodles of Noodles

Ms. Beth is traveling to visit her family for the holiday but she left several activity bags so that Cannon could still have fun Sunday mornings. This Sunday Cannon opened his first activity bag and found a bag of colorful “noodles”.  Noodles are cylinders (about one inch long) made of vegetable starch.  They can be attached by moistening them with water and then and sticking the cylinders together. Too much water and the noodle will dissolve. 

Cannon used his “pinchers” to pick up the noodle and touch it to the moistened sponge before attaching it to other noodles.  The objective – create an interesting three dimensional form. 

 

After some experimenting using the plastic grass armature, Cannon found it worked best to attach several “noodles” together and then to put those modules if noodles together to get a large colorful non objective sculpture.

 

Cannon worked with mom and dad and visited with Ms. Beth on Skype and showed her what he was doing. It was great to share an activity even when we were hundreds of miles away from each other.  

 

When Cannon was finished “noodling” he read a Zoo Book about old world monkeys.

We now know the difference between old world & new world monkeys!

 

 

 

December 16, 2012

Wrapping It Up

At last it was time to wrap up the gifts Cannon made for his mom and dad.  We filled boxes with tissue paper. Then we wrapped the boxes with the paper decorated with Christmas greetings that Cannon had finished “stamping” over the past week.

 

 

 

 

 

Cannon was the first to place gifts under the family tree. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then it was his turn to unwrap a surprise.

First he shook the package, and then he squished it and tried to guess what it could be. Then tearing, shaking and more tearing and at last. A Big Banana! Full of Banana-grams

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mom and dad helped photograph and upload the final parts of Avalon’s book and Cannon and I enjoyed a latte and some fresh cinnamon rolls while we built a banana-gram together.

 

Over the next few weeks Cannon and I will be in different places and different spaces so we will meet on the internet Sunday mornings.  Mom and dad will assist with the activities and experiments in the mysterious bags I left behind.  Hum, what can they be?  I wonder.

December 9, 2012
Colors, Colors, Colors!

Cannon’s book of colors for Avalon is almost finished!  We spent the first part of our session painting the final compositions.  It was so exciting to see Cannon grasping the new “tool holder” I had found at The Battery Store.  It is called an Apple Core and is for keeping computer cords tidy. 

 We used it to hold the paint brush in position so Cannon could get a good grasp.  The apple core is placed higher on the brush so Cannon can see where he is applying the paint.

 
Cannon independently loaded his brush with paint from the palette moved it to the paper and painted with intention.  He moved the brush in new ways and in new directions.  Then back to the water container to clean the brush, to the blotting roll to take off the extra water and back to the palette for more paint. He helped add more paint to the palette and I occasionally moved the paper so that he could reach unpainted parts.  We used several textural techniques, bubble wrap, plastic wrap and a fork.

Look, texture!  Congratulations Cannon, on using the apple core and on your independent work.

 We set the paintings aside and went to the clean and dry side of the table to finish the Christmas cards we had started last week.  After selecting the greeting he wanted on the card, Cannon used the new stamps and stamp pads to “stamp” the greeting inside the card. Next he will attach the address labels and stamps and put them in the mailbox.  Cannon also used the holiday stamps to decorate wrapping paper for his gifts.

Look at that good grip on the stamping block.

 

Then it was time for Ms. Beth’s coffee and muffin break.  But Cannon did not want to slow down. We looked on line for ideas for how to publish Avalon’s book.  Dad (or mom) will help us with this step next week.  

We had started our session by looking at the first page of the Frog and Toad story The List. Then we made a list ourselves of all of the things we would do during our time together. After he finished the cards, we finished reading the story. I substituted incorrect words as I read and Cannon caught me every time.  Then we took a look at our list for the morning and crossed off the things we had finished and started a list for the next week.  

 

First on the list – wear our Christmas pajamas!

 

 

 

December 2, 2012
Our Holiday Workshop Continues

 

                                      Getting ready to cut.  Is that a little elf watching us work?

 

As you can see Santa’s helpers are busy.  Cannon really enjoyed seeing Ms. Beth in the reindeer antlers but the Santa hat Cannon chose was a little hot and tickly so it didn’t stay on too long. Just long enough for a photo op.

 

Cannon continued working on his gift for his mom.  We learned from our first experiment and so this second one went very well. Cannon used his left hand pincher muscles and applied the dye with intention.  He used his voice to request yellow or blue.  He held the dryer with “lefty” and used a good full grasp, moving the dryer around the project. 

While waiting for things to dry we moved from the wet side of the table to the dry side.

After reading Frog and Toad’s story about The Letter lst week we decided to send some letters of our own. And since we were in Holiday Workshop mode we made Christmas cards.

§         First Cannon selected the cardstock and folded it in half. I lined the paper up and Cannon used a printers “bone” to make the fold.  After some practice he used the bone independently to get a good sharp fold. 

§         Cannon cut the tree shapes using a Fiskars cutting tool designed for scrap booking. He moved the blade back and forth independently. (I positioned the paper and held the tool in place.) He used a glue stick to cover the shape and helped position it on the card.  Then he used the printer’s bone to press it down firmly and evenly. 

                       

§         We needed a finishing touch – of course the star! Using a craft punch Cannon used his muscles to press down hard on the punch.  A perfect star.  We counted the number of stars and kept track of how many more we needed, practicing a little addition and subtraction.  

§         Then using his left index finger and a little moisture he picked up each star, touched it on the end of the glue stick and positioned it independently on the top of each tree.  

§         The last step was to round all four corners with a corner punch. We used lots of tools.
 

Between each step we moved to the opposite side of the table and applied more color to mom’s gift. Next week Cannon will add his greetings, address and stamp his letters and put them in the mailbox.  Snail mail is fun!

 

                                    Cannon is using a printer'sbone to glue the tree
                                          firmly and evenly on the card.