Just a Peek at a few of our Alphabet Path activities for P and Q.
Plainly and Primarily, P is of course for Pooh.
The girls enjoyed coloring Pooh and attempting to make Pooh bears out of homemade Play dough.
We've also read Plenty of Pooh stories, and I've been surprised at how well the little ones enjoy listening to Winnie-the-Pooh. They are long stories, often difficult to understand, but they ask repeatedly for me to read from 'Pa's special book'.
We also enjoy Crustimoney Proseedcake in honor of Pooh on the Sunday - the recipe is here at A Little Something, which is of course named in honor of Pooh.
P is also for Prokofiev and Peter and the Wolf, though the picture book we have seems to be out of print. Our recording of Peter and the Wolf is a beloved favorite of Eliza's, as it has been for the other children before her (indeed I think most of us probably have most of the recording memorized). We had great fun gathering some props and acting out the story while listening to the recording. We wrapped a cloth around an old boy doll like a cloak to make a respectable Peter and grabbed a few stuffed animals. I pulled my trusty hibiscus into action for the all important tree, found a piece of blue cloth for the pond, and with the green tablecloth as our meadow we were off on our adventure.
And now this is how things stood: The cat was sitting in the branch, the bird on another, not too close to the cat, and the wolf walked around and around the tree with greedy eyes.
Peter said to the bird, 'Fly down and circle around the wolf's head, only take care he doesn't catch you!'
Meanwhile Peter made a lasso and let it down...
and caught the wolf by the tail and pulled with all his might! Feeling himself caught the wolf began to jump wildly, trying to get loose....
Oh, the excitement!
We also enjoyed reading The Story of the Orchestra and looking at the pictures of all the instruments, and we have live Piano Performances of a Prokofiev sonata daily (well, it's supposed to be daily, when the Pianist Practices).
Just a Quick bit about Q - the girls painted with Q-tips:
And we had fun making paper Quilts. I drew a grid for a traditional nine patch Quilt on a large piece of paper for each girl, then I cut out eighteen squares of various colors and patterns. I paired up the squares and cut each set into pieces and then divided the pieces between the two girls.
Then they glued their pieces onto the squares in traditional Quilt block patterns.
I had them start with the simplest blocks and work up to the more complicated ones. This was great for fine motor skills, arranging and gluing the pieces, as well as visual perception and spatial configurations as they had to figure out how fit the pieces into their proper places.
They turned out rather Quaint!
