8/52

A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013

{inspired by Jodi}

{Harper} Keeping a eye on Daddy (he's in the yard)

{Finn} We recycle our water for the garden....except once a week I let Finn water the garden with a hose to allow him to re-enact a fire emergency or two. Firefighter Finn thinks this break from water conservation is totally worth it. 

The B-sides (because two photos seems a little minimalist for me…)

{working hard to capture a blue sky. Goodbye blown out sky of the past, thanks to tips from this awesome photographer}

{Finn: "Mum, can I show you my thinking face?"
Me: "Go for it."
Finn: "So what do you think of my face?"
Me: "Nailed it buddy, nailed it."}

{safety first}

{'sam fireman' = 'fireman sam'}

{my craft helper}

{self-covered button hair ties. I may or may not have created more without my "helper"}

{reading a letter from Nana}

{seeking out new light in our house. inspired by this fabulous photographer}

{taking a moment to capture these lush green trees before autumn approaches}

Documenting Delight: day two hundred and thirty seven {thinking about + drawing the seasons}

Documenting Delight: day two hundred and thirty four {I not Harper, I Snow White}

Following on from yesterday’s fairy tale post, today Harper moved onto role playing one of her favourite tales ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarves’. Harper was Snow White (of coarse), Finn was all of the seven dwarves (tough role) and dishing out the parts Harper told me:
“You da evil queen”

I tried not to look too deeply into my assigned character and put on my best menacing voice.

Above is the poisoned apple scene. Who knew Ms White wore Dora crocs back in the day?

Documenting Delight: day two hundred and thirty three {fairy tale love}

Over the past few months Harper has developed a deep love of fairy tales. It all started with ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’ and since then we have made our way through any traditional story we can get our hands on. I thought it may have been the princesses that were drawing her in, but princess or no princess she is captivated by these stories.

Lately Harper has taken to re-telling these stories. She mostly has the structure down but does like to make her own unique additions.

{Enter the big bad wolf in ‘The Three Little Pigs’}

Harper: I call him the nice wolf now.

I found some old felt board fairy tale cut outs in one of my teaching resource boxes and gave them to Harper and Finn to play with. Harper sets all the pictures up,  moves the figures around and adopts the characters voices. Today she placed all the cut outs on our computer desk and acted out ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’ with a whole heap of enthusiasm. The top picture is Harper showing Goldilocks’ expression when she wakes up and find the Three Bears looking at her. Nailed it, wouldn't you say?

Documenting Delight: day two hundred and twenty six {writing centre}

A little something wonderful has been happening in this household over the past few months. Step by step, bit by bit I have had the privilege of watching a beginning writer emerge. Finn is a words man. He l.o.v.e.s  books and soaks up and stores language.  Even with this being said, I wasn’t sure how and when or if this love for words would translate to wanting to write. That sounds quite ridiculous with me being a Kindergarten teacher but really even though I have myself taught children to write I have never seen where, way back in early childhood, it all begins. What prompts a child to move from random scribbles on a page to markings that mean something to them? How do they move from Hey this is my name and now I want to know how to write it?

Throughout this process the teacher in me has had to take a sit back a little, learn to watch more, do less and only give direction when he seeks it. Most of the time Finn happily writes letters, addresses envelopes, draws up shopping lists and speeding tickets (for all those law breaking duplo people in our playroom), makes maps and labels drawings all without engaging with me or asking for assistance. Then there are those times he will come to me and ask how to write a particular letter or request that I write a word on the whiteboard so he can copy it. And so it goes; tiny pockets of child led teaching, a high interest level and a massive amount of independent writing all revolved around play.

{um...like mother like son. finn's to do lists (top). completed items highlighted of coarse}

Over the past few months I have been trying to find ways to support  Finn (& Harper) with their writing. To make writing more accessible to them and organise any potential writing materials close to their play space. We don’t have a great deal of space near their craft table so it took me a while to find a smallish bookcase to store their materials. I wanted all of the materials to be at their level, easy to collect and simple to pack away. When I found this cheap bookshelf at Magnet Mart ($17) I knew it would be perfect. I added an office paper divider above the bookcase and there you have it, our mini writing centre.

{small bookshelf to hold writing implements}

{paper divider for easy storage + access}

{finn making his selections}

{tins: washed out fruit/vegetable cans, scrapbook paper, handstamped labels + contact}

{this book lives in the writing centre. an easy way for finn to record his little adventures}

Making everything at arms reach, giving them control over what materials they use for their pictures and letters etc has made a huge difference. Play now moves smoothly from engaging with toys in the playroom to creating drawings, writing or making props for play (Finn will complain that his toys aren’t doing what he wants them to do so he often make additions/modifications using paper or cardboard). Pack up time around this area is now easier now that everything has a spot and is labelled.  

It has been fascinating to watch Finn’s interest and skills in this area grow and I can't wait to see where it all leads in the future.   

Documenting Delight: one hundred and twenty five {library love}

A cruisey afternoon in the library, re-connecting with my little ones after working a half day at Finn’s school. A free and simple excursion out of the house but one that always brings calm and moments of joys to Finn and Harper.

Today I watched Finn quietly make his way around the book shelves, eyes gazing over the books on display, fingers gently pulling out titles here and there. This place is familiar to Finn. He doesn’t need direction or encouragement to enjoy this space and the books that live here. He’s a book lover. Writing those words makes my heart sing. As an Early Childhood teacher I always hoped that my children would fall in love with books. It’s not about desiring them to be good readers (although I do know that being an efficient reader makes life easier), more the hope that they engage with stories, bond with strong characters, and view books and reading as a normal part of their day. An enjoyable part.

{Look Mum! We know this one!}

This enjoyment bursts out of Finn and I can see it growing in Harper (as her attention span gradually increases). A while back I read a section in the inspiring book by Jim Trelease ‘The Read-aloud Handbook’ about the importance of surrounding your child with books and being a reading role model. He described the interaction between parent and child when it comes to books and reading as creating a “commercial for the pleasure of reading”. Gosh, this quote has stuck with me. We are advertising to our children what a joy reading is. I want my commercial to be authentic, vibrant and of coarse convincing. I hope little trips like this are helping.

{Spreading our love of books}

Back in February we started My Little Bookcase’s The Little Book Adventure. This month saw us working on Project two, Spread your love of books. The brief was to borrow a book or collection of books from your library and leave a note inside detailing what you liked about the book. Cool concept hey?

As we make our way through this 10 month adventure I am enjoying completing the tasks in partnership with Finn & Harper. It isn’t about me whipping up activities and presenting them to my kids, both projects so far have pushed me to get them involved from beginning to end. This is as much their Book Adventure as it is mine.

So after a month of getting to know our latest batch of library books we sat down to have a chat about the things Finn and Harper liked about the books we borrowed. As we chatted I jotted down their responses. While Jackie from My Little Bookcase kindly provided us with a letter head, I knew that I want to somehow combine our letters with photographs. When I suggested the idea to Finn & Harper that they use the library books to play a game of peek-a-boo I thought Harper would go bananas for it and I would have to drag Finn through the mini-shoot. How wrong I was. To my great surprise, my boy who usually shouts “Put the camera away Mummy!” at any sighting on my beloved Canon, completely hammed it up in front of the camera. Harper on the other hand was completely disinterested and rolled around on the floor whenever my camera came near her.

{The one and only shot I got of Miss Harper}

Once I had the shots I added the letter underneath the image using photoshop, printed them and attached them with bluetak to the inside of each book.

{Letters attached to the books}

{All bagged up and ready to head back to the library}

The books have been returned and I can’t stop thinking about the little surprises that are waiting to be found by a small collection of Canberra Kids.

Documenting Delight: day one hundred and nineteen

{This one's going straight to the fridge}