I stared with Ferdinand because that was my favorite childhood book and I was worried we wouldn't get to it. Lucy loved this book too which just made me so happy. I know people in these days of gender issues read lots of things into it but I think it is just a simple story of how you don't have to fit in. And when I was reading it to Lucy and we got to the part where Ferdinand doesn't want to play with the rough bulls, Lucy looked at me with eyes wide open. She was so excited she couldn't even talk so I said "Hmm, who do we know that doesn't always want to play with other kids, especially if they are being loud or crazy?" and she could barely contain herself before shouting "Me! He's like me!" It was a great chance for us to talk about personalities and differences between people and how God made everyone different.
I was also waiting on The Gardener so I lumped all the flower activities together until it arrived. We took a morning to go out and look for flowers in our yard. I had challenged Lucy to find 3 kinds and we found 4! We drew picture of each. Lucy's favorite was a little purple one that she called a bunny flower because its petals were funny shaped and it really did look like a bunny. I need to find out its real name though (Update: I'm pretty sure its a dead nettle. See how those little things on the bottom could be ears?).
We also collected dandelions another morning and made pancakes. The kids though it was fun and they didn't taste bad - but they didn't taste great either :-) We ate them all though, apparently before I even got pictures, so nobody starved. Maybe we'll try dandelion lemonade next time.
We planted Sunflowers but unfortunately, only one came up and the next day we had a big storm and it got smooshed. Lucy didn't seem to mind because we had lots of dandelions and mushrooms to explore but I really want sunflowers in our yard so next year I'll be putting Craig in charge, my thumbs are too green to be trusted, even with such a great helper.
Our chalk flowers turned out better! This is the kind of plant projects I'm good at.
I completely skipped Babuska's doll because I knew we would't get to everything and it isn't tied to a season like the others. I think its a fun story so I'll just save those activities for a rainy day.
Peter and the Wolf was on the schedule but remember, I did the a little switcheroo earlier this year so we got Carnival of Animals and read the poems and listened to it quite a bit. We have two versions. The Bernstein version that we own tells a bit more about the music, how the tortoise section is really just a slowed down version of "the can-can" and other fun tidbits like that. I enjoyed that one but the kids liked the poems from the book version. We didn't get to either of the activities but we did get out our set of musical instruments and play them together. Even without the activities, this book ended up being a huge hit with Jonah. I think its the first longer picture book that he has really taken to and I'm very excited to finally be moving away from The Very Hungry Caterpillar (not that it isn't a good book but there is only so much a mama can take!)
And that's it for May. June is pretty busy as well but we'll see what we can fit in.
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