A Lullaby

(sung to me in the wee hours when the alarm rang too early, by Lucy, age 4 3/4, and then recreated later in the day by her so I could write it down)

Once upon a time ago
in a lonely cabin deep in the big woods of Wisconsin,
there was a little girl born, named Mary
with her mother, Caroline,
and her daddy, Charles.
Then another girl was born in the lonely cabin in Wisconsin forest.
And her name was Laura.
And they moved to the prairie, the prairie.
And then another girl was born and they named her Carrie.
Two years were skipped,
so we don't really know when Grace was born,
but we do know that Grace was born.
And they turned around
and they went back to the big woods of Wisconsin
(I'm going to change it a little so Grace sees the big woods)
and Grace, their newborn baby, saw the big woods of Wisconsin
where Black Susan lived
and Jack, their brindle bulldog.

The Nields in valentine and doll form

It continues to be all Nields all the time in our house.

This week, I've got a self-serve valentines-making buffet set up in the studio.  Like all the kids, Lucy is making lots of valentines for her friends and family.  But hers have a special twist: they all feature The Nields.

A few days ago, we read the liner notes inside Rock All Day; Rock All Night, and we learned a wonderful story about Katryna and Nerissa having the chicken pox as children (combining Lucy's favorite topics: childhood stories, The Nields, and sickness).  So Lucy's recruited the other children to take parts in the drama of a miserable, moaning Nerissa, unable to hold her new baby sister, while Katryna (Lucy) holds her tenderly.  She adores this game, and we play it again and again.

And of course, it's spawned many drawings of spotted people, including this valentine card:

(Katryna's on the left, separated by a piece of plywood from Nerissa, who's in bed--all details from the CDs notes.)

Also today, there was a Nields concert on the coffee table:

(My favorite part?  Those two old grey-haired matching-clothes ladies represent Andi and I.  "They're old, so you know it's you.")

Multiple drafts are amazing!

This week, one of the kids checked out My Grandpa is Amazing! from the library.  After reading it, she decided to write her own My Dad is Amazing! book.  So, naturally, Lucy decided to write Katryna and Nerissa are Amazing!  I have some little blank books available for such occasions, so I sat down to take dictation.

Lucy wrote:

At that point, Lucy told me that was all she wanted to write, but that she would fill up the rest of the pages with pictures.  And she began to draw Katryna and Nerissa again and again and again.

Now is when I hear the worried parents who've been in my classrooms over the years.  "All he does is play with blocks."  "If I left it up to her, she'd play fairies all day every day."  And to them, I say "what's bad about that?"  If only we can trust the value in what they choose to do!

On the very next page, Katryna suddenly had a neck, a body, legs, and feet (something Lucy's rarely done before):

Then it was back to only heads, as she practiced eyes:

Then came arms with hands and fingers:

Lori Pickert, in her book Project-Based Homeschooling, encourages parents to "try to put yourself into a different frame of mind.  Creating multiple drafts of the same work allows your child to raise his efforts to a level that isn't possible if he simply creates first drafts over and over again.  Rather than thinking about new versus old, consider the importance of an artist or craftsman revising and polishing their work, introducing improvements at each pass.  Think about first and final drafts--and how much the work improves between them... Creating representations is about communicating, and doing multiple drafts allows your child to get closer to what he wants to say." (pp. 117-118)

And, of course, books can't communicate without a reader (or listener).  So Lucy's been reading her book to everyone this week, including Monkey:

A few days ago, Lucy decided she couldn't draw a guitar.  But she was so pleased with these new bodies, she thought maybe she could try again in one of the many pictures she draws of Katryna and Nerissa each day.  And this time, she was satisfied with her results.  (Nerissa's holding the guitar, on the right, below.)

We've got mail

I was very excited to discover Lucy quietly at work in the studio this morning, on a project of her own design.  She'd collected clay, twist ties, wooden beads, and bamboo from their various places and brought them all to the table.

When I came in, she was just beginning her second in a three-part series (one for "mommy, mama, and Lucy--our whole family!"):

As she finished each one, she ran across the studio

to deliver them to our mailboxes.  (There's one there for each of the kids in our early childhood program, as well as for Andi and I.)

(I've just recently returned from a Reggio-inspired teachers' conference at which Lella Gandini described the three-year-old classrooms' mailboxes being transparent, because three-year-olds might put anything in there, such as a half-sucked lollipop.   :-)  So the intentionality in three-year-old Lucy's mailed gifts particularly struck me today.)

Lucy's alphabet

In the past few months, Lucy's begun noticing letters everywhere we go. Crossing a parking lot with freshly-painted lines, she excitedly calls out "there's an A for Mommy!" (Mommy's name is Andi), "an L for Lucy and Mama!" (Mama is me, Lise), "a T for Tim!", etc.

We began photographing her letters, thinking some day we'd make them into an alphabet book for her. Because we're keeping it completely Lucy-led (in other words, we don't go out on a letter-hunting walk, but just wait for her to show us another one), it might have been a very long time before all the photos were ready for the book.

But I've begun to learn a good trick of making things, especially handy for busy moms. Don't wait until you're ready. Do it now, or you may never do it. So last week, I grabbed a little photo album (not the perfect one for the project, just the one I had on hand), and put in the four photos we'd taken so far. On the other pages, I put in index cards, on which I'd written the letters for which we don't yet have photos. Now her book is ready to read now, when she's most excited about the project. Quick, easy, not as beautiful as the "perfect" book I might have imagined, but here and in use, unlike those "someday" perfect projects.

A fresh start: self-portrait basket tags

My fresh start applies to my work, too, not just my personal life. And, in the same way, I'm beginning with the environment. Yesterday's project was small but very satisfying: new basket tags.

Each of the kids in my early-childhood program has a basket where they store extra clothes, diapers, and lovies from home. Early on, when they were all infants and toddlers, I labeled their baskets with their photo, their name, and their personal color (which I use to identify their washcloths, towels, and other supplies). But now the kids are older (nearly 3-nearly 5) and can all read their own names, so that isn't all necessary. I'd recently ordered new photos for fresh basket tags, but before they got here, I had an idea I liked even better.

Gifts, revealed: alphabet rocks

For those girls in my life who are learning to write, I made these little treasure boxes:

Filled with rocks I'd gathered this summer in Maine,

altered:

I loved this idea.

(Full disclosure: one recipient did say that "this is not a cute present," but she was seen playing with them later. Those are the kinds of gifts I tend to give kids: boring in the throws of unwrapping a zillion things, but appealing later.)

Lucy's favorite bedtime story

Over time, Lucy's begun to reject the poems and lullabies I used to use to help her go to sleep. "No!" she says. I'm sure it means "no--don't say that--I know you're trying to make me go to sleep."

But I learned a trick from my friend Julie. She used to tell her girls the stories of their days. For some reason, Lucy will accept that. "Do you want mama to tell you a story?" "Yes."

There are favorites. "The seagulls in Bar Harbor." "Swimming in the river." "The bead in the poop." But there's one I've told over and over, so many times that it's developed a rhythm, a repetitive style, a way it must be told. It's "The Mouse in the House."

Once upon a time,
the children were playing in the studio
and they started to call
"Lise, Lise! Come quick!
There's a mouse in the house!"
So I went to see.
"Where?" I asked.
"Under the table," they said.
So I looked under the table, and sure enough, there was a mouse!
A cute grey mouse, with a long long tail.
It was scared.
It scampered away.
It ran under the steps,
behind the suitcases,
behind the blocks,
and behind the baskets.
We tried to catch it.
We tried to put a basket over it.
And we thought we caught it.
But when we lifted the basket,
no mouse.
Where did it go?
We didn't know.
We looked all around, but
no mouse.
So the children got flashlights
to help them look.
They looked under the tables, but
no mouse.
They looked under the chairs, but
no mouse.
They looked under the couch, but
no mouse.
They looked under the stove, but
no mouse.
But there was a hole, the size of a mouse.
Could the mouse be there?
We didn't know.
Maybe if we cleaned the house,
we'd find the mouse.
So we cleaned and cleaned, but
no mouse.
Then it was time to eat lunch.
So we sat at the tables,
and we started to eat,
when all of a sudden,
Audree said
"Lise, look!"
And I looked,
and there, in the studio,
was the mouse.
It ran across the floor,
and behind the baskets,
and it jump, jump, jumped
up onto the blocks
and ran behind the block shelf
and into the corner.
And we trapped it there.
And caught it
in a bucket
with a magnifying lens for a lid.
And we put it in a cage,
with some leaves, so it could hide,
and some cheese, so it could eat,
and a lid, so Eliot wouldn't get in.
We looked at the mouse.
And it was so cute,
with a pointy grey face,
and black, beady eyes,
and big, round ears,
and a long tail,
and cute, pink feet.
We watched that mouse all day.
And at the end of the day,
we let the mouse go.
But not in the house,
oh no, oh no.
Bye, bye mouse.
Not in the house!

A peek into a morning in the purple house

I've been quieter than usual here in this space, but life has been anything but. With little time to post today, I thought I'd share just a quick peek into our day...

The day began slowly, with just a few children checking out the changes to our resident tadpole (all four legs now, and a shorter tail) and getting our first glimpse at all the river creatures we caught yesterday (the silt has finally settled and the water cleared enough for viewing). We started out with a handy identification guide, pencils, and paper:

As the house filled with more children, the table and couch filled with more evidence of our work. Out came a favorite book about frogs. Talk of frog life cycles reminded us to pull out the frog-life-cycle puzzle:

Pages filled with sketches:

Some of those pages were turned into a book (this page says "A kapl day rlr my teche had kot a talpl," or, for those not accustomed to invented spelling: "A couple days earlier my teacher had caught a tadpole."):

And then it was time for snack (morning snack that is; our day had just barely begun).

The day continued in a whirlwind, as always, and now I've got to be off to tidy it all up and prepare for tomorrow...