Sock Dolls and Toucans... Today we worked on our arts and crafts skills and our creativity. Our homeschool group sponsored a sock doll workshop - which is exactly what it sounds like, making a doll out of socks. They came out really cute, our son made a blue and red striped doll and our daughter and bright yellow and pink one. They cut the socks and stuffed a body and a head and then sewed them together, drew faces (I was not brave enough to sew faces) and then sewed on a hat and some ribbons. Okay so I did most of the sewing (all of our two year olds) but she tried and did a pretty good job with help, but lost patience, the proccess probably took about an hour to an hour and a half. But they are very happy with the end result and have been playing with them. They were much easier than I had anticipated and I had fun as well. After the workshop the kids all played together and had a good time. This family had a wonderful loft with lots of fun toys to encourage use of imagination and creative play. They also had many natural and wooden toys and it was wonderful for the kids.

We also had some free drawing time here (one of my son's new favorites) and colored pictures of toucans because our daughter picked up her "Big Book of Tell Me Why" and pointed to the page about toucans. So we read that, found color pictures of toucans online, listened to some live toucan sounds (individual and groups) and found coloring pages and information pages about toucans. So we had an impromptu lesson about toucans. Maybe tommorrow we can get a book out of the library and see if they have a toucan puppet.

Earlier today we had a playdate with one of our son's friends and they enjoyed doing several file folder games together (shape match, color match, butterfly patterns) and playing with our plastic farm animal toys and some matchbox cars they lined up and drove around the mat. Our son also took my laundry basket while I was folding clothes and decided to make it a boat and rode around the house, it tipped and sank and went really fast according to him. Then he let his sister pull him around in it and I think they were pretending it was a horse. They also took an airplane again today (a daily occurence for them) and went to the "office" and took care of "business". I am just about to set out the playdoh while i finish up dinner preperations and last minute cleanup.

It was a very busy and fun filled day but somehow I seem less tired today than I did yesterday - when it seems as if we did so much less. I guess keeping ourselves busy requires less energy in some ways!

Peace,
Tenn