So, we got the caterpillars finished yesterday and Harrison really enjoyed them. Here are finished pics of Mr. and Mrs. Callapillar:
As an art teacher, you know I’m a sucker for patterns, so I just did random textures and colors on mine. Kind of a Matisse/Klimt mashup. :) Harrison, being the boy that he is, made super heroes and Transformers on his. Here’s a video of him and his creation process:
Today, Laura was back at daycare and Harrison and I hung out at the ranch. After the prerequisite video gaming (45 minutes—it’s summer, give the boy a break!), we played with Playdoh for a while and then decided to try another activity from the binder I’ve amassed for this summer’s brain degoopification.
After looking through the various crafts and games, Harrison finally chose the Heart Healthy Exercise Game from Make and Takes. We simplified it quite a bit—we already had bean bags, so I didn’t worry about making special heart shaped ones. We were also out of toner for the printer, so I had to go to Plan B on making the game board. I had planned on making some fancy-schmancy pictures that matched each activity and printing them out, gluing to construction paper and calling it good. What happened instead is that I just drew stick people doing the activities and labeled them in my neatest hand writing (note, I’m an art teacher, but I have zero interest in ‘cute’ writing—my posters usually really suck, so much so that people never ask me to do them again). Once we threw the bag, we had to pick a number out of the bowl (up to 30 in increments of 5) and either do that many reps of something or that many seconds. I was really in trouble when I drew 30 to correspond with rolling over! :)
Once we started playing the game, Harrison really got into it, but he was much perturbed that I had drawn my people all nekkid. Once I moved on to other activities for the day, he got my markers out and put clothes on them. I feel like I’m living with a post-Renaissance Pope. :)
His favorite was jogging in place—he tried to land his beanbag on that sheet more than any others—but he really enjoyed it all. I think the key is that it was presented to him as a game instead of as a drudgery and a chore that must be done to insure health and longevity. I hope that by doing this kind of thing, he’ll end up making healthier choices than Robert and I.
Finally, we spent a good chunk of the afternoon making cartoon versions of ourselves on Voki.com. You can see them, as well as Harrison’s Vulcan face (that’s his face superimposed on top of the new Spock’s [can’t remember his name—the guy from Heroes, but I’m too lazy to go look him up…] face) in my sidebar and at the top of the page. I’ll probably move Spock somewhere else on the page later, but I wanted to make sure Harrison could see it when I pulled the blog up. Robert says my avatar looks like Sarah Palin, so I guess I need to go change my hair. Thing is, I actually do wear my hair up and I do wear horn-rimmed glasses. Whatever.
I just meant you are a hottie :)
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