Antarctica felt set

For every unit-like study we tackle Calvin requests a new felt set and Antarctica was no exception. Like I did with the volcano felt set request, when he asked for penguins and the like I told him to draw what he wanted and make me a list of items to include.

I've made all of Calvin's felt sets using standard craft felt, sharp scissors, hot glue, and the occassional marker or pencil. Some of the shapes I cut free-form, some I mark directly on the felt and cut, and others I draw first on paper before sticking paper and felt together to cut along the lines. I was excited this time to find textured craft felt that made good mountains, and sparkly craft felt that made good snow.

We have two small travel felt boards now that Cavlin has now decided make up Antarctica in the summer and Antarctica in the winter, so I guess it's a goot thing I made two mountains. And there are three penguins here: the Emperors, the Adélies, and the Chin Straps. The red things are sea stars, the white in the sky is intended to be swirling wind and snow, and if you're wondering why the explorer seems to be sans pants, that's because he is actually from a different set I'd made and his pants got left behind in his haste to visit that cute penguin baby. Really.

The Boxcar Children (review by Calvin)

Calvin loved this book and I think we'll be looking for others in the series now.

Mr. Popper's Penguins (review by calvin)

I guess this would be the first book review that is entirely Calvin's. He read the book by himself and wrote the review (synopsis) by himself as well, and that's kind of an exciting moment.

Journal entry—wading the lakeshore

Before and after journal entries—chronology

Just a couple of weeks ago I sat down and spent some time talking with Calvin about interesting and varied sentence structure. That went over pretty well, so when this week he wrote an entry with a Proustian sense of chronology I decided it was time to tackle that "language arts" subject as well. It's actually not a new subject for us—when he was younger we out story cards in order after reading books, and his entries summarizing the Oz books has been good practice as well—so our chat was a brief one.

After he'd written his entry I asked him a few questions about it. "Were the raccoon prints and mole hole part of the game? If all those things happened at the end during the game, what did you do during the actual program? Of course, having been at the event I understood where the time warp had happened in the act of writing about it. (You might also notice some missing letters. Those had been erased for handwriting purposes, to make sure that they were readable, but they never got rewritten because he wrote a second entry instead).

The  journal "re-entry" gained not only a smoother time line, but also a little more sentence variety and clarity, and improved handwriting. Sometimes I think it's just a matter of concentration.