Glad To Be a Gladden: "Play With Me"

"Play With Me" is a most precious book that my 3.5 year old daughter simply adored!! Oh, she just relished deeply in its pages. She asked many questions throughout, she laughed, she reenacted, and quoted the words before I could read them aloud. The little girl in the story even resembled Ellie and she noticed that.

My daughter is a deep lover of animals, nature, water, and outdoors in general. This book was a great generator of outdoor play which we deeply believe in the beneficial advantages of such play and it was wonderful to play, observe, and learn together through this book.

The bible verse for the story was: 1 Peter 3-4: "You should clothe yourselves instead with the beauty that comes from within, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is so precious to God."

We also listened to the beautiful hymns that filled my soul, "This is My Father's World," and "For the Beauty of the Earth."

We also did a bit of different art works with this book. Shopping for other items at Target, I came across a paper Mache bunny (meant for Easter crafts) and I thought it could be a fun new media for her to paint to coincide with the bunny in the book. She took this art project so seriously with joy, explaining to me throughout her art time her process, ideas, and what she desired to accomplish in this spot and that spot and what she meant to do with each color. I loved watching her and listening to her and encouraging her.

This book opened the perfect opportunity for another pond study. We live on an 8 acre pond and are waterfront ourselves. We have a small temporary dock which we hope to replace with a larger dock this summer once my husband has finally graduated from Clemson with his chemical engineering degree after 3.5 years! Praise the Lord!!! This will allot him more time for such projects. However, the temporary dock is a good landing place for our paddle boat and kayak for now and we enjoy to use it. We also have a great community dock that we use often for play and pond studies. So we went all about out pond studying frogs, turtles. and snakes as were in the book. (We do have commonly water snakes among other snakes around here). Of course, it is currently winter, and even down here in SC as we get a few mid 60sF days, our amphibian and reptilian friends are in hibernation. Still, there are things to discuss, observe, infer, and learn. We went down to the water, took in these creature's habitats and discussed the nature of their hibernation. The frogs and turtles are hibernating down below the water in the mud. Which is just awesome that God created them this way as turtles and frogs would otherwise drown in under water never to come up for air. But, when hibernating, they function quite differently. Aquatic frogs anyway, do bury down in the depths of the pond mud. Their body temperatures go below freezing alongside the weather. They may even form ice crystals upon their bodies, yet they are blessed by God to have elevated glucose levels in important parts of their bodies which protects any vital tissues from freezing. It's incredible! God's design. We observed the small mosquito fish. We discussed the life cycle of the frog. It was wonderful two weeks ago while hiking to see frog eggs had been lain in a puddle and we carried that memory into this week looking at the photos we had captured of those eggs, and discussing how soon we will see those eggs transform to tadpoles who will soon lose their tails and grow legs and become frogs. We did a lot of reading about this as well. We discussed how when it is warm we are used to seeing our turtles bask in the sun on the logs and how when they sense our presence coming near they "plop" into the water to hide. We are anxiously awaiting the warm spring days when we see our pond friends again. Even the banded water snake who takes up residence near our edge of water. He is harmless but with distance, interesting to watch. We discussed mallards, wood ducks, geese, blue herons, and swans also. We see all of these except the swans in our backyard! We also collected freshwater clam shells.

We did pond art. Using watercolors, Ellie made a pond scene. She did more than meets the eyes here. She wanted to use blue for water, green for grass and pond growth. If you look closely, you will see different brush strokes - vertical & horizontal. I told Ellie water runs horizontally and grass grows vertically. She learned those terms and then carried them out instantly. I said, "horizontal goes side to side and vertical is up and down." And she took it and ran with it really focusing on her new knowledge wanting to incorporate it in her art, then telling it back to me. She stuck stickers once the painting was dried of turtles and grasshoppers along the grass and water parts. She also wanted to count the grasshoppers and she did so alone! And she counted her turtles alone and all done correctly! We did a happy dance! Academic learning by her own desire while she plays is so exciting to me. It's why I love homeschool. She was just decorating a picture and out came math skills with no force but just joy!

Some of our pond study book reading:

We also studied grasshoppers a bit, and studied vibrations. I made vibrations for Ellie to feel while she closed her eyes and listened and felt the floor or the table. I allowed her to listen to the glass candle sconce rattle on the wall as I jumped. And we relayed that back to our grasshopper study.

I took Ellie to tractor supply in search of worm castings for our Forest school study of the week on Earthworms. I had no luck however; she did! Right as we came in the door there sat on a shelf a fawn. Ellie wanted it and asked so sweetly and so I got her the fawn. And she used it as we read the book to reenact the fawn approaching cautiously and then licking the little girls cheek. She used the fawn to tell me the story and it was so sweet!

Using play-doh, Ellie and I worked together to make a bird's nest for a little tiny toy blue jay (missing its beak) she happens to have. We gather some twigs to add into it. I reminded her that birds do not actually live in their nests; birds nests are meant for laying eggs and a resting place for the baby birds until the fly away.

For a fun literary activity for some hands on playful learning and story sequencing, we made popsicle story sticks! A bit like a puppet show! Using google images I acquired some images, printed them, laminated them, cut them out, and hot glued them to the popsicle sticks. I printed a little girl, and each of the animals. I then had Ellie first cuddle up on the couch for my performance of the story using the picture sticks. She giggled and acted out from the couch along with me. After I showed her the way to use them, she took her turn performing the story for me!

Using one of her toy bunny figurines, we constructed a maze outside on the patio for the bunny to adventure through including twists, turns, and obstacles. Then Ellie and I worked together and built bunny a table and benches.

We were also excited to focus on studying Blue Jays. We gazed upon our books, field guides, and searched for images and listened to the call of the Blue Jay so we could commit it to memory to notice this Spring. We did some bird watching with our binoculars noting our ducks in the pond, Eastern Bluebirds, Robins, Doves, Crows, and Rose Finches. We remembered to be quiet, still, patient, and appreciative of their nature when observing. Ellie told me, "Sh sh sh!" and whispering, "A bird mommy! Get our 'noculars!" We also filled our bird feeder near the breakfast table window with more seed to feed our feathered friends.

I love movement and and motion to learn with my toddler. My husband and I played a game of critters with Ellie in which they moved like the critters in the book. Fly like a Blue Jay, hop like a bunny and a frog, leap like a grasshopper, slither like a snake, move slowly like a turtle, and so on.