Who is that trying to sneak in under the gate? Peter Rabbit, of course. My plans for a project about complementary colors red and green, scissor and glue practice, fine-motor work on tearing, folding, crumpling, and curling gradually evolved over several classes into a celebration of Peter Rabbit's famous adventure. Once again I am convinced that children's literature gives meaning and motivation to children's art. The children did not care about tearing paper for it's own sake, but were delighted to rip it to shreds to make lettuce leaves for Peter Rabbit to nibble. They were engrossed in holding scissors the correct way so that they could cut orange paper snips for carrots. They were intrigued to glue a piece of corrugated paper just along one edge so that the "gate" would still open for Peter, where they would have just squirted out big puddles of Elmers. Little hands worked hard to crumple pink tissue paper into "roses" for Peter's mother, and peel red circle stickers for tasty radishes. They gave great effort and concentration to putting the copper brad through the punch hole on the "gate" so Peter would be able to use the "doorknob". One student even created a tossed vegetable salad in a bowl for his bunny! Others tried to create 3-D fences out of straws. Pretty amazing for three to four year-olds.
I'm delighted to find tiny lizards on my patio fence and window sills today. It is eighty-four degrees! Yesterday was my ex's fiftieth birthday, but I mainly remember that March nineteenth is the first Burpee day for planting peas and radishes in Omaha, Nebraska. All danger of frost is past down here, and the air conditioner is running!
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