For Valentine’s Day, the school requested that the kids make (MAKE!) cards for EACH CHILD IN THEIR CLASS. What??
We got to work, spending two days holding arts and crafts class in our dining room. We were so lazy about cleaning up after the first day, knowing we weren’t done yet, that we ate in the living room or went out to eat while the mountain of paper + glue + crap festered and reproduced (I swear it did!).
B&B cut out hearts and wrote names and glued shards of paper to anything not already glued to the table. Forty+ cards later, we were done. IN. SANE.
On Valentine’s Day, they were sent home with a bagful of cards from the other kids. One boy in Bean’s class (whom she constantly talks about and who apparently loves her) wrote on his card: “[Bean], You are my best friend. You are a real beauty. Love, [Boy].” (This would be the same boy who held her hand at the Halloween Party.)
One of the older girls often sends Buddy home with booklets that she makes for him. There are hearts or flowers on every page and on the cover, it always says: “[Buddy] Loves [Girl].” At first I thought that she made them for everyone, but nope. He told me that she only makes them for him. Hmmm…
Now that we have let them loose with the scissors and pens, they are cutting hearts out of everything and writing all over them. Buddy loves to sit and cut, sit and cut… I find little pieces of paper everywhere.
They also sound out words as they write. My name is spelled, JANIT, and parents is spelled, PARINS. They have a babysitter, Miss Debbie (their former camp counselor and they got used to calling her that). Buddy made her a Valentine and wrote on it: MES DEBE.
Love it. I suppose it won’t be as cute when they are filling out job applications and writing Address: SIKAGO, but man… hearing them sound out words and then seeing the letters that show up just makes me smile and makes me proud. So… they may not win any spelling bees. But it’s just amazing to witness them learning.
(By the way, I take no credit for any of it. Everything they have learned has been from Sesame Street, DVDs, or school. Yes, that’s right, I said TV. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Oh, I’ll take credit for buying the DVDs and turning on the TV. I mean, I’m no martyr.)
10 Comments
Very impressive inventive spelling! Well, that (TV & DVD input only) just goes to show that they are natural-born geniuses, of course.
I love the Valentines, but cannot believe you had to make so many. But then, I guess you do have TWINS. ;P
I too am impressed with the spelling and writing but man 40+ valentines. Were their little hands tired after all that? I know mine would be. Very cool that you let them make their own. Me? I would have to resist the urge to “help out”.
Ha ha — I was a little worried that some parents might be annoyed after the twins BUTCHERED their kids’ names. It took every ounce of me not to help them spell names correctly. I brought the laptop in and read blogs to resist any urge to help w/the rest.
Remarkably, they weren’t too tired. In fact, after we were done, Bean sat and made more for me, for G, for herself…
Buddy started to lose steam and that’s when I started the assembly line. Three at a time. He wrapped it up quickly after that. Hapa Sweat Shop.
Dude. You ARE a martyr. I think I would have just planned on keeping LN home on Valentine’s Day to avoid this extra work.
I LOVE their spelling… LN’s been very curious about words. And as she’s been pretty good about potty, I won’t be surprised if she writes on her resume, “I KAN DOO many things.”
Awww, I love the spelling, sounds like they are the coolest kids in school! I hope we can see some pics of the valentines
Robby is only 14 months old and does some arts and crafts at his school, although I think that the teacher does most of it, and mainly tries to get him to not eat glue, I can’t wait until he can actually spell stuff!
I am sooo glad my children never went to a school that requested handmade cards, I have zero artistic ability and arts and crafts projects usually ends in tears(mine) Sounds like the twins have lots of admirers, so very sweet.
Love your new blog redesign and this story about your kids was particularly endearing.
I’ll check in often!
heehee - it’s like when AM wrote on my bday card “i cant bleave it!” i just love kid-spelling!
homemade cards?! oh, heck to the no!
your kids already have significant others. man, kids start so early these days.
40 hand made v-day cards. that’s pretty demanding of 4 year olds, isn’t it? i’m impressed!
luv, sooperhot
Impressive! I couldn’t even get it together enough to pass out the store-bought kind. It’s great that they are already writing. I love the spellings.