Star Week

 

Another week of preschool is over, and boy am I ever tired. Star Week was harder than Bear Week, as I imagine most weeks will be. Still, it had its high points.

On Monday we looked at all our star books (from the library) and read some of them. Then I pulled out this sheet of black paper and started writing the alphabet on it. "Mom! You can't draw on black paper!" "Oh yes, I can," I said. "It's a special kind of crayon." "I want to draw with the special kind of crayon!"

So that's what we spent the rest of Monday doing, drawing on black paper with these special crayons. I showed them how to draw a star and I wrote their names and I gave them some star stickers to play with. Everyone was very happy.

For Tuesday I had prepared some math activities, but they didn't turn out very well. Here we are working with the stars I'd made -- some with numbers on them, and some with little stars on them, and boos had to match up the numeral star with the right numbers of little stars. This was accomplished in SECONDS and then what were we supposed to do? (Later it occurred to me that we could have done some addition and subtraction.) But boos were delighted with the exercise, so I guess it was OK.

Wednesday was Daddy's birthday, so we made him a star cake!

We made a lemon cake from a mix, stirred up some buttercream frosting, frosted the cake before it was quite cool, and then cut out stars from fruit roll-ups using cookie cutters. It worked pretty well, although if you want to try this at home I have two pieces of advice: (1) Use SHARP cookie cutters and (2) Chill the fruit roll-ups a little, and maybe the cutting board and cookie cutters too. I ended up having to put everything in the freezer for a few minutes, and after that it worked fine. Dad was quite amazed by his cake.

Thursday was art day. Now, Aunt Baba has been reminding me that art doesn't have to RESULT in anything -- the art can be the process. Maybe for next week! This week I had cut a bunch of stars out of posterboard ahead of time, and then we painted them, using both glitter paint and regular watercolors. It was fun.

And then we strung them together using thin yarn and cut-up straws to make mobiles. Kind of dumb. Next time we'll just paint, I think.

Friday, today, was outdoors day. Since there are no stars out in the morning (except the sun, which I spent all week trying and failing to convince the boos is a star), we just went for a walk in the field near where we used to live. There's a nice new covered bench on our old walking path.

And here's the beautiful sky (looking west). We miss living near this big wide-open space:

Finally tonight, after daycare, we went to the annual Star Party, up at the community college on the hill. This was our third time going, and this time we decided to skip the tri-tip sandwiches (which made us sick last year) and just eat the "sides." That meant we each had a scoop of beans, a scoop of potato salad, a cookie, and a bottle of water. A scanty meal for $15 each, but of course it was a fundraiser, so OK. Everyone around us seemed to be enjoying their tri-tip.

When it got dark we walked up the hill to where they have a bunch of little observatories and looked at stars and planets.

Boos were kind of naughty at the Star Party, whined a lot and ran away from us. But there was one great moment for me. Several of the books we read this week talked about the Big Dipper and how you use it to find the North Star. I asked Baby B if he wanted to see the Big Dipper and he said "NO!" So I asked Baby A and he said "Yes." I picked him up and pointed out the stars -- and he could see it! And he found the North Star!

It was all worth it.

And then we went home and finished up the last of the star birthday cake (because we were hungry, having had so little dinner). Keep looking up!