Every now and again, the twins' preschool sends home a notice that informs me that I have to do a "home-school" project with the twins. We did the last one in March and missed the July one because everyone was sick and I just couldn't bring myself to do that one. In theory, it sounds like a good idea. A project that the twins and I can embark on and have fun doing together while stretching our creative minds.
But all this is in theory.
In practice, it stressed me out totally, knowing that I needed to get it done, so close to the Teachers' Day card and brownie making project and my leaving for my last vacation with Packrat before the airlines refuse to let me fly again. I am right now doing this in Perth after 5 days of being without Internet! (A most surreal and disconnected feeling, I must say!)
The project this time round was to build an aquarium from scraps because they were doing the Rainbow Fish in school. Anyway, as with any last minute job, there was the staying up the night before to do all the prep work which included having to cut out the sides of a box, wrap it with white paper so that the twins could paint over it and find some shapes of fish that could be printed the next day at Packrat's office while the twins were in school, all in time for them to paint the minute they wake up from their nap. (Long sentence but that was how breathless I became doing this)
Thankfully our helpers wanted to get involved as well and built the inside of the aquarium from magazine pictures of ocean vegetation, green construction papers and some puffy fish stickers that I had lying around. So all that was left was for the twins to paint the outside of the box, which they did, in dark technicolour mixed from the three primary colours and applied with both paint brush and hand.
As usual, they made a grand mess of everything, including themselves, freaking out the grandparents and the helpers. I'm not sure why the fuss because the paint is all washable and they got to play around in a water-filled inflatable pool (see next post) after that.
This was the end product which looked quite good. All that was left after that was a story board I had to do, with photos and a little write up about what we did. And like any good tardy student, I handed up their homework in parts. First the fish tank went with them to school with instructions for Grandma to let their teacher know that I would be emailing her the rest of it from Perth.
And I just completed it and sent it off, 4 days late, somewhat chastised.
Lessons learnt from this "Home-School" project
- Cutting through a cardboard box is hard especially when your knife blade isn't all that sharp.
- Whatever painting apparatus presented to children to use, they will find better alternatives. Give them brushes, they will use their hands. Tell them to use their hands, they'll use their feet and so on and so forth.
- Only allow them to work with one colour at a time if one needs to see distinctive colours on the end product because when given various options, they create their own blend of colour. Fine by me but not so by more strait-laced Grandma and helpers who were exclaiming that their tank wasn't blue. Leading me to defensively comment that water in the aquarium was blue only because of the blue chemical put in to make the water safe for the fish.
- Try and start their projects earlier (This will never happen. I am certain of it. But I can always hope).
- I need someone to photograph them so that I can be in the picture to show that it is a parent-child collaboration although anyone who sees it will be dreaming if he thought that my two-year-olds were able to create all they did without any assistance.
It'll be harder from next week on because I'm actually going to be returning to work. I don't really want to but I don't really have a choice what with the baby coming next year and more and more bills to be paid. It'll just be harder to figure out but when it do, it's fun enough, especially when I take photos of them having a ball!
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