Hucks and Bodies
Apr 3rd, 2008 by Bethany
This morning at the grocery store Maggie leaned over to me from her perch in the cart and said “hucks!” It took me a few more repetitions before I understood what she was saying, but I finally figured it out. She was saying “hugs!” She was leaning over to give me a hug. It was so sweet. Later I was reading on the floor in our living room and she sat down next to me, snuggled up, and again declared “hucks!” Moments like that make me love being a mom.
Today we did our little home-preschool thing again and did a second lesson on our bodies. Degen and I danced to some music while “gracefully” tossing scarves in the air and waving them around as the songs inspired. I used some Romantic-period music (Strauss, Rachmaninoff, and Dukas) and we talked about how we could feel out muscles moving and about how the different kinds of music made us feel. He loved it after he figured out what I was doing with that scarf–it was a long, knitted winter scarf, not a flimsy, filmy silk one or anything.
We also made a mobile of hands and feet. I couldn’t believe that they let me do it, but I traced their hands and feet (shoes) on to construction paper, cut out the shapes (while Degen practiced his cutting skills on a different piece of paper), and punched holes in each shape. Then I had Degen and Maggie help me thread pieces of yarn of different lengths through the holes and tie them to two clothes hangers. You can see how it turned out:
I hung it in the hallway and both kids immediately wanted to lie down underneath it and watch the pieces spin. I was impressed that Degen understood that they were outlines of his feet and hands–he pointed to the hand shapes and said “like mine!” while he held out his other hand.
For a snack, we made faces out of food. I used canned pear halves for the head, then put out small bowls of other appropriate foods and let Degen decided which things would work for different facial features. I had raisins, white yogurt-covered raisins, dried apricots, some candy-coated chocolate pieces, and shredded cheese. Degen used the chocolates as a nose and eyes, raisins as eyebrows and eyelashes, shredded cheese for hair, apricots for ears, and yogurt raisins for teeth. Maggie just ate the leftovers as she watched from her high chair and blurted out the occasional body word: “teeth” and “ears!” and “nose-beep.”
We got out the play dough and made people out of smashed snakes and balls of it. Degen really enjoyed smashing the balls on the piece of foil I put down to save it for later. Add in a good rendition of “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” and you have a good idea of what we did today.