Tuesday 9-16-14, Oh My Butterflies! Again!

I am a little worried about the butterfly heavy theme this week.  Normally I get it, butterflies are awesome and most kids love them.  But max is so over butterflies.  We studied them in depth some time ago.  We covered metamorphosis, making butterfly crafts, did a terrarium etc.  so this morning I had scheduled a butterfly poem reading an then we we supposed to find some instruments and say the poem in rhythm and play along with it etc.  Did I mention max is so over butterflies?  So, yeah, it didn't go well.  I finally gave up and moved onto play dough.

I tried to get him interested in making butterflies (and therefore practice B's) in play dough, but he wasn't really interested.  At least I got him doing some play dough work independently.

After lunch was MORE butterfly stuff.  The syllabus suggests making a clothespin butterfly (and says you can make them with wax paper and bits of old crayons).  So I figured why not?  Great fun was had smashing up some broken crayons we had.  However, I wish the oak meadow instructions had been a bit more clear about the use of wax paper and melted crayons for the wings.  All seemed ok when I was ironing, but when it came time to shape them into wings... Well disaster just about covers it.  It is quite possible I'm an idiot for not looking up more detailed instructions (which I did find when it was way too late), because I managed to not only ruin my iron (did you know you shouldn't iron directly on wax paper?  Cause I didn't!). But when I tried to cut the wax wings into something vaguely butterfly shaped, they just broke.  And then didn't fit into the clothespin.  By this time I'm swearing under my breathe and max has completely lost interest.

I sorta managed to salvage some semblance of order by getting max to use the wax pieces in a collage, which of course has to include Mickey Mouse.  We decided to call it a day after that.  I may never be able to use my iron again.