holiday block, first half

For the first half of our holiday block, we worked this week with the "Mid-Winter Journey" story from the Enki Kindergarten Nature Stories collection. We've worked with this story for the past several years -- the first two years, we just read it during the week prior to the solstice. Last year we made a wool board picture as our artistic digestions (go here to see!). This year we worked it the same way we did other stories this fall, doing free drawings after each of the three chapters, and writing the verse at the end. Here's J's first drawing, of the boy coming through the forest and finding the dying evergreen.



Zoo Boy's first drawing, of the boy with the dying evergreen. Interesting that they both chose the same thing to draw, but not particularly surprising, since that evergreen tree is central to the entire story.








J's second drawing, of the boy coming upon the old woodcutter, who asked for his help.












Which is also what Zoo Boy drew, although in his drawing, we don't see the boy, we just see the woodcutter from the boy's point of view. He wrote "(boy's sight)" at the top of his drawing to indicate this. Again, this was probably the most important facet of this chapter, although I was surprised that one of them didn't choose to draw either the scarlet bird or the bear that the boy also helped along the way. However, of the three he helped, the woodcutter certainly was the most significant to the story.



J's third drawing, of the boy touching the tree to try to restore it to life. Here's where the boys divided in what they drew, Zoo Boy deciding to draw the title page at the top of this post, his interpretation of the words from the verse/song. He also insisted on wrapping up the week with a singing of the song as well.







J's writing is at the top, of the full verse. Zoo Boy selected one portion of the verse to write.


We finished up our work with this story yesterday (it took all week), just in time for tonight's observance of the Long Night.