A week in Venice

Because life goes on, you know, even if one part of it feels as though you're back in crisis mode.

We spend last week reading Papa Piccolo as our last Five-in-a-Row style book for the year. This book was a huge hit with everyone and we did some fun things to go along with it. It is set in Venice and tells the story of Piccolo, a tom cat, who adopts two orphan kittens. It is a sweet story and everyone was a wee bit fascinated with Venice. A couple of children have blithely suggested that field trip to Venice would be a great idea.

The first day, we read the story and then found Venice on the globe. For the second day, I printed out pages so that everyone could color and cut out their own gondolas. Day three was cat day. I printed out instructions for simple cat drawings and everyone gave it a try. Well, almost everyone.

K.

H.

H's cats

This is L's attempt... could she be a bit of a perfectionist?

G.

Day four was math... and an excuse to use my laminator. I completely stole borrowed this idea from another blog I found on Pinterest, though I modified it just a little bit. It is a gondola math game. ('Gondola' has become the word of the week around here. Many people talk about gondolas all the time.)

It's made out of a file folder and I made one for each child.

There is an envelope on the back to hold all the pieces.

Inside there are four gondolas, of two different colors, and there are numbers (up to 5) and cats (five of them as well) in those same numbers. There are also black numbers which go up to 10. The idea is you put some cats in their gondolas, matching the colors, and then put the correct number in the gondola beneath to show how many cats are there. The black number then shows how many cats there are all together.

Here's a close-up of the gondolas. The boats are taped onto the file folder so that the cats and numbers can slip inside.

These have been a bigger hit than I expected and children have been playing with them off and on over the past several days.

G.

L.

K.

H.

The last activity we did was an art project, using the idea of buildings being reflected in the water of the canals. I stole borrowed the idea, without any changes, from this blog. It worked out well. Most people were able to get the idea of how it worked and everyone came out with an interesting looking project.

by P. (on left) and D.

by K. (see the gondola in the water?)

the littles' work... L. (on left), HG3 (middle), and G. (on right)

by A.

by M. (on left) and H.

by TM

Back to some reality, though. If you are familiar with TM's previous artwork, it doesn't take a trained art therapist to see that something is up. I won't share specifics, but here are two concrete ways you can pray if you are so led. First, is that TM will find the courage/ability to cooperate in his weekly therapy appointments. If he can do that, his therapist feels that she can really help him. No cooperation, though, and there's not much anyone can do. If this is not the path we are all heading down, though, please pray that doors to appropriate treatment open. I feel we are truly at a crossroads at this moment and we want to make the decisions which are going to ultimately lead to the most healing and not just take the easiest path. The words of encouragement which some of you have shared really mean a lot.