Rainbow in the Sky

 

I love this drawing that Josh made… how he colored every inch except for the clouds, the rainbow, the birds.  His style is evolving…

Treasure Map

 

A treasure map to six treasures “on  the leaves of the tallest trees. I don’t know what they are.  I just know where you can find them.”

Birthday Card for Caden

 

When Josh learned that he would be attending a birthday party last week, he immediately said that he wanted to make the birthday card.  He’d asked for a piece of paper “blank on both sides,” –as opposed to the scratch paper we’d usually give him.  He’d asked how to spell ‘Happy Birthday’ and also Caden’s name.  The rest –all the drawings and the signature (Josh & Zoë), –were all his.

 

The inside of the card

 

 

The outside back (cake)  / The front of the card

Healthy Foods

 

I don’t know if Josh had been learning all about healthy foods in school or he was just inspired by an episode of Captain Carlos, but he had been going around asking me, Chris, Zoë, and Yaya what healthy foods we like.

Here is the result of his survey.

Christmas Art (1)

 

Josh wanted to draw some Christmas “decorations.”  After he drew these, I helped him cut them out and put a string on each one so that we could hang them on our Christmas tree.

 

Zoë’s School Art (2)

 

 

Christmas Art (2)

 

These are a couple of Christmas drawings that Josh made at school.

 

 

Superhero Badge

 

This is Josh’s Superhero Badge.   After he had drawn the badge, he asked me to cut it out so that he could wear it.  He very reluctantly agreed to let me glue it to a cardboard backing so that it would be a bit sturdier.  He had wanted to wear it to sleep and he had wanted to wear it with all of his shirts!

Jumping Fish

 

Some days Josh is all about drawing catapults, rockets, weapons, fighting games.  Then there are days he draws pictures like this one…

Candy Garden

 

I guess Josh hasn’t really gotten over Halloween yet.  This is a drawing of a “candy garden” with all sorts of Halloween treats.

Tents by the Lake

I showed Josh some of KungKung’s paintings that I posted in my other blog. I pointed out the elements in the paintings –the clouds, the mountains, the boats, the “tents,” the school, etc. That seemed to have lit a fire under him. He told me, “I’m going to practice and practice so that my drawings can be as beautiful as KungKung’s. Even more beautiful!” Off he went and churned out six drawings, one after the other –all within half an hour. Most of the drawings included ALL or some of the elements that I’d pointed out to him that were in KungKung’s paintings!

It was already past his bedtime then and he still wanted to continue drawing. I told him to pack up and that he could paint again in the morning. He whined a bit about it, about how he might forget. So I made up a big sign that named Oct 24 “Josh’s Drawing Day.” He was happy with that and went off to bed.

So yesterday morning, he climbed onto our bed at 6:30-ish. Chris and I were too sleepy to play; besides, Zoë hasn’t come in to our room and we didn’t want to wake her up. Josh quietly got off the bed and headed out to the living room.

By the time I rolled out of bed at 7:15am, he proudly showed me this --

…and he was also busy at work on another one, reiterating that he needed to practice and practice so that his drawings would be as good as KungKung’s.

Berry Field

 

I don’t know what inspired this drawing, but we did go blueberry-picking this summer when we were in Canada.   And the place that we went to also had a little “tent” where we got our buckets with which to pick the berries.

Here, though, in Josh’s drawing, he decided to make it a multi-berry field instead.  The top and bottom rows are strawberries.  In-between, you have the blueberries, the raspberries, and the blackberries.

Spot the Differences

 

I always have sketch books lying around the house and we try to always bring one along with us when we go out, so that Josh can draw.  That’s a good way to keep him occupied, especially if I know that we’ll be doing much waiting. 

Today, I got a new sketch book for Josh (and Zoë, too –because I pretty much have to get two of everything now).  Upon coming home from school, he immediately set to work.  Within minutes, he presented me with this:

I was supposed to “Spot the Differences” between the two drawings.  Can you spot the differences?

The Beach

This drawing was inspired by a drawing that Cheche N. drew for Josh when she was here on a visit a couple of months back.

He loves that drawing and thinks it’s pretty. He told me tonight as he was drawing this, “I am going to make my drawings even more beautiful; that’s why I’m practicing now.”

I love the detail in this drawing –the “sea lilies,” the yellow/orange coconuts, the many, many seashells all over the sand. The colors did not come out very well in the scan, but there’s a very light beige wash at the bottom of the drawing to show the sand. He also took pains to explain to me that some shells are round and others are triangular. I just love the little whorl he did on the round ones.

Oh, the green lines on top that you see are “sea lilies, only they’re not flowering yet.”

Outer Space

I know that Josh has been learning about the solar system at school. It was not in the focus guide where the topics that will be covered within the month are listed. I know, because he came to me with this drawing and took pains to explain to me what each part was:

The Planet Earth - The blue thing in the middle, with areas shaded to depict land masses.

The yellow round things around the Earth? In case you didn’t already guess, they are the Moon –in different phases, as it goes around the Earth. (Josh pointed out to me each phase and explained how "more and more shadows get on the moon.")

The Sun.

And what would be a good space drawing without an alien in his spaceship?

Mickey in Hot-Air Balloon

Mickey Mouse (pink balloon) and Pete (orange balloon) are having a balloon race. See the flags? Both Mickey and Pete had to collect flags along the way to win the race. (This was straight out of an episode of the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.)

Game (1)

 

Many of Josh’s drawings of late are of his “games.”  They’re basically shooting games where you use a pen and slide/flick it so that it leaves a “skid mark” as it tries to “shoot”  the bad guys.

I love his use of colors in this one.

Ice Cream

 

The “dots” are supposed to be different ice cream flavors…  Note  that there is one “rainbow” flavored ice cream in the mix.

The man holding the ice cream cone is “an old man who loves ice cream.”

First Artwork

…that Zoë brought home from school, that is.

She enjoys coloring, but is still learning about coloring inside the lines and filling up all the spaces that need to be colored.  Her coloring homework (yes, she has homework –every day!)?  She attacks with gusto and would often want to color more than the designated page.

Moon Buggy

 

Give Josh a piece of blank paper, a sketch book or an Etch-a-Sketch and some pens and I know that I can have a few minutes to catch up on things that I have to do.

 

Card for Kyler and Kaes

Josh wanted to make a thank you card for his cousins upon coming home from our 3-week holiday in Canada where he got to play with his cousins every. single. day.

This is the first one he did.

The outside back cover (left) and the front cover (right)

The message inside. Words dictated and written by Josh himself. Spelling help from Mommy.

Simple Math

Josh has both his Phonics and his Math workbooks home from school. We’d try to do at least a couple of pages every day.

I’d ask him whether he’d like to do Math or Phonics and 95% of the time, he’d choose Math.

He has been working on addition and subtraction at school and it’s something that he seems to really take to quite well.

With this exercise, I’d simply asked him what the plus sign (+) and the minus sign (-) meant. He told me that “plus means to add something” and that “minus is to take away something.” Having established that he understood the concept, I challenged him to finish all 12 equations correctly. He said, “That’s easy, Mommy. What’s my surprise?” A bit of c*ckiness there.

I left him to his own devices and he did finish all after a few minutes. Correctly. No erasure, no mistake.

I then decided to let him try his hand at telling time.

Took him less than a minute before he called out, “All done, Mommy! Can I get my surprise now?”

Chocolate from Heaven

I love this watercolor painting that Josh did at school.   

There is a black cloud and an orange cloud, because “it’s almost night time.”

The big black blob is a rock.  Under the rock are pink “footprints.  So you won’t get lost.”

The other pink thing beside the tree is a “building.”

Ah, the best part of the drawing:  Next to the building is a big orange basket to catch all those “chocolates from God.”

Paper Plate Art: Fish

Chinese Characters: Sand

Chinese Characters: Water

School Art

These are some of the artwork that Josh did in school.

A fish with his friends (the small fish and the octopus) and a submarine, looking for a shark to kill. The seaweed and the coral are both friends. This is one of my all-time favorites!

A dead Egyptian king in his pyramid.

A rainbow turtle at the playground.

A mommy dinosaur with a baby dinosaur that just hatched out of its egg. The baby was hungry so the mommy picked some apples for the baby and then the baby said, "Yummy, yum yum!"

A chef that bumped her knee on the edge of a table.

The bad guy shot the good guy.

Josh and Daddy going out in the storm.

Drawing Frenzy

Last week, Josh was churning out page after page of drawing. Here are some of them...



A treasure map.





Based on Daddy's Civilization game, complete with map inset...




A beach scene (with a cactus!)...

For Ooh and Aah

Josh made this drawing and wanted me to send it to Ooh and Aah over at the Playhouse Disney Channel.

It's a drawing of Mickey going up in a hot air balloon, holding two black flags in one hand and two blue flags in the other.

Feathers for Lunch (Lois Ehlert)

Josh's "Big Book" this time was Lois Ehlert's Feathers for Lunch.



We read through the book, which featured many different birds, all very colorfully illustrated: Hummingbird, cardinal, woodpecker, mourning dove, bluebird, blackbird, etc. He's supposed to pick a "favorite" bird and then make up a story and draw on the sketch book.

This is what he did:




I love how he added wood chips (he called them "sand") falling down as the woodpecker pecks away at the tree trunk. I looked at the book again and it merely shows the woodpecker perched, pecking, but no wood chips.




He drew another bird and said that it's an eagle. You'll see it how he wrote the word eagle in "outline" letters.

The orange and blue objects under the word woodpecker are feathers, like the ones in the book.



Josh's letters are still sometimes quite big, but his handwriting is definitely improving. I love how he wrote woodpecker; the letters are more uniform in size. Oh, and he spelled cat all by himself! He can spell quite a number of simple words now.