Jonah frequently asks to “do a fun project. Maybe with paints.” We’ve also been talking a lot about Halloween, so I found some cute spiders for him to make. First he painted some egg carton cups.

The Tongue of Concentration

Then we let them dry for a while and he helped put the pipe cleaner legs in. We kept counting them until we got to eight legs.

He glued on some googly eyes, and was excited about their faces.

“Do you want one of them to have a happy face…”

“…and one to have an ‘oh-my-goodness’ face!”

Yesterday, Jonah helped me measure and pour the ingredients to make some new playdough. Today we stuck some pasta in it and practiced making a big tall tower of colored cheerios. He thought it was great fun.

While he made those towers, the first part of his other project was drying. We had used his handprint to make the branches of a tree, and then it was time to draw grass and use his fingertips to put on some colored leaves. We’ve been talking about the leaves changing color for fall, and he points out lots of red trees while we’re driving.

(Oh, and before anyone goes thinking that I’m clever or creative with these ideas, I should say that I just get these ideas from other clever people’s websites. There are a lot of great ones out there.)

Since we got back from our trip, Jonah’s been wanting to draw and use his easel a lot. He talks almost constantly about what he’s drawing, which is usually trucks. Big surprise.

These are two of my favorite ones he’s done recently, along with some of what he had to say about them.

“There is a blue airplane up in that sky with pink clouds”  “The big blue dump truck has lots of dirt.  Jonah put too much dirt in that dump truck and it’s falling out!”  “The red tow truck came to get a red broken car.”  “Lots of green garbage trucks are picking up all the garbage!”  He will also point out several other dump trucks, diggers, bulldozers, and a road on the scene.

This one he started by making lots of long black lines down the left side.  I was expecting some kind of tall truck, but he said, “Jonah made a waterfall, like at Mt. Rainier!”  Then he made some green trees and the blue tour bus that we saw in the parking lot (gee, how did he remember something like that…).  There’s some pink snow near the bottom, and he made the purple and orange parts in the middle when I asked him if he could draw us hiking up to see the waterfall.

After breakfast this morning, he wanted to use the markers and started drawing some very small wiggly things.  Again expecting small trucks, I asked him about it, and he said, “Jonah made some letters and words!  Like J for Jonah!”  :)