Oh, The Places You'll Go: Four~Year~Old Play School Graduation

Last Thursday night, Anna Claire and Mallory "graduated" from play school. I can't believe three wonderful years of play school have come to an end. The girls are ready for kindergarten, but I'm not sure if I am!

 All the four year old classes performed a Dr. Seuss~themed program that was fabulous!

 The girls received diplomas from their teacher and got big hugs for having such a good year!

After the singing and diploma~awarding were over, it was time for the art show. The girls shared the art portfolios they've worked on all year long. I've been dying to see these, and they are amazing! I've got to find some time to share some of their pieces with you. Not only are the girls' pieces so creative, but I can't believe all the work their amazing art teacher put into creating the portfolios.

Anna Claire and Mallory were so excited to share their work with us!

I can't believe play school is over. We've been so lucky to have had three wonderful years with lots of love and learning and such sweet teachers. I can't believe kindergarten is right around the corner for these two!

Budding Artists

Anna Claire and Mallory have always loved to paint and draw. We've got the mini~masterpieces... and marker all over the rug...to prove it. For the past several weeks, however, coloring and drawing is all they want to do all the time. I haven;t even been making them clean up the crayons, markers, and coloring books. We've just been leaving it all piled up in the center of the coffee table.

Mallory particularly likes to color in coloring books...and she is sooo good at coloring in the lines. Of course, she is determined to color every page in this Melissa and Doug coloring book. Do you know how detailed those pages are? It takes her forever to finish one...I mean days. She often calls either Walter or me over to help her finish those itty-bitty details {usually hearts or flowers...I dream about coloring hearts and flowers}.

Anna Claire's confidence in her drawing has grown tremendously. She used to always have me draw things for  her, but now she is so happy drawing her own princesses and ponies!

A work in progress...

Her finished masterpiece...Can you tell it's a horse?

This picture of Anna Claire's has a lot of scribble on it because she was also writing the story {!!}, but I was just amazed by all the little details she included.

 

I love, love, love their beautiful creative minds.

 

{Can you also tell from these pictures they do a lot of their best work in their pj's with very messy hair?}

Art Appreciation

Anna Claire and Mallory love to paint and I love that they already have an appreciation for it. However, painting can be messy {they do pretty well, considering}, so it's not an any~time~of~day activity around here. I usually encourage them to paint in the morning...while they're still in their pajamas...and that usually satisfies their creative urge.

Most of the time, they paint upstairs in the playroom, and since we moved their playroom upstairs back in December {probably my favorite room in the house!}, I never seem to remember to bring my camera up there, and if they're doing something cute or silly, the moment has usually passed by the time I run downstairs, get the camera, then run back upstairs.

Since school has been out we've been spending a lot more time upstairs and I've been bringing my camera along...so here's a little peek at the artists at work. Sadly, I didn't take any pictures of their finished pieces, but I do save their paintings...for a little while at least.

I think I really need these frames to display some of their mini masterpieces {great idea, Holly!}. Their bulletin boards are still full of their school work, and while I need to clear them off for fall, I still haven't found a viable storage option. {any suggestions?}

Mini~Masterpieces

Anna Claire and Mallory's "ark work" {as they call it}...
Before school started I wanted a special way to display the girls art work because I had heard that Mrs. Lori planned lots of cute class projects for her little friends. I bought two large bulletin boards from Target and had Walter paint the frames white and hang them vertically in the hallway leading to the girls' room. The girls are so proud of their art work {so are we}, and each day they come home from play school we are sure to properly display their mini-masterpieces. We love how the girls get to be creative in school and make such adorable keepsakes.

Can you see that the bulletin boards are now overflowing with projects and it's only November? Wow! The girls come home with multiple pieces of art work each week, so I gave up on artfully arranging things way back in September. I've decided that we'll take everything down in December and start fresh with empty bulletin boards in January.

Most of the girls' Halloween projects are still decorating other parts of the house, and I cannot wait for the Thanksgiving and Christmas crafts to start coming home!