Gingerbread Day

Last week was a bit crazy with homeschooling.  I am still working a few days a month and am unable to choose which days (I am an attorney and the judges schedule hearings for us).  Unfortunately, I had court Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday morning of last week.  The girls stayed with a family friend while I was in court.  We were able to do several hours of schooling in the afternoon.

Catherine seems to enjoy the online portion of schooling: the lessons, videos, and the computerized tests.  On Thursday, we had a fun event played: a trip to the Center for Puppetry Arts to see "The New Adventures of the Gingerbread Man."  The show was not until 11:30 a.m., so we did some desk work and fun activities first.  All of the morning activities were gingerbread themed too, which seemed to get the girls excited about the puppet show.

One of my "overall goals" for this semester is to improve Catherine's reading.  So, we have started making a "story map" of the books we read.  Well, some of the books.  The girls love to make posters of anything, so I made a reusable template poster.  I read The Gingerbread Baby to them.  The girls were not sure what a "setting" was, but we learned.  They could easily name all the "characters" and the "conflict."  They needed help with the "solution."  They both LOVED affixing the post-its on the poster board.

I found a "What makes the F sound?" worksheet with a picture of a fox on it (remember the fox in the story eats the gingerbread boy).  The girls cut out the pictures and glued the ones on which started with the letter F. 

 Catherine copying the refrain from the story:

 The last project was using glitter glue to decorate a construction paper gingerbread man:

As we drove to the the puppet show, I lectured the girls about remaining quiet and still during the show.  What a waste of time!  The entire crowd yelled, laughed, and sang along due to prompting by the puppets for the entire show.  It was a noisy, rambunctious show which the girls absolutely loved!  They mention scenes and characters from the play at least once a day.  They sing "Run, run as fast as you can, you can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man" daily.

After the show the girls got a chance to meet the puppeteer and the Gingerbread puppet.  They were thrilled and frequently show everyone how the Gingerbread puppet shook their hands.

The Center also has many Jim Henson puppets on display, like Big Bird:

 The girls got to make a puppet face with a bunch of velcro eyes, noses, mouths, etc.:

 Look, it's Bert!  And he is holding his rubber ducky:

 The girls also had fun in the gift shop, even though we did not buy any puppets.

I thoroughly recommend the Center for Puppetry Arts for this age group.  I am not sure how much longer they would enjoy these shows, but for now they do!