"Butterfly" Paintings + Monoprints

TODAY'S ACTIVITY
"Butterfly" paintings are made by dabbing paint on paper and folding it in half. "Butterfly" sounds so much nicer than "Rorschach." It is a simple concept they can understand: beauty of symmetry. Having witnessed symmetry emerging in block building and manipulatives (small toys, not people), she prepared an art activity that illustrated the concept clearly and beautifully. The kicker came when faced with papers oozing with paint and a need to lighten them - she had them place another paper on the opened painting, creating a monoprint in the exact likeness of the original. Even though "exponent" isn't a part of their vocabulary yet, their puzzled, extended gazes suggested a discovery of great interest.

TODAY'S STORY
Inside A House That Is Haunted, by Alyssa Satin Capucilli and Tedd Arnold. This whimsically illustrated book uses a "trick-or-treat" theme in the same structure as "The House That Jack Built." The opening show the house. As you proceed through the story, one more character is added to the verse cumulatively. As a result, repetition, recall and sequence are the real stars of this book. To make matters better, the text is illustrated with REBUS. A rebus is a pictorial icon that replaces a word in the text, helping very young readers master the sequences independently, confidently. The class eagerly anticipates the moment when the little monster lifts his mask to reveal his human form, frightening all the scary things away.