This month the girls tackled their hardest book to date: Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliet. Chasing Vermeer is a philosophical mystery involving an international community, a centuries-old painting, and a criminal mastermind.
Inherent to the story, at least to us, were Calder’s pentominoes. These puzzle shapes can be put together to make rectangles, and the more you use, the greater the challenge. My Big Helper was fascinated with these, so I was excited to find a printable set on Scholastic.com that we could print out. I thought we’d spend just a short time on this, but the girls happily cut for a very long time.
After cutting out their pieces, they colored them and then glued each one onto cardstock and cut it out again. (Had my printer been working, we would’ve printed directly onto cardstock, but this worked, too – and the girls chose colorful pieces of heavy scrapbook paper for their backing.)
After all of that work, we moved on to tea time. I made these ‘tea cakes’ from my favorite goofy cake recipe and slathered chocolate ganache over the top. Yum!
Next we looked at the painting on which the book is loosely based, Vermeer’s A Lady, Writing. We talked about Vermeer, his life, and how artists lived during his time – and then headed outside to create a large version of this famous painting.
The girls didn’t have long to mix colors and paint, as moms were coming steadily to pick them up, but they seemed to enjoy the Lady.
What are your kids reading right now?
