Drawn and photographed by R, age 8y, 2016
Grasshopper
4
Category Archives: Family
Palindromes and Drawings
One day O, aged 5 years, drew our house, made palindromes, and had a drawing lesson.
The first drawing O did was a picture of our dog, Callan, sitting down. He showed it to Andy who did a little drawing in the corner of a sitting dog, then O had another go at grounding the feet.
On the other side of the paper O drew a detailed picture of our house – with pitched roof, chimney, front door with transom window, decorated glass side panels, a number 2, and himself standing in the doorway. There are shrubs in the garden. The dotted line at the bottom of the page depicts the street, the solid line separates the footpath from the road, and there’s a path leading to the front door. Our car is parked in the driveway next to the house and, from the top of the gable a bird is pooping SPLAT! on the windscreen.
O signed his name and Andy told him it was a palindrome, then he wrote ‘pop’ and ‘poop’
O carefully cut out a plain piece of paper from his drawing and, with Andy, wrote some more palindromes
Caricatures
Something The Brothers always do when they come over to Our House is to draw or paint. One day R (aged 8 years) whipped up these cartoon characters. I’m not sure if he was thinking of anyone on particular, but there was some discussion about the US elections happening around that time.
caricatureˈkærəkətʃʊə/ (say ‘karuhkuhchoouh)
noun1. a picture, description, etc., ludicrously exaggerating the peculiarities or defects of persons or things
2. the art or process of making such pictures, etc.
3. any imitation or copy so inferior as to be ludicrous:
verb (t) (caricatured, caricaturing)
4. to make a caricature of; represent in caricature.
[French, from Italian caricatura, from caricare (over)load, exaggerate.
–caricaturist, noun
This is how much I love you
‘My Grandparents’
A Card from R
Lots of love
‘Grandmar’ with a silvery pipe cleaner smile
Though he says my pancakes with lemon juice and sugar are ‘The best!!’
The lost footy jumper
Sunday night. Just settling down to watch TV when the iPad started buzzing.
Hello?
Hello, Janna?
Oh! Hello Rory
Hello Janna. Is my Essendon footy jumper at your place?
Ahh, well, I think it might be. Let me go and look.
Hang on. It might take me a minute or two to find it.
Okay.
I went to the cupboard where I stash the clothes that get left behind for me to wash when the brothers come over. I pull out five pairs of trakkie daks – two Size 8s, two Size 6s, and one with a flying bat on each knee that looked about a size 4.
Then out tumbled five T-shirts.
- One black, long-sleeved, size 18-24 months emblazoned with a Superman logo, and the words My Daddy is Superman.
- One plain grey, size 8.
- One black, size 6.
- One white, size 8, with long blue sleeves, and a huge lion’s head wearing a stars and stripes helmet.
- One red, size 6, with a picture of a bear holding a skate board and gazing pensively off to the right.
- Another grey, size 6, with a bear wearing a baseball cap, sunglasses and an orange T-shirt.
There’s also a bag of too-small nappies, two packets of baby wipes, four bibs, one pair of pajama pants, nine pairs of socks, and any number of odd socks, and…
…an Essendon footy jumper.
Rory, are you there?
Yes.
I think I’ve found it. Is it sleeveless?
Umm…
Does it have KIA logo on the back?
Urr. It’s…
I think this is it. Do you need it straight away?
Yes
What do you need it for?
Tomorrow is hot dog day at school and we are allowed to wear our colours.
What are your colours?
Our footy team.
Oh, okay.
So, how are we going to do this?
You need it tomorrow do you?
Yes
I could bring it over in the morning before you go to school.
Oh, okay. What time?
What time do you leave for school?
We leave at 8.30.
Okay, I’ll be over there by 8.30.
Thanks, ‘bye.
‘Bye.
A few minutes later the iPad dinged with a message.
“Hi it’s Rory thank you so much for finding my jumper see you tomorrow I don’t know how to thank you send us another message to tell us what you want me to do.”
I messaged him back.
I’m happy to bring the jumper over – If you want to do something for me maybe you could do a drawing of the Queen Fairy to go with this story. See you tomorrow at 8.30. xx
This is the story I sent. It is one of many that I have collected over many years of teaching in a story-sharing preschool.
THE QUEEN FAIRY
By: Anon. Aged 5 years
She is wearing a crown.
She has golden teeth
In one hand she is holding her wand, and juggling water
With her other hand she is juggling the whole moon, which she has picked out of the sky
She changed the moon into the world because she didn’t want it to be light at night
All of the people wanted to be scared so they told her to do that
Then she took the sun out of the sky, so every night and day it was dark
The snake in the grass bit her because she took the moon away
It was a good snake and if you did something bad it bit you
It wasn’t long before the iPad dinged again. It was Rory sending a photo of his drawing…
…with the message:
is this ok for you
Perfect – thanks Rory
(The snake says, ‘You took the moon’).
Spiderman’s apprentice’s birthday
When Otto Turned Six
‘Thank you Paree from Spider-Man’s apprentice Otto Andrew Moloney xx’
Photo: Alex Moloney
Pumpkin, peas and carrots for lunch
One day Rory found this photo. He showed it to his Dad, Damon and said, ‘Dad’, tell me the story about this picture when I was a baby.’
‘Well…’, said Damon, ‘…this day I gave you mashed pumpkin, peas and carrots for lunch.You ended up with food in your hair, between your toes, on your eyebrows, up your nose. We had to have a bath! Looks to me like your enjoying yourself’. ‘I am!’ said Rory.
‘Aaaah-aah – ah!’ means ‘Go Rory!’
From their earliest days children are drawn into the chatter and goings-on of everyday family life.
They listen. They watch. They make sounds. They cry. They laugh. They babble and blurt. They squint and scrunch. They wave and nod.
Before long they are using their own sounds and words to let us know what they know, how they feel, and what they want. They are on their way.
Everyday stories
Fraser’s on the inside watching Big Brother
Rory stops kicking the ball to have a chat with Fraser