Flot-some and Jet-some

It was "Under the Sea" day today at the Hungry house. We started by reading David Wiesner's beautiful Flotsam. Well, reading isn't quite accurate because this is a book without words, pictorially exploring a boy's discovery of an old camera at the beach of a camera that has taken photos of other children around the world and this amazing and surprising underwater world. Usually we tear through books, focusing on the written narrative, but this book invites close looking and discussion (which is always easier during daytime reads than nighttime when the mommy-reader is ready for bedtime). And so we lingered over each picture, going back and forth to our favorite pages.

And then we went and painted our own watercolors of the ocean, both silly and surprising (just like Wiesner's book). First, Bud and Sis created octopi at play. Then I painted various crustaceans on an underwater playground. Then they did too. Then I painted a lighthouse at night, with stars glowing . . . in the sea! (Yep, sea stars!) Then they did too. Finally, I painted a coral reef fast-food restaurant.

Then they were off to something else. Sis wanted to be a sea turtle. So we strapped her cardboard box (yes, they each have much loved and very tattered boxes, which have been boats, cars, trains, tables, houses, rockets, you name it) to her back with a scarf and she was able to retreat into it just like a turtle. First, I was supposed to be an attacking shark, scaring her into her shell, but eventually I was the turtle mommy. Bud couldn't resist and soon strapped his box to his back as well. There we were running back and forth across the beach into the water to find something to eat.

If only there was a coral reef restaurant!