An orange giraffe

On one school day of early June,
every child was invited to dress up.
Iza wanted to be a fairy without wings.
I made her a fairy gown.
This was the first dress I made for iza.
That was a very humid day.
Before hurrying to school,
we took a picture with a "foggy" camera.
Therefore,
iza looked like standing in the mist.

Tuesday was iza's grandpa's birthady.
We had buffet together.
When the waiter asked us one by one what we wanted to drink,
Iza said,
" I want to drink,
I don't want to think."
We burst into laughters.
She said in Chinese but they are also in rhyme.

On the same day she drew the house for Sichuan,
she also drew these pictrures.
The first two are about "The mystery of Science" -
this is how she named them.
She came to me with a curve line on a piece of paper.
"This is a hill." she said.
"Come with me!"
She pulled me to go near a table lamp.
" Look! There is a girl in the hill!"
She's eager to show her little trick.
She drew the girl on the rear side of the paper.
So when the light comes through, the picture composed.
" Did your teacher teach you this fun way of drawing?" I asked.
" No. I just find this out. It is mysterious" Iza said.



Don't know what exactly it is.
But it looks abstract and nice.



She starts to create sentences.

A few days ago, Iza drew a house.
She came to me and said,
" This is for Sichuan."
She asked me to write the words " give to" for her,
and she wrote " sichuan".

The whole thing is generated by herself.
We were neither watching news nor talking about the diaster at that moment.
We were in the hotel and celebrating the birhtday of Bianca.
She used the memo pad in the hotel room and drew this little pic.
I'm glad that she puts the needs of the others in her little heart.
It's warm.

Last Sat we stayed at gold coast hotel for a night celebrating birthday of Bianca (mother of Zoe & Miko - iza's cousins). Here are the 3 girls.

Funny face

Swimming in the bath tub

This book is very inspiring.
I want to share it long time ago.
But,
simply post the cover is not enough...
think over and over.
Maybe start with this.

" That exuberant curiosity is children's most important learning asset..."

"Unfortunately,
kindergarten for us,
and for most of the generations born in this century,
was a distortion,
a diluted version of what originated as a radical and highly spiritual system of abstract-design activities intended to teach the recognition and appreciation of natural harmony.
Kindergarten's universal,
perfect,
alternative language of geometric form cultivated children's innate ability
to observe,
reason,
express,
and create."

"...childhood is a sacred period of human development,
that the child's own empirical explorations are the engine of the expanding mind..."



I'm obsessed with blocks.
Below are pictures inside the book.



And, these beautiful blocks are from the other sites.

Two activities books

I cannot imagine that I can make it.
I'm not good at needlework.
At first, I tried to calculate the curvatures and circumferences of different parts of the lifebuoy. (which is selected by iza's school and it's not a round one)
But, it's far too difficult.
I then recall eames elephant.
Actually, they've also designed a horse and a bear!
I just put some paper on the lifebuoy and cut...
The horse is now made of 4 separated parts.
This allows more inaccuracy.




When I was making my very first horse,
Ziggy bought this wonderful book.
Maybe one day, I can make a structural and "engineered" dress for little iza.

Iza's favorite drinks and beef noodle.

I'm working out props for iza's kindergarden graduation show.
K-3 children (iza is in K-2) will pretend that they are riding a horse in their show.
This is just a paper mock up.
However, it will not be a broom stick anymore.
It will be a horse head on a lifebuoy.

It is a material test in our studio.
The effect is quite fascinating.