Going Owling

One afternoon this week, the girls and I hung out with the book Owl Moon by Jane Yolen.  This seems like a good book to read in the winter, but I also picked it because last week Hadley spotted a hawk outside our condo and was quite intrigued.  She was very disappointed when the bird flew away and kept calling for it to come back.

This book was a little difficult for Harper to concentrate on.  At one point she did this and said, "It's time to color Diego, Mama."

But we got through the book, and afterwords we did some painting.  I wanted the girls to try and create a winter scene by using dark crayons on white paper, and then painting over it with dark water colors.  I showed them this picture:

Here's what they came up with:

They weren't super interested, but that's OK.  Maybe next time.  What they did like was the next activity.  We went owling.

We went in the house because it was raining and cold outside.  I don't think the girls would've minded, so it was me that was the party pooper.  But we did load up our backpacks with flashlights, binoculars, and calculators, because, you know, it's good to have a calculator.

We turned off the lights in our place and did our best owl calling.

I think Jane Yolen should re-write the story and add, "When you go owling you need to make sure you look through your binoculars the right way, otherwise you won't see a darn thing."

That doesn't sound so poetic, thought.