April in Paris...

Ah, April in Paris !

Sing it Ella, play it Louis ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCsNg6XB3dg


April in Paris,
Chestnuts in blossom
Holiday tables under the trees

April in Paris,
This is a feeling
No one can ever reprise

I never knew the charm of spring
Never met it face to face
I never knew my heart could sing
Never missed a warm embrace

Till April in Paris
Whom can I run to
What have you done to my heart

(Songwriters: VERNON DUKE, E.Y. HARBURG)

Spring has definitely hit the Square des Batignolles, Paris 17









Newborn chicks take a walk ...








It's time to decorate Easter eggs ...



with crayon shavings !



First hard boil your eggs (white ones, if you can find some). While they cook, peel the paper off your favorite colored wax crayons, and grate them with a cheese grater. Keep colors separate in muffin tins.

When the eggs are done cooking, pour off the hot water and carefully remove eggs from the pot with tongs.

Holding an egg with the tongs (over a piece of paper towel), sprinkle wax crayon shavings over the egg. Place egg back in egg carton to cool and dry






You can also put the eggs in the egg carton right away and decorate them all at once. Rotate the eggs as you cover each side with wax shavings. When fully coated with wax, let 'em cool and dry.




and, voilà !

Flat Stanley in Hollywood, on the set of "The Young and the Restless"

Hi kids ! Sorry I was gone so long, but I had a great time out in CA with Jonathan and Elise. They took me to Hollywood. Elise works on the most popular soap opera ("feuilleton" en français) on American TV. It is called "The Young and the Restless" ("Les Feux de l'Amour" en France).

Here I am on the set...



I met a couple of the actors on the show. They liked me. They're very famous !




Elise's friend Patti put me in "make-up" and then I got to do a scene on the set !






I also worked on "lights"...




"camera" ...



and "action" ! Here I am in the director's chair !




So long, Hollywood and California ! I'm going to miss you !

Poetry at the beach

April is National Poetry Month in the US. To find out more about this, connect to http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/41

As Flat Stanley just came back from CA with some exciting beach adventures, we decided to celebrate poetry by taking it to the beach.

This gave us a chance to play with words and shells in the sand. First, to get into the mood, we created sand paintings with the day's key words : beach, ocean, sand, sea, seagull, shell ...

















After reading Shel Silverstein's poem "The Invisible Boy" :

And here we see the invisible boy
In his lovely invisible house,
Feeding a piece of invisible cheese
To a little invisible mouse.
Oh, what a beautiful picture to see!
Will you draw an invisible picture for me?

we took a Xerox copy of the poem, cut up the individual words, and moved them around to create a new, group poem on the blackboard ...



The lovely invisible mouse,
Invisible cheese house, invisible me.
To invisible beautiful picture,
Oh, we draw.

(5 year olds, Tuesday)



An invisible boy
Found a little mouse
In a lovely house.

(3-5 year olds, Wednesday)





Draw invisible me
Feeding an invisible mouse
In a lovely invisible house.

(6 year olds, Wednesday)






Picture little me
Feeding an invisible mouse.
We draw a lovely boy and see a little house.

(7-11 year olds, Wednesday)


Next, we listened to "Jazz poet" Jack Kerouac's recording of his "American Haïku" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJdxJ5llh5A


Then, inspired to create our own haïkus, everybody chose some of the word tiles and used them to form short, individual poems, like little haïkus in the sand.


























































The Tuesday group celebrated by putting together Charlotte's giant USA puzzle ...










We did it !