The Cave School

Winter Play

2012-02-10T08:54:00.000-08:00

We spent a couple more days going over Winter including making a winter scene which they really liked. They cut out their own tree (they both chose an evergreen tree) and glued all the "snowflakes" on then they painted snow on the trees and of course added a cotton ball snowman. They worked very well together to complete it.

O prefers a "chefs hat" over the traditional top hat and M agreed to it.

After that we played in a very cool medium, Insta Snow! It took me a few stores to find it and I purchase the last small bag they had but it was completely worth it. I was very skeptical but we love it. It's really soft, doesn't get you wet and isn't too cold to play with. It doesn't really mold but they still liked playing in different ways.

We brought out our small amount of animal figures and talked about what animals lived in the snow and ice

They also spent a lot of time scooping and pouring

And of course, cake making. Everything turns into cake making with O (a baker in the making perhaps?). Those are candles I gave them for pretend play.

Later we revisited the animals who live in snow and we learned about hibernation. We made a "cave" where they pretended to be different animals and hibernated.

The boxes were added

Pretending to be squirrels collecting and eating nuts.

You guys.. this was probably the best idea ever. They actually relaxed and were quiet inside their "cave". They played nicely. They had fun. THEY WERE QUIET! And nobody was dead or unconscious. A huge win for us all.

What our back patio looked like at the end of the day. Very well played in, I think.

That ends the Winter portion of this unit. We have started Spring and I will soon share all that fun. It has been slow going due to sickness running through everyone, though.

Winter Weather

2012-02-09T22:26:00.000-08:00

We finally started our theme units and I am very excited about it. Seeing as how we don't get much true "weather" around here I thought we should do the seasons and weather first. And since it's currently Winter (though you wouldn't know it given our 70 degree average lately) I figured we would start there. We were going to get a bit of rain and I wanted to take advantage. And yes, we could drive to the mountains but we don't own snow gear and I'm not convinced M would tolerate the cold well.

We started at D's. We were able to get the kids interested in making rain sticks thanks to the love of the wood one we have. So we created and decorated those.

Before heading out for the real fun. Unfortunately for O we missed most of the heavy rain. But she still had a blast jumping in the really nice puddle.

M finally decided to join in the fun. However, it wasn't long lasting as he ran straight through the puddle to the grass. And wet grass is slippery. And he fell right on his butt and was completely not happy. Oh well.

Luckily when we got home it was raining again so they got to play in the rain and be happy.

We made sure to measure the rainfall while we were gone though. They were pretty impressed.

The next day we worked on the water cycle and the science behind the rain. They were very interested in this and I had them work together to create their own.

The green is a mountain and that curve is a wave.

Back at D's we focused this time on snow. Again, we are mainly working on group stuff so we brought out the always loved shaving cream.

And we really filled it up for them.

We also offered a bucket of warm clean water for clean up. Though that was quickly just made into part of the fun.

At the end we added some paint, let them mix and made prints. We underestimated how much color we would need (and how much shaving cream we really used) but the prints still turned out really cool.

After some major clean up we went indoors and had a snowball fight with scrap paper. D and O took up residence behind those cushions. M tried to infiltrate by climbing up oh so stealthily and throwing the snowballs directly at their heads. It was hilarious.

More Winter fun coming up...

Group Projects

2012-02-07T12:18:00.000-08:00

Sorry it has been so long in between postings. I am still not sure if I will continue this blog so I haven't made the time to do it. I enjoy sharing but I don't have as much time nowadays. Until I decide, I will continue our adventure just not as frequently.

I finally put away those pellets and brought out a new medium. Cloud Dough. This stuff is really cool. Of course, I got the idea from Pinterest. The poster said it was 8 cups of flour to 1 cup of baby oil. I ended up using a LOT more oil because it wasn't molding as well as I had wanted. But the texture... it was so wonderful. Even I wanted to just touch it and play with it in my hands. I am a sucker for super soft things.

The kids did too so I reluctantly moved so they could get in and play. They found very quickly it wouldn't work as wet sand does (it would stick inside the molds) since it was still so powdery and more sticky but they loved it just the same.

They even brought some of their animal figurines (there is a polar bear in there too, can you find it?). The next week I brought this back out for some pretend snow play.

FYI - This stuff will get everywhere. It's flour, 'nuff said. Also? The baby oil will not cause it to stain.

Over at D's we did a group painting on her window which was a blast.

Life Skills

2012-01-12T10:03:00.001-08:00

I think a lot of what they are working on this week are part of life skills. Pretend play (with and without the kitchen), balance, problem solving, clean up and small motor skills.

Sticking to the same overall thoughts for this week, they continued to play with the pellets doing more with the kitchen.

I also added a couple more things for them to use with the pellets. This thick cardboard tube which required extending arms and getting on tip toes. If you notice that round ice maker in the box, they used that to pretend to make cookies in the oven.

We also worked on clean up. Those pellets sure do get everywhere.

We also worked with the hula hoops. Or hoopy hoops as they call them. We tried doing the movement and when they got frustrated we moved on to seeing what they would fit over. Once the basketball thing fell over, M had a hard time figuring out how to get it off. O then had the idea to lift up the end and he basically put it over her. After that he did it over and over trying to find new ways of getting it off.

He also liked putting it over the bikes. Which turned into him wanting to ride with it around his bike.

Yesterday they asked to do some cutting so I drew some lines and they practiced following the lines. O is very good at this.

M still struggles with this a lot. As you can see from this picture, I have to remind him a lot to keep his thumb up. Even through frustration, they both love cutting on lines.

It was a good reminder that I need to let him do more cutting. What other things would help him with these movements?

Sensory and Behavior

2012-01-10T23:00:00.000-08:00

The plan for this year is to get into theme units. I already have a list of ideas for units but I haven't made much progress in the way of planning them out.

I also wasn't planning on starting said units till February sometime.

Given that, I needed to figure out what the hell we were going to do till then. I decided I really want to work on behavior this year. My kids do exactly what any (most?) siblings do (I hope?) and that is fight and argue and do lots of yelling instead of talking. O is kind of a control freak and prefers to play in a very specific way. Which means she is trying to dictate to M how to play.

And M is her complete opposite and just wants to play however his mood dictates. So I hear a lot of bossing and screaming and "No"ing and.. well, not the most pleasant behavior.

So I figure the best way to work on all that is to encourage working together. Unfortunately, our water/sensory table broke during the move but it was cheap and old so not too big a deal. Now I just have to find a replacement. I know what I want but I really don't have that kind of money. So until I find one on the cheap or find someone to make it on the cheap, I will be improvising.

Luckily, I am a member of Costco and give away some nice, thick boxes. I picked up two this last weekend and immediately went to work carving them out to fit our needs for this weeks sensory play.

I set them up side by side, taping them together with a small-ish hole for passing in between. I was hesitant to use two separate boxes. I knew there was a possibility that they would each claim a side as their own. As expected they each played by themselves a bit

But for the most part...

They squeezed into one.Working not quite silently together and separately.

And that was exactly what I was hoping for.

Teamwork. They realized the pellets would not go through the funnels and made the observation that they were too big. Even with shoving a stick in to help them along. They also realized that by putting them in the funnels one by one, it would work. O figured out very quickly she did not like the smell of them but only if it got close to her nose. We talked about what they were for and they pretended to be turtles and rabbits. They also used them with their kitchen for pretend cooking. I say, a fairly productive sensory play day.

Moving On and Along

2012-01-10T16:21:00.000-08:00

Again with the moving thing. I know. But nobody is moving right now. In fact, I considered pulling this blog down.

I had lost my momentum and wondered if anyone actually read the darn thing. I feel this need to complete the blogs from X,Y,Z but you know what?

I don't want to. But, I do want to keep this thing up. I get excited about the things we do and I'm extra excited about my plans for this year. And I need to share them with someone. Meaning, random strangers.

So unless y'all are going to object, I'm just going to move on to this year. XYZ wasn't too interesting anyway for us. And really, the rest of the year was made up of parks and Christmas and playing and Christmas and Christmas... way too much Christmas. And I'm completely Christmas-ed out and don't want to revisit it. At all. Not even the word.

So here is a quick recap of the fun things between that word and this week:

They got overwhelmed and bored the week after **ahem** so I brought out some styrofoam and pipe cleaners for some open play. They took to it immediately.

They even made a train! Though, they found out quickly that 3 was too many.

There has been lots of Candyland playing

and puzzle doing since they both got two new puzzles

They got to ride on go-karts for the first time. They were able to be passengers on the adult ones too. Of course, no photos or videos of that but they loved every minute and I could not stop laughing.

M has become a basketball fan and plays outside a lot.

And of course, lots of funny faces have been made.

We started back up with some school type stuff this week so be sure to check back soon for that stuff and plans for the year.

Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T21:46:00.001-08:00

Before I get back to any of the official blogging, I have jumped on the whole 365 days of photos thing. Surprisingly (really surprising since I took over 100 yesterday) I did not take any photos today so I just took this quick one of me tonight.

I'll get back to the normal stuff soon and some things might be changing but I really don't know yet. So I'll just leave you with that.

I hope everyone had a wonderful and safe new years and I still can't believe it IS a new year.

W Week With Water, Weather and Fun!

2011-11-28T10:18:00.001-08:00

We combined V and W so later in the week we worked on W. We first talked about water and weather. It had rained earlier in the week so it was easy to show and explain. We have talked about the water cycle a lot so it was a good review for them. Then they made weather predictions for the next day.

O thought it would be blue skies and sunny with a few white fluffy clouds.

M thought there would be lots of dark clouds and rain with a little sun.

Except for the rain, M was correct. We also talked about animals that live in the water like whales and walruses, along with all the other ones.

At D's we learned about worms and they got to hold them and put them in her garden.

It was too cold for the water table so we gave them water bottles and let them water the plants.

Baby K stomped around. hee hee

Of course, we went for a walk about the new neighborhood, ate waffles and just had fun.

Vegetables, Vases and Vehcles!

2011-11-28T09:56:00.001-08:00

The letter V is difficult to work with. There just isn't much to do with it for pre-kers. But we made it work and they had fun. We also combined it with W but that is another post.

We made vegetable V's (from here) and we talked about why each was good for us. Yes, I'm calling a tomato a veggie. What of it?

Then we painted vases. I couldn't find cheap, clear bud vases so I just used some used, clean bottles. We still didn't have a dining table (or any table for that matter) at this point so everything was done on the back patio.

I love how they turned out.

We played with all sorts of vehicles and talked about what they are used for. They used the dump truck to carry rocks and dirt from one area to another.

They rescued people and brought them to the hospital in their ambulance.

They also rescued people with the firetruck. Though it seems M decided to rescue the firetruck itself. Probably from O. As you can see they also rode their own vehicles.

I even let them play Mario Kart on the Wii. M "needed" to wear his racing hat too. They take their racing quite seriously.

At D's we made volcanoes. This is always fun.

They got to color mix with it too. Which was interesting for us. We figured out you can layer the colors. So put the baking soda in, add a few drops of coloring, a little more baking soda then a little more coloring. Etc., etc. Super cool!

Not a lot of fine motor work, I know. But, we took care of that with W and also with Thanksgiving stuff last week. But they did have fun and seemed to have learned a lot.

Aaaaaand... We're Back!

2011-11-27T00:32:00.001-08:00

I can't believe it has been so long since I last posted. I did not mean to go so long with the whole hiatus thing.

Sorry.

We are moved in and, for the most part, settled. We are still working out a few little things here and there but those are fairly minor.

We finally got back to our letters the week before Thanksgiving but before I get to that, I should backtrack to where we left off. Don't you think? If not, skip ahead people.

So... we left off at Halloween. Boy, was that fun. O was a mermaid and M was a ghost. D made their costumes and they turned out awesome!!

Friday we went to a small carnival where they wore the costumes for the first time. One of the few pictures with the hood on.

Great shot of the arms. The arms were flippin' awesome.

O hula hooping (trying) in hers.

K was Super Grover. Perfect costume for him.

We had a pre trick or treat party with our awesome playgroup. O really hammed it up for the camera

M just scowled at the camera guy

We carved our pumpkins Sunday. M wanted nothing to do with it (not surprising)

The final look

Halloween night we met up with friends and the kids did great trick or treating. M kept his hood on the entire time even!

I love Halloween. I hope everyone else had a great time too!

Moving Hiatus

2011-10-31T14:28:00.000-07:00

No, the blog isn't moving anywhere but my family sure is. We have been anticipating the move for a while but finally made a decision on where and when and it's crunch week. Which is why there hasn't been much from me over here. We have been to lots of places and and doing lots of packing and all that fun stuff.

We should be in the new place this weekend and although there will still be unpacking to do, the posts should resume next week.

In the mean time, here is what we did for U last week.

We made U umbrellas (from here) that turned out super cute. M put the rain drops everywhere. (M cut out his umbrella by himself!)

While O put them above the U and below explaining that it was the puddle. (O cut out the U and the umbrella all by herself)

We built train tracks and had the trains go "under" all sorts of things like their bridges and boxes and legs

And step stools

At D's we (well, O.. M and K had no interest) made umbrellas out of foam. O cut hers out all by her lonesome. She also made a unicorn (you can see it on the table in the background.. sorry no other pictures).

These pictures are horrible but you may get the idea. We play "Keep Up" with the balloons we had.

Love this game and so do they!

Alright, that's all there was for U. We did lots of Halloween stuff over the last couple weeks too but that will have to wait.

I hope you all have a wonderful, safe Halloween and week. I'll be back soon.

Terrific Tents and Towers

2011-10-16T17:29:00.000-07:00

This week has been fun. The kids wanted to do a Halloween project so I had them paint our two squashes white for ghosts. M got all kinds of into it. Needing to use every.last.drop. I had to have them paint it twice as I forgot to add the glue the first time around (keeps the paint from chipping... in case you didn't already know that). And it wouldn't be messy without paint/glue in the hair! (final pictures later)

At D's we made tissue paper hand bats. I was a little skeptical about this project at first but I LOVE how they came out.

Putting the teeth on. These seriously came out with the best personalities ever.

M's are on the left, O's are on the right.

And of course our pumpkin hand bats. The order is:

O (mustache guy), K (shy bucktooth guy), M (mean guy)

We put together small skeletons (found here). O did great, M wanted nothing to do with it. Go figure.

Hung under our wreath (don't look at the screen...)

We took a last minute trip to the park for some fun. O tried the monkey bars by herself for the first time and did awesomely! She was able to go 4 before needing to let go.

The boys were pretty much inseparable, going up and down the slide the whole time. D and Baby K joined in their fun too.

We also celebrated M's 3rd birthday. We spent a long time at the park where they insisted on climbing this thing. Wish I would have taken a full picture, it's maybe 6.5 feet tall. M needed a little help up and freaked out trying to get down. Which meant I basically had to climb up there. Silly boy.

And of course, presents were in order. He loved his new truck (perfect for T week, right?)

Back at D's we played with her pop up tents

Made faces on the ghosts

Our "Ring Around the Spooky"

And made lots of towers!

M starts making tracks for his cars with the blocks and K joined in.

Then back at home we made painted tire and train tracks.

And we finished up our fall tree! O and I colored leaves and we found a few pictures of birds and a squirrel to cut out and add to it plus our owl puppets. And of course we HAD to add the bat, full moon and a spider web for Halloween. I love this thing!

T week was a lot of fun and the kids seem to know the letter really well. Next week we'll be moving on to U with more Halloween stuff added in.

New Toys and Halloween Stuff!

2011-10-11T21:02:00.000-07:00

This week we kind of took a break. It certainly wasn't planned but I should have seen it coming. Sunday the kids had their birthday party. Of course this means they spent pretty much the whole week playing with all the cool new things they got. Which is/was totally awesome. And since last week we did a lot of S stuff it really wasn't a big deal.

We did a little more Halloween decorating. I love putting spider webs up, I just don't have a lot of places to do so. So this little area above my piano is kind of Halloween Central.

There has been a lot of tower building with their new awesome foam blocks

M has played with this marble run a TON. That was pretty much all he did on Monday and Tuesday.

O loves making her own jewelry now

And there have been a lot of fires to put out around the house (we only got 1 fire chief suit so they take turns)

Trucks are always a hit around here

And while he did this on Wednesday..... she did that in the rain. =)

You may remember that we had another shaving cream day to make ghosts. Unfortunately, someone *cough.M.cough* decided it would be great to scratch the crap out of the paper and totally ruined them. It was a little sad but they love shaving cream so it just gave us a reason to do it again. This time I pre-cut the shapes from cardboard so I wouldn't have to figure it out later.

M first decided to use the spoon but later dove in with his hands.

Once they were finished with the ghosts I brought out the paint and pre-cut pumpkin cardboard shapes and let them go for it. Due to the paint, the texture isn't nearly as cool but it still came out great.

I love the texture!! We haven't completely finished it so expect a final product next week.

Today we visited D & K. We painted mini pumpkins to make into bats, traced hands on black paper for more bats and then made awesome ghosts.

M has been all about the mean guys so it didn't surprise me that he chose those blue eyes. Made it super creepy when he wanted a smiley mouth. O kind of squished her ghost to smithereens but it's still.. umm.. cute?

I only have pictures of the ghosts since that's the only thing we finished. The kids were more interested in playing together and it was one of the best play days we have ever had so we didn't push it. They were playing so nicely most of the time. When we finish the projects next week I'll post pictures of those.

I'm super excited about next week. I finally get to do more with our tree, there will be park time and a pumpkin patch!

Nature Hike

2011-10-02T10:53:00.000-07:00

Friday we went to the Oak Canyon Nature Center. This trip was inspired by this blog post and it was beautiful. We didn't venture off the trails since all of our kids were 4 and under. And really, we saw some fresh animal poop so it was probably a good thing. But maybe next time.

The nature center was closed so we couldn't explore inside but it was such a nice day, it didn't matter too much. We checked out the old mine

Then headed off. There is a beautiful creek running through it so there were lots of bridges

It was gorgeous

We found this little spot. The water was running but it was completely disgusting. Lots of rust colored muck.

We tried to hike to the highest spot but our plans were thwarted. Quite a few of the paths were closed for some reason. But we still had a wonderful time.

M and I ended up in the back most of the time. He was very interested in stopping to check out rocks and what not. O was my little trailblazer up at the front.

I definitely want to go back and check out some of the other trails. And the Nature Center.

Good times

A Satisfyingly Sudsy Day

2011-09-29T21:46:00.000-07:00

Check me out! Posting more than once a week. I should be doing other things, like sleeping, but today was fun so I wanted to get it out.

We had places to go and things to do in the morning so the afternoon was our school time. O asked me if we could make ghosts and I was happy to do so. I decided to make shaving cream (and glue) ghosts.

I set it up like this on our thick black card stock. Last year I cut out the ghost shape ahead of time but decided not to this year.

I love using shaving cream because of the texture it creates!

After they were finished with their paper creations O wanted to play in it some more (M had moved on to his cars inside) so I set up another cookie sheet and let her play.

Once O was finished and washing herself up, M decided to use his cars in it. He loved that it made patterns in the cream.

I figured after making all that mess that the best thing would be to play with suds and wash things up. I used one of our big plastic bins with just enough water to cover the bottom and added a TON of dish soap so as to get TONS of suds.

There was lots of pouring

And (clean) sponge squeezing (again...S's here)

Bike washing

And dish washing too! Also.. notice the suds on her back? She washed herself as well.

Then of course I turned on the warm water and we rinsed everything down including them. It was a very fun and productive day. We talked about senses... how it all smelled, looked, felt (obviously no tasting or listening to sounds anything made) and O got a good lesson on how to get tough stuff off dishes (using the scrubbing size of the sponge).

Lots of use of S over here.

Tomorrow we will be visiting another nature center for what I suspect will be, a beautiful walk.

Next week we will be continuing with S as we weren't able to get together with D & K and we want to do some more sensory things and science experiments.

Not So Spooky S Week

2011-09-27T22:44:00.000-07:00

So we started S a little bit early on Friday. We were all just kind of done with R. Whatever, it worked.

Friday we were over at D's and we made spiders. Brace yourself, these are a little.. well... freaky. But in a hilarious sort of way.

M decided he wanted the giant pom but we didn't accommodate the legs to match the head. So it's even more freaky.

We attempted a scavenger hunt but we kind of lost them after the first few. Though, I can't remember why. I think we just had a few issues.

Monday we made an official start with making an S snake (from here, of course)

We sponge painted sparkly stars

I mixed silver and gold glitter into the white paint so there was no sprinkling or flaking off later. I love how they turned out.

After that I changed it up a little. Halloween planning is in full force around here and when I saw this I had to do it too! I didn't have any contact paper so I just slipped the paper into a sheet protector. The kids loved them. At first O started getting frustrated with her drawing but once she realized she could wipe it off and start over she was golden.

The kids have been sick with colds so whining and sleepiness has been at a crazy level. This morning was a little better for O but definitely worse for M. Given that we didn't do much for activities in the morning. They practiced their somersaults (sorry.. pictures of that are difficult to get) and there is always singing around here. I brought out our Halloween decorations and they helped decide where to put them. After that we attempted to make a spider web but when I set them outside to dry they were ruined by the wind. We may try again tomorrow.

Instead I took them outside to practice on the skateboard and scooters. They quickly chose to move on from the skateboard. haha

When we got back inside they wanted to do the new puzzle. I picked up this skeleton puzzle at Rite Aid in their $1 bin! Score! However, it's a fairly difficult puzzle as it's 2-sided. But they still love it and we worked on it at least 10 times. M loves him some puzzles. He will do them over and over till he can do it with his eyes closed.

But that's been our week so far. I have a feeling the kids will be even better tomorrow but of course, I caught it too and by this evening... the sinus headache and runny nose is just killing me. It could be worse though.

More to come!

The Tree

2011-09-24T21:50:00.000-07:00

So we live in a condo. It's good size with plenty of room for play and a decent balcony but it isn't like we have an awesome backyard with huge trees and dirt and mud and all that awesome stuff. We go to a lot of parks and nature walks and all that. We have one great park that has these fabulous huge trees that, during the fall, basically blanket the ground in their leaves. It's my favorite place to go during that time of the year.

Anyway, my dream is have that huge backyard one day until then I decided to do something different for a tree.

We recently got a package. A huge box with barely anything in it (has been awesome for playing in) but the one thing that was ordered and all of this brown paper packaging. I immediately thought it would make an awesome tree.

So I made one. The kids helped a bit helping to choose where to put the smaller branches.

I love it.

We will be starting T week soon (S is this week) so I figured it would be a great learning tool. Types of trees, how they grow and why, what you find in trees. That kind of thing.

I think I'll have them cover it in fall colored leaves and they can add whatever other things they find/think of that can be found in trees. If it lasts long enough we'll take the leaves down and put some "snow" on it. Maybe even put up some Christmas decorations on it.

It's hard to say how long it will last but I hope it does for quite some time.

More R Stuff

2011-09-22T16:12:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I couldn't come up with anything better than that title. I'm tired and I haven't been feeling 100% lately so that's what you get. Deal. =)

Anyway.

Our 2nd R week has been full of fun. We watched a Signing Time DVD on the colors of the rainbow then drew pictures of rainbows. We talked about how a rainbow is formed they did some more coloring. Olivia decided to draw a "rainy day".

This was fun. I came across this idea here but instead of using mops we used sponges. Although, mops probably would have been better, the kids still really liked it.

Love how the rainbow of colors looks on the platter

And they loved how it came out on the sponges

The boys didn't want to make the arc. lol

Even baby K got to mix colors in his bag o' shaving cream.

Later in the week they rode their bikes and even had races.

They colored R's in rainbow colors. Olivia chose color blocks while Myles was a little more free in his coloring.

We set up duct tape roads. We included some lego houses and tunnels and even a stoplight and gas station.

Stopping at the intersection to "look both ways"

They used the trains too. She had to put gas in her train.

Of course, we did a lot of reading over the course of this week as well. We love reading anyway but this was my excuse to add even more into our day.

Looking forward to S next week! And hopefully I'll be back up to 100+%.

Rocket Rules

2011-09-17T13:38:00.000-07:00

At home it was requested by O that we do a "messy project". No surprise by my total body learner and I was happy to oblige.

But first, I felt the need to implement the rules thing at our home too. Every one of these were made by the kids. A few more have been added since then and I'm quite sure more will be as time goes on. But this is a GREAT start. The sticker chart has been implemented and a calendar to start learning the days of the week and months and all that (pictures of those later).

After going over the rules we started our messy project. I found some rocks a while back that I have been keeping for R week so I set them up to paint. And I decided to make all the paint based on red. They got to experiment mixing all kinds of colors with red.

We then worked on the difference between "Quick"

and "Slow"

Talking about how we were going to be quick (running) and slow (walking). They had a blast with this.

Friday we met up with a new group of friends for a 1 mile nature walk. There was tons of running... M was feeling very brave and was the one to go ahead of everyone most of the time.

They practiced their balancing too. Lots of fun.

After getting home they wanted to do another messy project so we worked on our rockets. Using a cut up cereal box we made cynlinders and painted them. M used the 2 handed approach.

O used the arm approach.

Once the paint was (mostly) dry we added some glitter glue. I was just going to have them sprinkle glitter and then I pulled myself out of insanity and decided glitter glue would be awesome.

Then we added the final touches of sequins.

They chose the paper they wanted for the cones...

Then I added the black foam pieces (no idea what they are called).

I *may* add a window with their picture in it but I'm not sure yet. I'll probably leave it up to them.

R with D & K

2011-09-16T22:41:00.000-07:00

We decided to combine Q and R this week (we'll be doing R next week as well). We didn't do much with Q since.. well.. there isn't much to that letter.

Monday we got together with D and K and we painted with Q-tips. Combined some color mixing as well which happens pretty much every time we paint.

We attempted to do some quilting but scrapped that idea very quick and moved right on to R. We started with rules. We had the kids help us make house rules and they did really well coming up with them. We implemented a sticker chart as well to help them in remembering and following the rules. After that we made roads with black duct tape so they could just play and practice with the rules for the rest of the time.

This was a blast and I'm totally doing it again next week at our house. We used the mega blocks to make towers, houses, tunnels, etc.

And just because this was tons of fun and totally awesome...

The hubs came home from work and started this with the kids.

TEAMWORK!!!!

And of course, knocking it down together. =)

Last Review

2011-09-12T21:17:00.000-07:00

I'll admit, I am kind of over these review weeks. The kids recognize most of the their uppercase letters and maybe half of the lowercase. O knows all of the sounds and although M isn't quite up to the same pace, I wasn't expecting the same from him given his age. So last week was mainly just lots of fun. It was hot so there was lots of water play.

I had the intention of us making our own ocean but I realized I didn't have nearly enough sand. So instead I just let them play in the sandy water with our mini seashells and sea creatures. I had put all of the creatures plus other things (cardboard, play food items, legos) into a bag and as they took something out of the bag we talked about what goes in the ocean and what doesn't. They were great with this, thinking back to L and litter.

M decided to put all the sea creatures into some water with him for his own ocean adventure. Godzilla style.

Of course all of this water play moved to the next day where we broke out the tube and funnels (I added another!). O hadn't been interested in this thing much till today.

She realized she could stop the water by pushing it up against her chest.

But moved on to give her doll a shower.

She also experimented with stopping the water flow with other things like a measuring cup.

M got all interested in what happened when the other side was blocked and he put his finger in the funnel. Pretty sure I'm gonna have to get some PVC pipe and make something more with funnels.

They like to test their boundaries. Like, "can we both fit in a tiny little space?"

They found a new home for their flags too. Although that was quickly stopped since that's a balcony and sitting in there leads to standing leads to too many other possibilities.

If all goes as planned, we will be done with the alphabet the first week of November. No ideas on what we'll do between then and when we start our themes but I'm sure it will be fun.

Ideas are welcome!

I Lied (Unintentionally)

2011-09-12T20:37:00.000-07:00

I said the last post was the final on the letter P but it wasn't. I completely forgot about our review! And how could I forget when it was so incredibly fun?

The two P things left were the pirate treasure hunt and the puppet show. We did both on the same day and they were awesome. The days before the kids painted their boats.

They work in such unique ways

While the paint dried I worked on their sails. Last time we did this I used paper bags (much smaller boats) as the sail and they were the modern triangle style. This time I wanted to make them the old fashioned rectangle style. I picked up a couple of wooden dowels for the masts so they wood hold up well to the abuse they would take. I used cut off pieces of cardboard, found the middle and duct taped them to the dowels leaving about an inch of the dowel above the cardboard.

I then used an old pillow case cut down the length of one side and an old unused small window curtain, found the middle and cut out a small hole so it would slide right over the dowel.

Thus letting it hang down like a sail. I probably could have done more to make it better but the kids loved it just as it was.

The next day we got our pirate hats on, our skull and cross bones on our flags and set sail to find the island that would lead us to the treasure.

D made the map. Love it! Each picture represented a place they had to go to find a clue (just a skull and crossbones tied to each one.. we kept it simple).

O was kind of the ring leader since she is the oldest and understood everything better than the boys. They found each clue...

Then moved on to the next

Consulting the map together each time

Until finally finding the "X marks the spot"!

They untied the treasure box and loved it all! We put stickers, potions (from the ones they made previous), necklaces, etc.

Godzilla even made an appearance! Is this not the cutest costume ever?! The tail wags back and forth when they crawl (or walk).

This was seriously a blast. The kids really seemed to have a great time. We'll definitely do it again next year.

The puppet show wasn't quite as successful but we all still had a great time. D demonstrated a mini show first.

Then we let the kids go at it. The boys lost interest pretty quick by themselves so I jumped in and then we all put on a show for D and baby K. It was hilarious and super cute.

I suspect there will be more puppet shows in our future. Maybe with sock puppets?!

Now P is done. For sure. Onward and upward!

P Part 3

2011-09-08T00:00:00.000-07:00

P Part 3! I promise it's the last one before we move on. But I think it's worth it, right?!

We made a few more puppets since O was super excited about the puppet show. Luckily, the kids were just given a couple more puzzles (they love puzzles!) one of which was a parrot! Perfect, no?

So we did the puzzle then made a parrot puppet. And we had to make a puppy puppet since the kids love them some puppies. They used the dot painters to make polka dots on the puppies (colors were completely their choice).

There was lots of playing with playdoh as that is always a hit here. They even made prince and princess crowns.

There was lots of running around last week so we didn't do too much else but the best part was the potions. Yep, we did it again and it was completely awesome. Even if it was incredibly messy.

- Dry ingredients: Cocoa powder, instant coffee, cornstarch, baking soda, coconut and shaving cream. I considered not adding the shaving cream but it's such a cool medium to play in I just had to do it.

- Wet ingredients: Oil, water, vinegar and 4 different colored paints.

They each had 2 bowls, 3 measuring scoops and 2 spoons. There were only 2 rules. No eating/drinking anything and they could only use their big black/blue bowls for mixing so that they each could get to experiment with everything.

I had them sit on either side so they could access everything equally.

M just wanted to mix dry ingredients. He had a hard time following the second rule. He REALLY wanted to mix in and out of the littler bowls. Which would have been fine if I had tons of everything. But, he eventually was ok with using the 2 bowls.

Even though he took the longest to include any wet ingredients, he was the first to discover the vinegar.

She quickly followed. Though it took her a few tries to find the right dry ingredient. She had not yet put any baking soda into her mixture so she was a bit perplexed and annoyed when she added the vinegar but nothing happened. But, she found it. =)

M discovered the funnels but only used them for a little fun, not towards his concoction.

They worked independently most of the time but when ingredients started to run out (they used all of my vinegar, lol) they came together.

Had to get every last drop!

It really was so much fun. I love watching them experiment and figure things out. I just watched and asked them questions about how it smelled and looked and felt and what they were making and all that fun stuff. The clean up was almost as fun. Though if I do this again I'm leaving out the coconut. Everything else easily washed away but the coconut took some time and since we just have a balcony, I had to make sure it was gone so as not to attract bugs. Besides that they got to play in soapy water and what kid wouldn't want that?!

Purely Playful

2011-09-01T10:00:00.000-07:00

We did some very fun stuff (and so much more to come this week) with D and the boys. We made playdoh porcupines that came out looking a bit... funny? Using toothpicks as the quills.

We helped them form the body and head then let them go. I made one myself to help guide.

Even baby K got to explore the playdoh! Although he was annoyed we wouldn't let him eat any.

Ok, so I called them cute on that day but really? They are a bit creepy. I also realized days later than we forgot their tails!! Whatever, the kids liked them.

Inspired by this post, we did pendulum painting. The following pictures were from our 2nd go at it (first ones are on D's camera). The first time we could not get it to work properly. The paint was just not flowing out of the cup unless it was basically just water. For a concept so simple, it was extremely frustrating. That night I took another look at the post and realized we didn't have the cup close enough to the paper. Once we got that we were good. But it took us using a plastic bag to get it flowing. Weird.

This time it totally worked and came out great but the kids lost interest super quick.

We didn't have good, thick, big paper so we used cardstock for some possible keeping. Again, the kids totally lost interest. I think it just wasn't hands on enough for them since we wouldn't let them hit the pendulum.

The best part of last week? POTIONS! We gathered every dry material we could think of like brown sugar, baking soda (of course), dirt, etc and gave them squirt bottles of water, oil and vinegar and let them go. Lots of sharing, working side by side, some working together, tons of pouring and mixing and experimenting and mess making. The pictures speak for themselves.

Perfectly Priceless

2011-08-31T23:42:00.000-07:00

That's how I might describe P week(s). I'll start with what we did at home last week.

We began with a simple activity of polka dot P's.

Then we moved to pig puppets. We will be having a puppet show at the end of week 2 so we are making all sorts.

They wanted to practice writing P's on the back. This is the first interest they have shown in writing! Check out my possible lefty!!

Our penguins. Love!

Then we made a parachute! We used a plastic bag. I cut out a circle and we punched holes, tied ribbon and used our Handy Manny figure as a test pilot. They loved this!

We made a present for grandpa's birthday. We made brownies for him and they got to do some open play in creating the box.

Love the final product!

(there is one other thing we did at home but that deserves it's own post)

A Big Fat Sorry

2011-08-29T23:09:00.000-07:00

So we went on a little vacation a couple weeks ago and while we were gone, my laptop died (we took it with it).

The good thing is that it can be fixed with a simple, cheap little part!!

The bad thing is that it has to be taken apart 100% in order for that itty bitty little piece to be fixed. I'm sure you can imagine that this means $$.

The good thing is that my super awesome friend can fix it for me for a much smaller cost.

The bad thing is that I suck and still need to get it to him. I will change that tomorrow though. Promise.

Yes, we do have another computer I could use but it isn't easily accessible at what one might call "proper hours".

Just know that we are working on the letter P and so far? It's awesome! We decided to do 2 weeks of it just so we could do more things.

Think:

Potions, parachutes, puppets, paints, pirates, etc.

Use your imagination till I get back on here...

"Who? Who?"

2011-08-14T14:23:00.000-07:00

That's what I heard all week.

Monday we started on the letter O and made these Owl O's. So of course we talked about the sound they make and we talked about "nocturnal" and all that fun stuff.

We made oatmeal cookies which meant lots of measuring and counting and fractions.

mmm.... yummy

We also worked on our own ocean. Coloring all of the ocean animals

We used real sand and small shells. Then glued all the animals onto the paper

I love how it came out. However, I did not take into consideration how heavy the glue and sand would be. I ended up gluing the paper onto a scrap piece of foam board for support which worked great. But of course, it wasn't going to hang on our wall that way. Just a note for anyone else.

After that they got to play with the rest of the sand. M went right into it with his race car and O immediately started to "wash her baby".

At D's house the kids all made a big ocean. This time using paper for the sand and blue circle sequins for bubbles. Very cute. We even had another super cute little girl with us for the day.

Before leaving we cut each section the kids worked on to take home.

We made octopuses using cardstock and pipecleaners. Plus little blue beads for suction cups.

Our movers (O and K) got bored real quick with the beads. Details like that are not their thing. But M? He loved doing this part. He sat there for a long while slipping beads onto the pipe cleaners.

From left to right: K, O, M. They turned out very cute.

We made puppet owls later in the week (idea from here).

Love how they turned out (especially how M put his eyes)

(we are gearing up for a puppet show during our P weeks)

We also did some painting. We used oranges...

and onions (they didn't like using the onion too much but definitely liked the rings it made)

It was a fun week. We had hoped to made an ocean in the water table but it was a little too chilly for it. We

will try again during review week.

And because I love when they share so nicely.

Linked up HERE!

Letter N Week Part 1

2011-08-07T15:37:00.000-07:00

N week was fun. It wasn't the greatest week we have had by any means as we didn't get to some of the activities I wanted to do (lack of planning and getting the correct items needed, honestly). But, the kids had a lot of fun with what we did.

Monday we started by making a number N. We used numbers 1-30 and we went over each number. Great practice for them! M used all the numbers and more, O chose only a few.

(Picture taken by O). We then went over Nose. We looked at the anatomy and talked about what our noses were for and why we sneeze and all that. They colored a printout then we had a little smell experiment.

Unfortunately, I didn't have super smelly things like lemons or fresh strawberries so it wasn't as successful as I would have liked. Instead I used things like cinnamon, raisins and some of their lotion and soap as well. They were able to pick out quite a few of them.

That afternoon and also Tuesday we played with nets in the water table. Monday we played with some colored ice since it was super hot.

They loved that it turned the water green.

I put our foam letter fish for them to catch in the nets. They called out the letter of each fish as they caught them.

Of course we had to experiment with the nets.

More nets. I also put our magnetic letters in there for them to play with.

M decided to use the ice cube tray to pour water.

They always want to fill up the bucket for extra as the water in the table splashes out of course. This day they filled it too full before trying to transfer. Even with team work they weren't able to pick it up.

But they figured out they had to dump some it out before trying to transfer it again.

Part 2 can be found here.

Linked up to I Can Teach My Child

Letter N Week Part 2

2011-08-07T15:35:00.000-07:00

Part 1 can be found here.

Tuesday afternoon we went to one of my favorite places ever. Kidspace Children's Museum. The last time we were there, M was a bit too small for some of the climbers and the creek was too cold for the kids. This time was no problem and they loved every minute of it.

It was a zoo though so I didn't get many pictures. We went on Family Free Night which was awesome since it was free but that next time we will be going on a non-free night. Although they investigated most everything, it was too loud and busy for us to spend time at anything and really soak it in.

We made sure to climb the super tall Raindrop Climber which is 40 feet tall. Of course, the higher you got the hotter it got. So on a 90+ degree day, this was not my idea of a fun time. But the kids didn't care.

Looking up about half way through.

O stopped at the dino dig area.

Just a little while later we went outside. They pretended to be spiders climbing on their web before heading to the main attraction.

Ahhh... the creek. We knew it would be an immediate hit with O. We weren't sure about M but he eventually was coaxed in too. After that, M didn't want to leave.

O decided she was done with the water and moved on to the construction area.

After that it was time to go. Even though it was super busy it was still so much fun for everyone. I love this place. It isn't what I would call cheap for a family of four but so worth it.

Later in the week we met up with D. I brought some dice over and we had the kids roll them then count the number of dots then do something that number of times.

We jumped, spun in circles, and watched the dice fly. lol Really, we didn't think it through on that part.

After that we went over their names. D and I wrote their names on each paper then they had to name and find the letter in the letter stickers we had. They did great! And once they finished their names we read the letters through a few more times for spelling purposes. They all seemed to really enjoy it and O seemed to really get it. Everyone wanted their hands traced too, hence the hand prints. I added in the right and left with O since we are working on that.

Of course, the biggest hit for the day was the water table. I brought our nets over along with the foam fish. I also added numbers to the back of the fish so when they caught the fish in the nets, they would name the letter and number. They all loved it.

Once they were over the nets they moved to just playing which is always encouraged.

It was a great week but my hope is to do more during review including hammering nails into some scrap wood.

However, on to the next week where we'll visit the ocean, make our own ocean and learn about owls. Plus more. Lots more fun coming up!

Review(s)

2011-07-30T22:33:00.000-07:00

Review week wasn't much of a review over here. Schedules and therefore, temperaments, were off most of the week for some reason. But we did do some things.

Monday we used Kix to make a Kix K. Both of them were able to identify the letter and the sound!

We played with playdoh, stamping keys and letter K's into it as well as making lots of other things.

Then we moved on to making lions. I found a lion template on this site and liked it better than some others I found so after cutting out all the pieces, we began. O did hers first but at the end, M decided he wanted to make his own as well.

I'm sure you could guess who's is who's. =)

I let them do some spray painting (obviously nothing to do with our review but it was loads of fun). Water + food coloring + paper and they were happy little kids. A good color mixing activity since we used red, blue and yellow (we had 3 spray bottles)

Team work!

Friday was fun. They wanted to use the dot painters so that was first.

Then we started with the science-y stuff. They were formally introduced to magnets a while ago. We got them the traditional style (you'll see below) but kid friendly. We wanted them big enough to play with the different forces really well. We have taken them tons of places and they go around experimenting with what it will stick to.

This time I had them paint using them. I have two thin plastic cutting boards that I rarely use anymore so I held onto it with a piece of paper on top and put some dollops of paint in different places. I should have watered down the paint a bit but it still worked. I had a metal piece on top and they used their magnets to move it however they wanted.

O thought it was cool but tired of it quickly.

M really loved it. He didn't want to stop so I just let him keep going for a while.

Love how they turned out. I should note, I always let them choose the paper and paint color. I swear I don't push the pink/blue thing.

A little while later I set this up. Another of my thin plastic cutting boards taped to two chairs with just a couple of metal pieces on top. Again, M loved this. He played with it for a while and kept coming back to it most of the day.

We ended the week with a movie. Their first movie theater experience! Awww... I know. It was fun and O still proclaimed it to be the best movie ever but it was kind of a bust. We took them to see Winnie The Pooh. We chose that movie because it was only an hour long and we knew it would be cute (no scary parts which O hates) and we thought they might like it.

Nope. M was completely, totally bored from about 10 minutes in and O got bored about 1/2 way through. Luckily, the only other people there had kids who weren't all that happy either. So whatever.

Quick little review though... it was a cute movie but unless your kid ADORES those characters, it isn't that great for kids. I just couldn't figure out what age it would be good for. Some of the faces the characters make and their mannerisms were hilarious (to me) so at least it had some extra humor for us adults. One more thing.. Owl was annoying. I remember him being smart and helpful and just all around nice. Don't get me wrong, he wasn't mean but he came across (again.. to me) as kind of a pompous ass. I dunno... maybe that was just me.

Quick preview for next week:

We start on the letter N so we'll talk about noses and our sense of smell (do a little smelling experiment), do lots of number stuff, go on a nature walk and collect some things to make a nature collage plus lots more.

Also? If you know where I can get a hook up, let me know.

Who Has The Hookups??

2011-07-28T12:46:00.000-07:00

Not monetary. Well, you are welcome to donate in that area as well but that wasn't really what I meant.

No, I am looking for materials. Pretty much anything that can be used as a medium for play. Here are some examples:

Sand (clean of course)
Animal Bedding (again.. clean of course)
Corn Kernels
Duct Tape

I'm still looking for PVC pipe or some other type of water proof thing that we could use with our water table. Ideally, something big enough for cars or other things to be put down. Think "slide" or "chute".

We could also use different sized funnels. But those are easy to get so not a big deal.

So if you have any contacts anywhere or just know who to call to ask for this kind of stuff, I would appreciate the help.

And I do have a paypal account if you would like to send me money. =)

M is for Messy

2011-07-23T17:02:00.000-07:00

This week has been interesting and busy but very fun. Letter M lends itself to some great ideas and activities.

We made mountain M's. This idea came from my favorite site.

We made finger puppet mice, found here. They are pretty cute but if we do another mouse again I think we'll make these.

We also made monkey masks. They act like monkeys all the time so this just gave them more incentive to try and hang on and jump off everything.

We also made magic wands. All I had were straws which didn't stay in the stars very well (2 glued together with an opening) but they lasted long enough for the kids to have some fun with them. Lots of magic was done around this house. Unfortunately, none that made the house clean and sparkly.

We made marshmallow M's. Because you know... why not? They were pretty yummy too.

We also made mosaics. I decided not to draw anything specific so it's a little different but still pretty. We all worked on this one together.

They wanted to do more so we all cut up pieces of foam. I had them sort the colors out then asked what they wanted to make. O said stripes so M followed.

O quickly grew bored so this was her finished product.

But M was all kinds of intense wanting to finish it.

Friday was the most fun of all. I found the greatest idea ever from my fav blog. I have tried letting them play/write in shaving cream before and M hated it. Threw a big ol' fit because it was icky on his hands. So I wasn't sure how he would deal with this.

I showed them pictures of the moon and we talked about it's texture with all the craters and how they got there. Then I let them get all kinds of messy. I gave them spoons and a spatula to use if they wanted, which M started with (O just wanted to use her hands which I expected). FYI - I used the same amount of glue and shaving cream as suggested and it was the perfect amount. And we used cardboard because I didn't have strong enough paper.

YAY!! I was so proud of him for using his hands. He said he liked it!

Once they said they were done I left their moonscapes outside to dry. Luckily, clean up was quick and easy.

Love the texture.

I let it dry for 24 hours. Even though the top dried fairly quick I could tell it was still wet underneath. And the texture was awesome. So soft! The kids just wanted to run their hands over it but it was tearing so I had to stop that.

Once they were dry the kids chose their preferred moon phase (O chose the crescent) and I carefully cut them out. I absolutely LOVE how these came out. I can't wait to do this for other things too (ghosts for halloween and maybe clouds when we go over weather).

Later that day I let them paint too so this was just a messy day all around. Which always makes for a fun day!

Leaping (Non) Litterbugs

2011-07-17T11:53:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday we played with D where we picked up litter around the yard talking about the importance of not littering and what it does to the environment.

We also practiced leaping. They each stood behind the line and leaped as far as they could (and by leap, I mean as in frog since O was the only one who could truly leap). We had them each estimate how many inches they would leap and then tried to match it. As we suspected, the boys didn't get the whole estimation thing but we helped them choose a number. No picture of M leaping since I was trying to coach him.

I'm sure it's just me but 41 inches seems like a lot.

We made lollipops. From left to right: K's, M's, O's. For some reason O didn't want to do anything but the X.

At the end of the day D brought out her ladybug (chocolate) lollipop for them to all share. Definitely a fun, productive day. The kids have been pointing out litter everywhere and picking it up if possible. They obviously learned something!

The rest of the week we didn't get anything done. Although they did help me do laundry. I tried to get them to build with legos but they didn't want to so that was a bust.

However, Saturday we visited the lighthouse which was fun. You can read all about it here. I love coming here. It has great views and the kids get a lot of exercise. At night a bunch of LED's light it up which is very pretty.

It's on a pretty steep hill so the kids just run up an down it the whole time.

There is also a sandy area made to look like a boardwalk so they decided to get super dirty and make sand angels.

Leaves and Ladybugs

2011-07-13T09:31:00.000-07:00

Monday morning we went outside and collected all different types of leaves to start off our L week.

Most of our collection

We had a very VERY late Sunday night so the kids were a little "off" Monday. M wanted nothing to do with any activities and at this point was getting himself ready for a nap.

O carefully placed the leaves where she wanted them to make her Leafy L.

M did his later in the day.

O's finished L's. I love how she chose all types of leaves.

While M slept I tried to do leaf rubbings with O. I thought she would really enjoy it but she just wasn't interested (probably since she was so darn tired). With my help she did a few though. We may try it again later this week.

Tuesday was a lot better, though they weren't entirely back to schedule. Thanks to that nap M decided to take on Monday.

Anyway, we spent the day learning about ladybugs. I couldn't find a ladybug craft I really liked so I just used paper and made my own. I cut out a bunch of black and red circles in the same size then cut the red circles in half which would be the wings. If you didn't realize, this meant I was able to implement their first introduction to fractions.

I gave them each a black circle and two red semi-circles. They played with them for a bit practicing putting the two semi-circles over the black circle and taking them off. Then we actually glued on the red pieces for the wings. I also included a little black piece for the head. Once that was done (they did 2 each), they painted black dots and put on googly eyes. Because nothing says creepy like googly eyes on a ladybug.

During all of that we talked about what ladybugs ate and how they were helpful to gardens and all that fun stuff. I have had a big piece of green foam for a while now so I cut out a leaf shape and we added our ladybugs to it.

Regardless of the creepy eyes, these turned out super cute.

Later we played a number recognition/counting game. I made up a bunch of ladybugs with spots ranging from 2 to 20. Then I cut out leaves with each number written out. They each took turns matching the number to the spots (or spots to numbers). O had a difficult time at first. She only wanted to count one wing at a time. It provided a good way to talk about addition but she was adamant about not putting the two together.

Once I got her past that, we were golden. This was a great exercise for them. They know their numbers pretty well till about 15 then it gets sketchy. So this pushed them just a little more.

Although after four they were done. Did I mention they were still off schedule and sleepy? Yeah, their concentration level and ability to listen were questionable.

Speaking of numbers and fractions, I could use some ideas/recommendations on teaching higher numbers and fractions. My only thought is puzzles but can anyone recommend other things for crafts or anything else?

We'll be going over lighthouses (and visiting one this weekend), making lollipops and playing leapfrog in the next couple days so check back!

K Week. Sort of.

2011-07-08T20:10:00.000-07:00

This week was kind of a bust. We just couldn't get going. The good thing is that the kids seemed to know and "get" the letter so it felt more like a review.

It was a very busy weekend with late nights so I was sure Tuesday was going to be rough. I let them dictate what we did. They chose to color so I gave them some K printouts.

Later they got excited about making kaleidoscopes. We have a couple already but they call them telescopes so it took a bit of convincing. M still refuses to call them by any other name but that's fine.

I picked up a kit at Target on clearance thinking that would make it easier than a completely home made one. I was a little disappointed that I had to basically take it apart to talk about how they worked but it still made it easier in the end. And really, what can I expect for just a few $$?

After going over how it worked I let them choose what sequins they wanted (for their viewing pleasure) and then they got to decorate it however they wanted.

It came with stickers but O chose to draw on it and put her own star stickers on it.

M only wanted to use the stickers it came with.

Checking their work out.

We made little foam kangaroos (I don't know where she got the template) at D's house. This was a little difficult for the kids. Partially because we didn't have something to already show them so they didn't know what each part was and partially because gluing foam pieces isn't easy since the pieces move so easily against each other. They needed a lot of assistance which is why there are no other pictures. Oh well, the kids liked them and we were able to talk about the animal and characteristics of them.

Thursday we flew kites! We had a hard time getting them to actually fly even though there seemed to be enough wind. Thankfully, D's husband was home and was able to help. The kids L.O.V.E.D! it. It was so fun to watch them get so excited. It was a super cool kite too. A dragon!!

We brought one but it was a little plastic one that pretty much sucked. I let O try it.

Today we basically had a free craft day. I put out a bunch of materials, gave them each a piece of foam board and let them go to town. I decided it would be a present for their Abuelo so no pictures yet!

The table with all their materials

So although there wasn't much in the way of letter recognition, they both were able to identify it every time I asked (signs, cereal box, etc) and O (sometimes M as well) did great at remembering the sound! Love that Leap Frog Letter Factory!!

Next week is L and that should be fun. Check back!

OUR 4th of July Crafts

2011-07-03T13:51:00.000-07:00

We finally finished our crafts. We may still make a crown/hat for a little parade but I don't know if we will get to it (it has been a busy week and weekend).

We worked on a big flag. Placing red rectangles in the appropriate pattern.

We ripped up paper for the blue area.

Before the stars (I painted those on)

Olivia practiced her cutting skills and cut out this star!

We splatter painted small stars to put on wreaths

Tons of fun!

Our finished wreaths! We used pre-cut big stars for the base on cardboard cutouts and the kids all chose what painted little stars to place where.

We also made glitter-ized flags

AAANNND, because we had not glittered enough. We made glitter fireworks.

I love how colorful they came out.

Back at home we worked on our garland. I cut big stars out of foam board and they painted them. I used foam board so it would be more sturdy as I planned on hanging it outside from our balcony.

Once all the stars were painted and dried, I punched holes and tied ribbon in the order I wanted. I then added the finished flag to the middle. At first I only planned on doing stars but realized this flag would be good as a centerpiece and 4 stars would represent our family well!

Love how it came out! I hope it lasts for a while.

We worked on our windsock. I used posterboard, stapling it into a cylinder, then let the kids paint it blue.

Once it was dry they glued stars to it.

I only had red crepe paper but I like how it looks and the kids love playing with it.

We had a lot of fun making these this week. O asked lots of questions about why we only used these colors and why we were making flags so it was super easy to talk about the history and reason for celebrating.

4th of July Week

2011-06-28T21:22:00.000-07:00

I apologize for the lack of posts in the last week. After our awesome two H days, things got busy (usually does when the hubs is off work) and we didn't get to do much for I and J. I decided to make this week all about 4th of July but I figured I would throw in some review as well.

Monday was a recovery day. Absolutely nothing in the way of lessons was done. We all had a busy weekend and the kids were crabby.

We started our activities and lessons today. Here is what we have planned (our own pictures to come later this week):

We are making our own flags! Something similar to this from No Time for Flashcards.

We will be making a star garland. Similar to this also by Allison for NTFF.

I also plan on making a windsock similar to this

And we have to do a fireworks craft! Probably something like this one since I'm a glutton for punishment

We'll also do some painting and maybe make a hat/crown for a possible parade. Unfortunately, our plans have yet to be decided for that actual day. We are a spontaneous bunch over here.

Our own pictures to come soon so check back!

A Hand Print on My Heart

2011-06-22T12:55:00.000-07:00

Not literally but definitely figuratively. I love keeping their hand prints and seeing how much they have grown. I also love to see what they make with them. Some paintings turn out super cool.

This is our H, I and J review week which works nicely since it's the hubby's vacation week. It's all very relaxed and fun!

Monday we reviewed the letter H. I printed a couple pages from a favorite site of mine for them to trace the letter and to use the dot markers on. We also made handprints which is always a hit.

The full view

Yesterday I had them use our heart cookie cutters to make heart prints.

I love how they turned out.

M also rode a horse (pony ride) on Sunday at our local farmer's market so I was able to incorporate that too.

More to come for I and J later this week so be sure to check back!

Jaguar's and Jellyfish.. Oh My!

2011-06-18T14:43:00.000-07:00

The kids did fairly well with letter J this week. We started the week out by making a jelly bean J. It was a terrible idea.

I didn't take into account how heavy the jelly beans would be. So we couldn't hang it up. Oh well, they got the idea anyway.

Our finished J's

We also made Jello on Monday. I cut out letter J's but that was a total bust. I could not get them out in tact for the life of me. Oh well, they still got to practice their letter J's and they loved the jello.

We also made jellyfish. I showed them lots of pictures and we talked about lots of different things relating to them. I wasn't excited about most of the jellyfish crafts I found so I just made my own. The heads are made from fruit cups and underneath we glued in some mesh scraps (purple for O, orange for M, both for me) to give some color to them. I offered lots of different ribbon scraps for the tentacles but they both chose to use the bubble wrap pieces. I added some curly ribbon to the center of mine but they didn't want anything else on theirs. This was a great craft but it takes the right kind of glue which we didn't have. Standard white glue won't work well since it's plastic and the hot glue gun I had wasn't working. Tacky glue probably would have worked but I haven't made it to a craft store for any.

Still, I think they turned out so cute, especially once we added the eyes and mouths, requested by O. The only other problem with these was finding a good way to hang them. I punched tiny holes in the top and threaded fishing line through them which worked nicely.

Tuesday was spent out and about getting our car fixed so there wasn't much to that. They did get to point out some J's at the store though.

Wednesday the kids weren't interested in doing much so they just did lots of drawing on the chalk board and coloring along with other things not having anything to do with the letter J.

O's coloring skills are getting much better. She still finds it difficult to concentrate on small movements but she damn near colored that entire book! She did a great job of coloring matching too.

Nothing but pure fun happened on Thursday as grandma babysat so I could help the hubs at work.

But Friday we were back in the game. I printed out a J sheet from a favorite blog of mine and let them put dot stickers on them. They both did very well.

Then we made jaguar masks. This was a huge hit since they both watch and like Go, Diego, Go. I found this template and it worked and looked great. I just used regular ol' construction paper and instead of using elastic for around the head I put a craft stick for them to hold it.

After letting the glue dry they got to make the spots. I showed them the finished picture for reference.

"Rawr"

Last But Not Least

2011-06-13T08:51:00.000-07:00

Friday was a fun day. I planned things I knew would be a hit since there was a lot to our week. I cut I's from sponges for sponge stamping. They each chose two paint colors and they went for it.

O was more than willing to stamp

M just wanted to paint with it at first but I finally got him to experiment with stamping.

Once they went through a couple pieces of paper and were thoroughly stamped out I gave them our new sponge rollers. They got to choose two new colors for this one. I LOVE how they came out. Lots of beautiful colors and textures.

After lunch we had some REAL fun. We made ice cream!! I don't have an ice cream maker so I found a link on how to make your own in a bag (it includes the science behind it). By doing it this way, we could really see the transformation. We mixed everything together, with each of them doing their own. I really didn't know how well it would work so I stuck with vanilla.

These pictures are bad since there was so much shaking and rolling going on. We had to do this for 10-15 minutes. I probably did the last 5 but that's fine. They still had a good time.

It came out perfectly! It was creamy and yummy and perfect, soft serve vanilla ice cream! And each bag was just about the perfect amount for each of them. I got a few bites too.

We will definitely do it again during our review and I'll let them choose a different flavor.

They seemed to struggle with I. At this point I just think it's because we aren't doing enough recognition activities. So this week I am adding/changing some things to maybe help that. Also, if you haven't noticed, I decided to drop the lower case letters for now. Once we get through the alphabet this time around, we'll do another letter of the week deal, slightly different (still a work/thought in process) and I'll reintroduce them.

I also picked up the highly recommended DVD, Leap Frog Letter Factory (found here) for them and started watching it this week. They took to it well so I'm hoping it will help.

Ice Ice Baby

2011-06-12T22:33:00.000-07:00

Go ahead. Take a minute to sing and dance now that I have it in your head. It's ok. I'll wait.

Ok, times up.

So of course we couldn't learn about the letter I and NOT play with ice. But lets start with the beginning of our Wednesday with D and K.

Since we made our lovely Indian vests the day before we had to make headdresses to go along with them. We started with this to allow for dry time.

Thinking hard. "More green or not?"

Peeling the back off the star sticker

She added a bunch of flowers then decided to cover them all up with stars.

After adding everything they wanted we put them aside to dry and went on to our little science experiment that nobody really cared about. lol Well, O gave me the time of day and even made a prediction. And K listened. M pretty much said, "pshhh... no".

We did a simple ice melting experiment. 4 pieces of ice in each glass (all the same). (From far left) we added: nothing, salt, warm water and cold water. There was also a 5th glass with 4 pieces of ice put in the sun. That melted the second fasted. O predicted the ice with the cold water would melt the fastest. Of course, 5 minutes later we checked and the warm water one had melted everything. They did like checking out the one with salt as it made lots of little holes.

We knew it would be over their heads but that's ok.

So here comes the super fun part. (get that song going in your head again..."All right stop collaborate and listen" hee hee)

I found this idea at my new favorite blog and just KNEW we had to do it. We chose a bunch of items and containers to freeze ice in and today set it all out in D's water/sand table.

Before the carnage. I made sure we included items they would want to get out. Like their dinos and cars.

O checking out the stringed ice cubes. We realized they looked like Christmas lights.

Picking up the ball in the ice. They got a kick out how the items would poke out of the ice but were stuck!

The biggest green tinted one held 2 dinos. They all took turns beating the crap out of it with shovels.

After a while they were able to touch and feel the actual dinos which gave them the confidence to keep going.

In the end it was taking way too long to get those dinos out. All the little nooks and crannies in them made it that much difficult. We subtly suggested finding "other" ways to get them out. Maybe that concrete can help!

Sure enough, throwing huge chunks of ice onto the concrete will indeed get you what you want.

Now for the next fun part! The Indian headdresses were dry! I was a little worried I wouldn't be able to get them to wear their vests (it's always a little iffy) but I was wrong!! O agreed immediately and the boys followed. We brought them outside (D told them to chase the dog) and let them run wild.

I love how they came out. The vests aren't very "Indian-ish" but they got the idea and they look super cute. The headdresses really make the outfit though.

Linked up with No Time For Flashcards!!

Cowboys and/or Indians

2011-06-11T23:08:00.000-07:00

Really, not so much on the cowboys but more on that later.

I found letter I to be a bit more difficult to work with but we did it and I think they learned a lot (maybe?). I first gave them ice and asked them to draw something on the paper with it. They fussed about the cold (not something they normally do if they are allowed to eat it) but I got them to do it a bit after they noticed the meting ice spread water across the paper. I added some paint and they were interested in how thin the paint became.

Then the figure painting began.

We learned about Indians. Who they were, where and how they lived, how they dressed, what they ate. All that stuff. I just sat them in front of the computer, showed them maps and pictures. They both seemed fairly interested.

We talked a little more on their clothes, what they were made from and what the designs meant. After that we made our own vests.

They painted first.

Then added decorations of their choice.

Although they reminded me more of cowboy vests, I love how they turned out.

Later we used our dot markers on these printables I downloaded from this wonderful blog.

This led us to talk more about igloos and Inuits. My awesome husband recently purchased this fort kit for the kids. Although this wasn't his reasoning, it turned out to be absolutely perfect timing for this week as one of the structures it makes is a perfect igloo, white sheet and all!

They pretended their lanterns were the fire/heat and that the white sheet was ice/snow so it was super cold. So much fun!

Our igloo from the outside

We also played different instruments. We are lucky enough to have a few in our home including an electric guitar and bass guitar.

We also played piano and used our own instrument, our voice! Here, M is singing and "playing" Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star"

Hippos, Hopscotch and Hats!

2011-06-08T23:01:00.000-07:00

Last week we went over the letter H starting with making heart H's. I love how different they did theirs. No prompting from me. O felt the need to put her hearts in a very specific pattern (she has been obsessed with patterns lately).

M's was a little more free form.

Love them both!

We made shape houses and then they decorated with markers/crayons.

M wanted a big green circle on his. I figure he's just trying out some architect design ideas for the future. ;)

O and I have been talking a lot about our bodies and what food does to it and what our bodies tell us. You know, not eating cake and ice cream all the time and going to sleep at a decent hour. Yeah.. that stuff. So I had found this puzzle ($1!!!!) a couple months ago and finally brought it out! It's a digestive system puzzle. The kids were obsessed with it for a few days till I let D borrow it.

We played Hungry Hungry Hippos at D's. Such good memories playing this game as a kid and they loved it just as much.

We also tried to make hippos. Which turned out kinda funky. Cute but funky. Whatever... they liked it.

We played "Name That Hat!". We have a lot of different dress up hats in our house so this worked out great. I would put on a hat and they had to tell me who I was. Then they chose hats to wear and pretended to be those people.

O in her chef's hat.

'Arrrrrgh"

Aaaaand, the cowboy hat. Always a favorite.

There were more hats too but they weren't excited that I was trying to take pictures. The game was great though. We'll definitely play again during review.

We did some hot vs cold experimenting (obviously, not using SUPER hot things). Of course, we talk about "hot" a lot making sure they don't turn on the hot water or touch the hot stove, etc. We also played lots of hide and seek and pretended to be horses. I tried to find somewhere they could ride a horse but most of the stables around us don't allow such young kids on their horses and I don't have the personal hook ups.

Anyone care to help out with that? (hint hint)

We also played a little alphabet hopscotch. Turned it into an A-H review with them needing to choose where to go next. They kind of got it. They mainly just wanted to hop to each one but it got them naming the letters which was the point.

If you love something set it free..

2011-06-01T19:15:00.000-07:00

Although in the case of the butterflies, there is no way they are coming back. But this was definitely something we talked about. Originally, O wanted to keep them but after talking about them and asking her if she would want to stay in her room all the time, she was able to understand and be ok with setting them free. Sunday morning we took them to a local park and let them go.

It was awesome.

We let O do most of the letting go. She would reach in, wait for one to land on her (she was very careful) and then take her hand out. Most of the them flew off pretty quick.

Caught in flight!

This one loved the flower too much

Wondering why the hell it wasn't flying away

But then excited she was able to watch it up close

M tried too but wasn't quite as gentle so we just let him watch. He was happy with that.

Water Table Learning

2011-05-30T21:18:00.000-07:00

We have been busy around here, hence the slow-poke posting. Here is what we did the rest of the week:

Wednesday morning we made fingerprint goldfish and gardens!

O likes adding tongues to all mouths.

For the gardens we practiced cutting green paper for the grass. I had a couple of old party-store lei's that were about to fall apart so I cut the flowers off and they got to use those. I still have a ton for a later project. We also used small pom-poms for the middle of some flowers (their choice of course).

They both wanted ladybugs in their garden so I cut out little red foam circles and they glued them on then added black spots. We also added suns (O's looks like it's flying away.. lol)

After that the kids were begging to play with the water table so we played. However, I came across this fabulous website Tuesday night.

So.Many.Ideas!! Now, we only have a small table (2ft x 2ft). And it isn't just 1 big tub (which I'm a little sad about now) so we are limited but it is giving me lots of great ideas that I think I can conform to our table. Including one such idea I did this day!

We have been buying some new things for the kids lately so we had some smaller boxes around. I took one and taped it to the middle. I even cut out little holes on each side for added fun. Then, as you can see, I took a long, skinny box and made a chute out of it. The top was open as well.

Originally I was only going to use beans but the kids REALLY wanted to use water and I obliged. O loves to cook (and pretend to cook as well) so she did. Lots of scooping and pouring and "eating"

More pouring onto the chute (we talked about gravity)

Using strainers vs. cups/bowls. M was checking out the little holes.

Checking out the beans as they slid down the chute.

Using the funnel. This was fun. She found she could get a few beans through at a time but at one point she dumped a whole bowl full and they wouldn't go through. I asked her why and she said there were too many. Then I suggested to put water in. She did and it ran straight through! She was quite surprised. So I talked a bit about why.

M reaching to the top to put a car down the chute. He cracked up every time he got it to go down the chute and into one of the holes. O finally decided to put her bucket up for easy access to it.

Then once full she decided to use the big bucket.

Which led to this. That bucket was about half full. She is a strong little girl.

It was a gigantic mess but they had a ton of fun and learned a lot (though we won't fully see those results for a while). I am definitely doing this more. I will have to get more boxes to cut up and more dry material to experiment with as well. Donations are welcome! =)

We didn't get anything done Thursday, O woke up with a stiff neck and would not move from the couch. It was a day of tv unfortunately. Friday we were still recovering but mainly from lack of sleep.

Also? We have butterflies!!! They started coming out of their cocoons Thursday morning. . I got to watch a couple actually come out of their cocoon and it was so cool!

By Friday night all of them were out. Only one didn't survive so we had 9 perfect Painted Lady butterflies. We were instructed to put fresh flowers on the bottom with some sugar water dropped on the flowers and we were able to watch them drink. It was very educational and very fun. The kids and I loved it.

Gone Fishing

2011-05-28T13:05:00.000-07:00

This week pretty much sucked for staying on track and all that jazz. Monday was a dud because errands had to be run and the kids were sleepy. Plus O developed an annoying runny/stuffy nose Sunday morning and was cranky because of it. So they just weren't feeling well enough to do anything. We just did a couple puzzles and played.

The only great thing that came from Monday was a trip to a local teacher supply store. OMG, I could have spent a freakin fortune in there. So.much.awesome. I picked up a couple of big magnets for later in our lessons, some seed growing stuff that is turning out great (pictures soon) and some other stuff that I can't remember. There was oh so much more I wanted but... *sigh* homeschooling does not make me money. Luckily, they offer gift certificates (hint hint).

So skip to Tuesday. At lunch we had an egg tasting. It wasn't much of a hit (not surprising with my picky kids) but I did get O to try a couple new kinds. And Grandma came over and played! Plus? She picked up a water/sand table for me (used). More on that later.

So after some initial playing with Grandma I decided to bring out their newly purchased and delivered fishing poles. O has been asking to go fishing for some time (thank you Mickey Mouse Clubhouse with your red gooey fish episodes) so she was very excited. I wanted to set up an alphabet fishing game and it took me a while to figure out the best way (I didn't get to the store to for a metal weight so I had to find something with a magnet).

Finally, I figured something out and set up something (this was very last minute, I was going to do it Wednesday).

I only did fish letters up to G. Figured that would be good review and it wasn't too many fish to start with. They would "catch" a fish and have to say what letter fish it was. They both did very well.

They had a really good time.

Just FYI - 2 people fishing at the same time in a small area does not work well. Luckily, this meant they got to work on taking turns.

After clean up of that, I brought out their new found water/sand table. It's perfect size for them with 2 separated areas so they can each do their own thing without annoying each other.

Wednesday was even better....

Green Goo!

2011-05-24T17:28:00.000-07:00

At the end of our G week we got together with D and played with some Green Goo.

OH.EM.GEE. This stuff was awesome. We had previously found a recipe for green goo but it required Borax which we weren't too thrilled about. Instead we found another super easy recipe. Just cornstarch and water! We added a bit of green dye to it and it was awesome.

The stuff is weird. It's like thick water but also kinda of gloppy and gooey and dries back into the cornstarch-ish powder. M hated it. No surprise. He isn't fond of things stuck to his hands and feet. He did try it. But immediately freaked out and wanted to be cleaned off. Thankfully the stuff rinses off super easy.

O loved it. She was very disappointed when it was all dried up.

I took tons of pictures but they all pretty much suck. Between the shade and the harsh sunlight, I just couldn't get much with my camera. I'm hoping D got better ones. But here are some so you at least get the idea.

Getting everything ready

Mixing it up. FYI - It is HARD to mix up at first.

M just watched after the initial try and freak out.

Check out those strands of GOO!

It was very cool. We will totally be doing it again. Just no dye next time.

And the latest on our caterpillars!

Cocoons!!!!!

So in another week (from now) we should have some butterflies. Pretty sure a couple won't make it though.

I also learned something about caterpillars. Remember when you had sleepovers as a kid? You were warned (jokingly) that the first person to fall asleep would be messed with?

Or maybe you remember your drinking days. The first poor soul to pass out got all kinds of messed with.

Had to do it.. I so love these animal photos

Apparently the same holds true for these creatures too. We had one do the whole cocoon thing and a couple other ones were messing with him. In fact, it seems they might have hurt/killed him because there was red stuff oozing. I went ahead and transferred him over immediately after I saw that just in case but I'm not betting on a butterfly there. There is another that looks like it may have been damaged/hurt at some point but I won't know for sure so we'll have to wait and see. We are all very excited around here.

Where the green grass grows.. not all around

2011-05-18T18:53:00.000-07:00

Do you remember that song? No idea what it's called, I just remember the basic melody and those lyrics.

Anyway, I did not prepare very well for this week. Luckily, I have a lot of materials to use so it just took a bit more work Monday morning to figure out the week.

We started off picking some grass to make our Green Grass G.

Then we did some gardening. Using the pots we painted last week, we filled them with soil and planted the seeds. M helped too but I had to help him a bit more so no pictures of him.

Putting the seeds in the holes

We have been planting flowers for a few weeks so this process was familiar to them. We just talked a bit more about what happens. A reminder of sorts.

Today we had more fun. We made a giraffe (idea found here) and I love how it turned out. I traced one of their shoes for the head (heel up) then made a free form neck. Also made free form ears and horns. Then the kids used brown paint and made fingerprint spots.

They took turns cutting a line of brown paper for the hair. Then we glued on the eyes. I thought it looked a little boring so we started talking about what giraffes eat and how they eat. We decided to add a tree (from a piece of cardboard) and green foam leaves. M didn't care to take part during this part but O had a blast deciding where to put the leaves.

She requested his long tongue so we cut one out of foam and added it. I love it!! It wasn't too messy and they liked doing it and it is super cute. I love O's placement of the leaves.

Then we made grapes. I didn't have small bubble wrap but most of the grapes we eat are giant ones anyway so I figured it would work. They both had fun dipping the bubble wrap in the paint and stamping it on the paper. Again, definitely a fun and quick craft.

The rest of the week is going to be hit and miss with activities. We aren't even going to get to the botanical garden this week. Oh well, next week is review so we'll probably go then. Tomorrow we'll probably play some games (colors/numbers) after O's last nature class and leave it at that. Friday will probably just be a play day since I have to get my car worked on. But the kids need it so that works.

And last but not least... 8 days later and our caterpillars are HUGE! They have eaten through almost all of the food so they will probably be doing the whole cocoon thing very soon. Woo hoo!

More F Words

2011-05-16T12:42:00.000-07:00

Once again, things were changed around. It's actually getting a little annoying. Tuesday, O learned about frogs at her nature class so I wanted to expand on that idea. She and M already knew the sound they make and how they jump and all that then the class went over the lifecycle.

She brought this home.

So we were able to talk more on that. I wanted to do the lily pad number jumping but it took me a bit to convince them. So first we made farms. I found a foam activity bucket thing at Target and picked it up. Instead of doing it more 3-D like they suggested I just had them put them all on a piece of paper. We talked a lot about different kinds of farms and what you would find and they picked and chose what they wanted on their own farm!

They finally decided they wanted to do the lily pad jumping. I only did numbers 1-5 this time as we were working on counting both forwards and backwards

Also? Completely unrelated to this week's stuff, we got our caterpillars! We ordered them on Friday and I completely forgot about them. We are super excited!

I wasn't able to the find the fishing game thing I was looking for (a specific one) so that will have to wait till review week. Instead we did some flower drawing in the morning then a family collage in the afternoon after watching the "Family" YGG episode and singing the family songs hundreds of times.

I chose a picture of each of them and put out pictures of the rest of the family. We talked about who was in each picture and they chose where to put it. This project really impacted O. She was talking about family and saying how much she loved her family the rest of the week and weekend (we saw lots of family this week too).

Choosing pictures

She wanted me to take her picture with it. Silly girl.

Thursday, after O's class, we went to the Japanese Garden. The kids loved feeding the fish and seeing the beautiful flowers and everything. We all loved the lily pads and lotus flowers too.

The fish are so used to being fed, as soon as we came close they were trying to get to us. A bit creepy actually.

So that was our week. There were a few adult F words thrown in there too but not usually around the kids or maybe just not loud enough for them to hear. All in all, it was an awesome week.

A week full of F words

2011-05-09T16:46:00.000-07:00

And maybe a few of the kind some of you thought. Although I have been great at curbing those particular words.

It is the launch of "F" week. I was very excited to get back into it so I did all of my lesson planning and buying at the end of last week. It was awesome.

I wanted to post our schedule last night but things were changing since D is still working on unpacking and getting things working in the new place plus I had forgotten about previous Friday plans so I had lots of tweaking to do. But now? We're good.

So here is my plan!

Monday - We made fluffy feather F's (I got the idea from my favorite place) and talked about how the feathers felt (soft and ticklish per O). I love how these turned out.

Later we painted flower pots. This will also be a part of our G week with the planting and growing of flowers. I tried to get O to paint a design but she really just wanted to paint the entire thing. At least we got some nice brush strokes.

M was very serious and deliberate in what and where he painted.

M's on the left and O's on the right.

After lunch we did more painting. I wanted to do footprints but they didn't so instead we painted with the feathers (those turned out awesome) and then with our fingers.

Tuesday - O's nature class then after we are meeting up with D at a beautiful Japanese garden with lots of koi that we can feed.

Wednesday - We will be fishing for shapes! We are also going to learn about the frog life cycle and we'll play a lily pad number jumping game.

Thursday - O's nature class then we will head to D's to make some toilet paper roll flowers and make a stamped garden.

Friday - It will be all about family. We will watch the Yo Gabba Gabba "Family" episode then use pictures to talk about our family. Then I'll have them make a collage with cut-out pictures of family members.

I'm pretty sure the kids will really love this week since there is so much painting. Stories and pictures to come!

Mother's Day do-over

2011-05-09T16:19:00.000-07:00

I hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day. I had planned on doing some crafty things and never got around to them. Then the kids didn't want to do much of anything on Friday with D (new place and sleepy) so nothing was done for MD.

And let's just say Sunday was NOT what one would want. My wonderful husband let me sleep in so it started awesome. But for whatever reason, my kids did not get the be-nice-to-momma memo.

Seriously... I'm not sure what the hell was wrong with them but there was very little feeling of love and appreciation from those two. I know, they are young and were probably tired so obviously, no hard feelings. I know they love me. I just was hoping for an easier, less time-outs and referring type of day.

So...

I want a do-over.

Spring Break!! Yeah!

2011-05-05T23:56:00.000-07:00

There was tons of running around naked and staying up late! Just not the kind you may have done in your early 20's. And no alcohol (for the kids) of course.

We took one for a few reasons. First and foremost, the hubs was off last week and we had tons of stuff to do. The kids would not have gotten the most out of any lesson we would have done.

Also, D was moving. Moving and lesson doing just don't mix. And ideally, we want to stay together on the lessons.

So instead of lessons, we just played. A lot. Nothing much to note here really but I will share a few pictures of our awesome family day!

The hubs really wanted to do something that required us all to interact and play with each other. Not just us watching them play which is what normally happens. So we chose Adventure City. Awesome! We went there last summer and it was great but it was even more awesome this time since the kids were older and bigger and able to enjoy it more. There are only 3 things O can't go on yet (4 for M which will change when he turns 3). It is basically a mini theme park. One specifically geared towards young kids who probably aren't big enough for most of the rides at the normal parks like Disney, Knotts, and Six Flags. And it is WAY cheaper. Not that it is cheap (@ $14 per person including kids over age 1) but still.

So here are some of the highlights.

** Note.. most of the pictures were taken by my Hipstamatic iphone app (I love this app) since that is my camera and the sun was just too harsh for the regular iphone camera.

Their mini ferris wheel.

On the ferris wheel

The Crazy Bus. Which goes in a kind of circle. Think of the "wax on wax off" motion.

On the Crazy Bus. This is the type of ride that gives that funny stomach feeling. M didn't like that feeling.

On the train. Oh the train. M's favorite thing EV.ER.

The crank trains. O did great! She did the whole thing with almost no help. And that is no easy task.

The Balloon ride that goes super high (daddy took them on this ride, I can't do it).

On the balloon ride. They both loved it.

Probably the favorite ride there. The Rescue Riders. All rescue vehicles (firetrucks, ambulances, police cars). And they had real fireman uniforms that kids could play dress up in. O loved the hat. M was in there too but I just couldn't get a good picture of both of them.

Telling us, "Hold on, I need to go help someone"

They have a whole train play area with tons of wooden tracks and Thomas the Train stuff. This was M's favorite place. While he played here, O went on a few more rides by herself.

O got to go on her very first roller coaster there too! They have two and the smaller one is for kids ages 3 and up. She loved every minute. M wanted to go too but we were able to distract him with the trains. We have already decided we will take him for his 3rd birthday. There was also a carousel which is always a hit. They have an arcade, food to eat (though we chose to eat outside the park and come back), a petting zoo with lots of goats and a mist tent. It's a great place to cool off on a hot day. O loved playing hide and seek in it because there is so much mist you can't see past a few inches once inside.

Definitely worth the money, I HIGHLY recommend it. We will probably be back this summer.

As for THIS week..

We are working on Mother's Day stuff. Kind of. Not too much actually. I seriously had NO idea it was this Sunday until this last weekend. So with D still doing tons of unpacking and O ended up getting sick over the weekend, we just decided to make this week about Mother's Day. We have been talking about it a little but not much more. O finally was her normal self today (fever and rash were gone as of Tuesday but she was still just drained) so she got to go to her nature class today. Tomorrow we are meeting with D to do a few MD crafts.

Next week we'll start on letter F.

Eggs and Easter! And some candy....

2011-04-28T23:34:00.000-07:00

Since we worked it out perfectly to where E week would coincide with Easter, we were able to dye eggs on Friday.

I'll be honest in that I'm a little sad we didn't do a small batch by ourselves at home. O loved doing it last year but with already doing it once, I just didn't see the need. Especially since we don't hide real eggs. Oh well, there is always next year. And then I won't have to worry about M possibly drinking the dyed water. He isn't too much of an oral kid but when he wants water he is quite persistent.

Prior to the egg dying madness the kids sat outside and chatted.

And then it began! Since we were at D's (mom's) house we had to be extra careful. We didn't want to take a chance on things breaking or staining or any of that so it wasn't quite as fun and crazy as any of us would have liked (last year I let O do all the dying by herself) but it was still good. Next year will be even better.

Yes, that shirt is mostly white. Yes, I know that dye will stain. I wasn't thinking properly so shush.

After all of that we made nests for our eggs. We might have made them first but I don't remember. All I know is that it didn't work quite as we had hoped. We had to use a crazy amount of glue. I mean, D and I were just pouring it over the sticks hoping something would dry correctly. And it took a good 24+ hours to dry. Seriously. But they are cute!

The weekend was full with two different Easter celebrations. Saturday D held hers with a great egg hunt and BBQ. She was totally awesome and put together mini baskets for all the kids that attended. There were little bug magnifying glasses, stickers, tatoos (for O), some colorful goldfish crackers (for the addicted M) plus other things I can't remember now.

O had to use her magnifying glass to find the eggs. So funny!

O checking out her stash. The eggs were filled with stickers, colorful goldfish and the big ones had mini playdoh's and chalk!

The goldfish was the best part. The kids all considered it candy and loved every piece.

Then the bubbles were turned on and everyone went nuts.

Definitely an awesome time. Sunday was a yearly tradition with family and friends and the kids got to go on another egg hunt where they collected way too much candy. Luckily, they are still young enough to where I can hide the candy later and they don't even notice the next day. I have used it as a bribing tool the past couple days but most of it is going to my dad this weekend. I do not need that crap in my house (because I'll eat it).

Just as a note, I decided to take this week off. The hubby is on Spring Break and we have been out a lot so it didn't make sense to try and cram in F lessons. Works out best for D too as she is moving this week. So we'll start back up next week. Until then I'll probably share a few fun things we have done but otherwise, be back next week with LOTS of great activities.

Eagles and Elephants

2011-04-28T23:03:00.000-07:00

Sorry for such a long lapse in writing, it has been crazy busy. I'll just start where we left off in E week. But first...

Check out the raccoon that decided to come say hi while O was in her class! He (she?) came right up a few feet away and sniffed around for a few minutes before meandering off. I always forget how big they are. Aren't these guys supposed to be more nocturnal?? I wish O could have seen him, M didn't care much.

Wednesday we made hand print eagles and elephant masks. Lots of fun! Although M wasn't too interested in much of it for some reason.

We painted our paper plates first for the elephant masks. Really, only O wanted to paint. The boys just played outside so we moms painted for them.

While the paint dried we made our eagles. The kids love to trace their hands so this was a hit all around. We were even able to get them all involved in gluing the parts together.

Being silly with the eagle beak.

K showing off his eagle. He chose the giant sized googly eyes. Very cute, very cartoonish.

O showing off hers. After gluing everything together, M was done and just wanted to play outside.

After lunch we moved onto the elephant masks. O's came out awesome with lots of character since she didn't feel the need to paint it all perfectly.

They had a great time. M could not have cared less. He liked the elephants from afar. Would not try his on at all. It wasn't all that surprising but he didn't even really want to hold it or anything. Whatever.

THEE Dino Dig

2011-04-21T09:22:00.000-07:00

Dinosaurs. Dirt. Digging. Not to mention drums and dancing?

How much more awesome can one day be with all those things?

Not much more to a kid. It was a totally fun day. The dino dig was THEE best part. D has a big 2 part sand/water table. We emptied out the sand and poured in soil and then hid the dinos. I really wanted to do a puzzle. The kind that make a dinosaur skeleton. But I thought it would be too complicated especially for the boys. And then I found these! Totally perfect!

They were so excited to find them.

They used shovels and rake things.

As we thought, the boys didn't want to get too dirty but O had no issue.

K found a dino!

More playing

We did this a few times as it didn't take long to find the 12 dinosaurs. The boys even went back out after lunch to initiate their own dig. It was so much fun!

Later in the day we brought out all the drums and let them go to town. D's brother lent us his steel drum and sticks which was awesome. I brought my 2 little child-size drums and D brought her bigger one. The kids had a blast making tons of noise. We tried to get them to dance too but O was the only one who wanted to.

Who doesn't love the sound of a steel drum??

Tried out the little bongos

I think I might have a mini drummer here

The kids did so well with these activities. I love it!

E is for Busy! Wait... what?

2011-04-19T21:18:00.000-07:00

I know, E isn't for busy but that's what it seems like. This week started a new schedule. O started a "Preschool in Nature" class this week. I am super DUPER excited about it but it really throws a wrench into our week. She goes 2 days a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays for just 1.5 hours and it's early so we are home by noon.

But those were the days we were getting together with D and it's just a bit late for us to still keep those days. So that means we are getting together Wednesdays and Fridays with D. Which means we are out and busy 4 days a week.

That's totally awesome but wow.. have you seen gas prices? And that's kind of exhausting. Especially when the weekends are busy like last weekend was and like this weekend will be.

Speaking of...

EASTER! Which we worked perfectly with our letter weeks. Of course we are going over other things like elephants and eagles and everything else that's relevant.

Which brings me to our first (and only so far) craft/lesson this week. I like introducing them to the letter first by having them work with the letter. Unfortunately, E doesn't lend itself to lots of ideas for this. I decided on eggs. I have had some nice cardstock for a couple years now and I decided it was a great time to use it. It's shiny and pattern-y and colorful and good for sorting.

It took me a while to get a nice egg shape and cut out a bunch (I don't have a fancy egg shape cutter) but once I did the kids went to town. I had to make the E's pretty big so it didn't work with the little e. More on that in a minute though.

He's totally got this down now. But he still hates getting the glue on his hands

The final.

So we tried doing it with the little e too. But with making the e into faces with eyes and ears. M did fine. Drew his eyes and ears no problem after I made a reference for him and helped guide his hands. But O...

She is my little perfectionist. She has little patience for things like this but she wants to do them oh so badly. Every time she tried to draw the eyes she got incredibly frustrated and mad. So I sat with her to help and we were good until I used a different color for the tongue (she requested all the features of a face including cheeks... how do you draw cheeks??). Then all hell broke loose and the tantrum was EP.IC.

I seriously heard noises coming out of her I have never heard before.

That was the end of our activity filled day.

Today was much better but neither of them were interested in doing activities after class and lunch. Not even playdoh!

Tomorrow we'll be getting together with D to make elephant masks, handprint eagles and talking about eyes, ears and elbows. It should be fun and productive.

A Rambling of Sorts

2011-04-15T21:14:00.000-07:00

So sorry for the lapse. It has been a bit busy. Last week I was sick but once I found myself feeling better I realized my home looked awful. And my in-laws were coming to visit on Sunday. Which means I spent a good portion of the weekend cleaning. There was also lots of house hunting. Well, apartment hunting at least. I love house hunting but it's oh so tiring.

Since all that cleaning was done over the weekend Monday was wide open! However, the poor kids were kept up late both nights so we stayed home to the keep the naps from happening. Yes, you heard that right. I do NOT want my kids to nap. When they do, they are up until 10pm. No nap means they are out by 8pm. Oh, and did I mention the later O goes to sleep, the earlier she wakes up?

Not cool.

So yeah, no naps if I can help it.

Tuesday we went on another color hunt. This time we just went on a nature walk, no playground. I really wasn't sure what we would find but it was very nice and peaceful. Even though M had me carry him the majority of the time. We found lots of flowers in yellow, purple, blue and orange. Plus lots of green (duh), grey, and brown (duh again). It's a nature preserve so we couldn't pick flowers which worked well since there were TONS of bees.

Bees make me nervous. Mainly because I have never been stung (yet) so I obviously don't know how it feels. Plus M hasn't been stung and the whole idea of finding out about an allergy the hard way scares the begeezuz out of me. Yes, I carry the Benedryl with me everywhere.

But it was lots of fun.

We found roly pollys

The first time letting one on their hands

Smelling the flowers that DIDN'T have bees anywhere near them

We found a small area to relax at before heading back.

Watching the bugs and sitting on the rocks

We made shape castles. They drew the weather first, with both of them deciding it should be raining at the castle.

Then they glued their shapes down. I drew a basic one to give them some reference on where to put their shapes.

They turned out pretty darn good! They made sure to use every single shape I made for them

Tuesday and Wednesday we just spent playing at our home with lots of book reading.. We counted a lot, we made macaroni C's (since the macaroni looks like mini c's), rode bikes, etc. etc.. We also did some drumming and dancing and lots of pretending to be dogs.

Thursday we played at D's reviewing the letter C. We made crabs. We were supposed to use paper plates but I was out so I just used some thick card stock which worked well. I made it into another shape and size lesson.

We practiced walking like crabs and (nicely) pinching like crabs. O got a kick out of pinching noses.

K and his crab

M was totally against playing with the crabs, he just wanted to be held. And held, and held some more.

**insert eye roll here**

Can't WAIT to tell you all about today. It was FAB.U.LOUS!

D. Dinosaurs. Dirt. Drums.

yep...

Wherein I Worry

2011-04-07T21:36:00.000-07:00

We are programmed to worry. We moms, that is. The day we find out we are pregnant, it begins and it will never go away.

Currently, my worry is whether what I am doing is getting through.

Are they learning?
Are they having fun?
Are they going to grow up and be evil? Because sometimes it sure seems like it.

In all reality, they are still very young and the nice thing is that most of their learning still comes from playing and they do a hell of a lot of that around here. I may think it sounds like a pair of banshees but when I look up from my cleaning or cooking or cowering, I can see that 85% of the time, they are really just playing and having a blast.

The lessons and activities are going well in terms of attention. They both seem interested and excited when we start. Sometimes they get bored so we stop, sometimes they don't want to do something so I think of something else that they do want to do.

But when I ask them later what starts with the letter "__" a lot of times they just shout out some random letter. Sometimes they get it right (O easily got D for doughnut correct. surprise surprise) and I feel all happy and prideful and what-not.

But when I asked today (note: the letters with pictures are up on the wall) O said "U!". Whaaa?? I'm not even sure where she came up with that. So I just told her that's silly and asked her again giving her some hints. M decided to chime in with the right answer and O started laughing like she was just joking around. She probably was just screwing with me but these are the times that make me worry.

It's the same thing when I ask her about the sounds. "What sound does the letter "__" make? Or whatever. She'll call out some random letter and half the time it's wrong.

So I am left sitting there worrying a bit and wondering if I am doing something wrong. Thankfully, I have been told by a few people (not only other moms but also elementary school teachers) that what I'm doing is just fine and they will get it when they are ready. And I know that M is still a bit young for this and boys typically figure it out later. And O has always been the physical girl, learning language stuff later.

After all this, I have convinced myself that I'm doing fine, as are they, and as long as we keep it up they will do just fine. But...

I'm still going to worry. Because that's part of my job. And I love my job. Not really the worry part. But the whole momma and teaching part. That part is awesome.

Our Week So Far

2011-04-06T15:20:00.000-07:00

We did ~~nothing~~ very little on Monday. The kids were exhausted and just weren't going to do well with anything. Tuesday we kicked off D week with a simple activity. I wrote D's on a piece of construction paper in dots. I asked each of them to follow the dots and write the letters. O did really well and was very happy to do it. M needed a little help obviously but was pretty excited about it too.

Then they were asking to color so I quickly printed off a couple worksheets and let them go at it while we talked about everything.

After I cleaned all that up I asked them if they wanted to make dog ears. They love pretending to be dogs so I knew this would be a hit. They each picked their own colors and drew on the paper then I quickly cut it all out and stapled/taped it together. O loved wearing her around, M not-so-much. He's pretty picky about when and what he allows on his head.

A little later, as a last minute decision, we met up with D at a duck park.

K was already going at it when we got there.

O quickly joined in and M was a little indifferent for the most part. Though he loved pointing them out.

K finishing out his throw. I just love the black/white-ness of this picture along with his blond curls.

FYI - Geese poop is horrid. It was EVERYWHERE and it was big and green. There was no getting around it and it got all over their shoes. I have never encountered this at the other duck ponds we have visited so I attribute the nastiness to the geese. We will not be going back there. I'll still to the one I know. We adults had this vision of one of the kids throwing the food so hard they would go face first onto the nastiness.

---shudder---

So that was our day. Not a terrible start, I should say.