Tuesday, May 28, 2013

More Soccer




Memorial Day


The girls and I spent Memorial Day on a little tour with my Mother in law.  She took us to see where she grew up and visit several relatives.  The main purpose of our trip was to visit my Father in law's grave.  Red Fish has always felt a special connection with him and likes to say that he helped her to find the right family when she was in Heaven.  I'm sure he did.  Red Fish has been asking to go visit his grave for awhile.


Wednesday, May 22, 2013

w is for western

 For Western week the kids decorated paperbag cowboy vests.  Buddy B was pretty convinced his would go better with his sponge bob underpants but I convinced him that cowboys wear their shorts.  (Teaching preschool to these two has been hysterical.)  I borrowed stick horses and drew chalk numbers on the sidewalk.  They had to gallop their horses to the right number 1-20.  Buddy B fell once and his gum fell out of his mouth.  New Fish started screaming: "His skin!  It just fell off!  The horror!"  Hilarious.

 I also drew chalk letters on the driveway and we played several alphabet games.  The kids are starting to remember alphabetic order pretty well.
 We made cowboy stick puppets and the kids put on a puppet show.

 We matched cowboys with lowercase letters on them to their hats with upper case letters on them.
 We made a big batch of moon sand (flour and baby oil) and the kids had a blast playing in it.  They buried their feet over and over.

 The kids used scissors to cut up little pieces of pipe cleaners as a fine motor skill. It was difficult.  Then we filled waterbottles with the bits and moved them around with a magnet.  We did several cutting exercises as well as mazes and prewriting worksheets.  Then the kids played with horses and pretended to be in the wild wild west.  They also played sheriffs and outlaws.  Blue Fish, our dog played the part of outlaw.
     


Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Art Group Day 3- Stained Glass

 For art group this week we studied pictures of stained glass windows and talked about how artists use light.  Then we made suncatchers out of contact paper.  We used pieces of tissue paper in different shapes as our colored glass and then used colored masking tape as the metal framework.  I had precut squares and circles and sheets of tissue paper available.  This was the first time in four years that we have had art group inside someone's house.  Good thing it was a nice clean project!



Monday, May 20, 2013

A Kiss For A Llama

Riding Bikes
 These are a collection of random moments spent with my grandparents over the weekend.
Reading books
Dancing with Bockum


Lighting the candles on Grandma's birthday cake



Kissing Aunt K's llama



Saturday, May 18, 2013

Street Fair


 While visiting my grandparents we happened upon a Cougar fan fest and then went to a street fair to visit my aunt.  The fair was held at a park with a splash pad.  It was a busy/fun morning

 There was a Home Depot booth where the kids could construct a little car or a birdhouse. 





Ear Piercing

Getting ready
 When I was a little girl, I desperately wanted my ears pierced and my grandpa egged me on.  I was supposed to wait until I ten years old.  I begged endlessly to get them done early.  Just before my 9th birthday I was holding onto my Dad's foot and dragging behind him as he walked down the hall, begging to get my ears done.  He shoke me loose and told me he just didn't care anymore.  I think he meant that he just didn't want to talk about this anymore but I took it as the green light.  My grandparents took me to get my ears pierced.  Two Fish and I had decided we would let our girls get their ears pierced whenever they seemed to desperately want them done.  Red Fish has been pleading for months now even though I explained the process thoroughly to her.

We took a little road trip to visit my grandparents and we all went together to watch Red Fish.  She looked pretty nervous before they pierced them and I wasn't sure she would go through with it.  She was determined.  She didn't even cry afterwards.  She loves her little earings.
In process

Deciding whether to cry or not.
Afterwards

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Little Scientist

Water absorption experiments.

Watercolor Resists

Red Fish
 The paintings are starting to pile up around here.  Today the girls did watercolor resists with liquid watercolor and oil pastels.  Two Fish is finding paint splatters all around the outside of our house.

Red Fish
New Fish

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

f is for feelings

 We talked about the letter "f" and feelings today in preschool.  The kids colored and cut out their letters and did some prewriting worksheets and games.  Their fine motor skills are getting really good.  We did our calendar and music time.  We do a lot of dancing and parading around during music times these days.  We always use the parachute.  We did some matching games and talked about feelings.  We read several little story books that highlight emotions and the kids thought this weeks nursey rhyme, fee fie fo fum, was hilarious.  They walked around pretending to be giants.
 For our math practice I put magnetic numbers on the fridge in series and they had to fill in the blanks.  They know their numbers really well now.  We went outside to paint with watercolors and ate snacks.
 The kids played in the magnetic sensory bin and after the older kids got out of school we invited them over for a new sensory experience.  I was inspired by this post.  I filled our sensory bin with baking soda and filled ice cube trays full of colored vinegar.  (I used liquid watercolor to dye it.) I gave each kid an eye dropped so they could drop the vinegar into the bin and watch it fizz.  The kids loved watching it fizz and kept working together to create bigger "explosions."
 There was a lot of color mixing with the vinegar as well.  They kept trying to create new colors in the baking soda.


 Next the hands went into the bin.
 Next we decided to add corn starch and make a goo for the kids to ply in.  We added increasing amounts of water until they decided the texture was right. 
 Eventually we got out some tools for them to dig with.  They were filthy by the time they finished with the bin so I hosed them down and they ended up running through the sprinklers.  The warmer weather has been incredible.