Snow! Just kidding...

We haven't gotten much of the white stuff here yet this year, and we all have a case of cabin fever due to self-induced house arrest (we have yucky colds), so I took the plunge and made my own snow.  I saw the idea here.

 Measure 4 cups of flour.

 Add 1/2 cup baby oil.

 Mix well.

(hold the bowl so your son doesn't dump the whole thing on the floor - which is where we should have started anyway!) 

Thoroughly enjoy yourself for over 30 minutes!

And the cool part is that it cleaned up rather easily.  I just had to let go of the messy part during play.  And besides, it smells good!

Building/Construction Theme Week

I am not really sure what inspired me to do this particular theme with the kids, but it was a huge success.  We started the week with a fun snack - make a building out of graham crackers, pretzel sticks, and peanut butter.  It didn't quite look like I imagined it in my head, but then again I was dealing with a 2 and 4 year old!  

 James enjoyed smearing the crackers with peanut butter and smooshing them together.  And of course eating them. 

 Rose's looked more like a building (after a little guidance on where to put the peanut butter), and she wanted her snack without the mess - so some fresh crackers were retrieved from the cabinet.  I have to say that it was a big deal for Rose to get her hands messy with the peanut butter, she is currently in a hand washing stage.

 We went to a cool place called the National Building Museum and they have a room for the kids to build in.  All sorts of fun toys - big legos, blocks, a huge playhouse, a train table, etc - and Rose built this neat building.  James of course came running across the room and knocked it down for her.

 Later in the week, I thought we could do some real hands on work.  We found a 1x2 in our basement, some roofing nails (they have a great big head to aim for), and the lightweight hammer.  There were some smooshed (yes that is a word google!) fingers, but they both really enjoyed getting to use my tools.  

 Lots of supervision was utilized, especially at the end when Rose got to take the (slightly loosened) nails out.

 Totally stole this idea from here.  I am pretty sure James enjoyed eating them more than building, but it was a good activity for a cold afternoon.

We enjoyed several story books at night time and reference books during the day.  Although I do have to say that it is difficult to find story books about construction vehicles.  Here are a few we liked:

Jack's House by Karen Magnuson Beil

Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel by Virginia Lee Burton

Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site by Sherri Rinker

Transportation Theme!

We kicked off our 'school year' the same time all the public schools did so Rose felt included with the neighborhood kids.  Technically, Rose wouldn't be starting kindergarten until Fall 2013 (almost 6) because of where her birthday falls (cut off is September).  But when she decided to start reading this summer, I figured we could do pre-k/kindergarten this year.  If all else fails, I figure I have 3 years for her to complete kindergarten!

Anyway, our first theme was transportation.  No rhyme or reason, just started there.  Here is a basic run down of what we did:

Sorted all of our vehicles (who knew we had so many?) by

 type,

 method of movement,

 size,

and color. 

 Then we had a race for all the cars, down a book ramp, to see which one went the farthest. White won, green lost.

 She made some notes about the race in her Sid the Science Kid journal (we will use this throughout the year for different science experiments).

 She did a color by number train picture while I cooked dinner or lunch one day. All the manipulative were found online.

After discussing the parts of a boat (bow, stern) and the general shape, we made boats out of foil to see if they would float (idea found here).

 Added a paper boat to see the difference.

 Handwriting practice.

 Which way is the vehicle facing? Rose aced this the first time out, I wasn't really sure she even knew the difference.  Even the boat (before the discussion too!) didn't trip her up.

 A number ordering train, followed by odd/even organizing.

Finally...a trip to the Air and Space Museum!

 Supposedly learning about why the airplane's wings are curved.  I think they really just liked pushing the air button ;)

 Fun in the cockpit!

 They loved the fact that they could go through so many of the different planes and shuttles.  

This had to be Rose's favorite display.  It was just a capsule for the balloon that recently circumnavigated the world.  She thought it was cool that a balloon made it all the way around.  This was the first museum that held her interest at different displays for more than 5 seconds.  She even asked questions about different things and wanted to learn more about them.  We will definitely be going back this year, even if it doesn't fit in our theme!

We also briefly touched on outer space, but might take the time to do that in more depth later on.

A quick project

I finally got one of the projects I had seen online in several places done!  It was so quick too, I might even make this as a gift in the future...for my homeschooling type friends.

 Pre-cut squares of felt (Wal-mart).

 Fold in half.

 Cut width to fit your cross (Michael's).

 Round the edges, add a hole for the top of the cross.

 Cut a strip from the extra piece to use for the stole.

 Repeat for colors of the liturgical year (we still need a blue stole for Marian feast days).

 Check on the cute guys in the back yard, weeding in their overalls.

 Hot glue some ribbon around the edges of each piece. We used white and gold.

Screw your cross on to small wooden discs (Michael's). 

And you have a complete set of liturgically based vestments, which you can now change after you go to mass and distract your kids by asking what color the priest is wearing.  At least until your 3 year old figures out that the priest will be wearing the same color as the cover on the chalice that is out before mass and tells you so, therefore preventing the distraction later on.

St. Rose of Lima Feast Day

Today was the feast day for St. Rose of Lima, who is Rose's patron saint.  This year, we found a church named St. Rose of Lima and went to Mass there.  It was a cute little church and everybody was excited for Rose once they found out.  Prior to leaving, I had seen that there was a state park nearby, so I packed our lunch and off we went after Mass.

 My favorite pics of the day!

 Rose really wanted to eat lunch in the middle of this pretend boat - even though it was the middle of the playground and there were probably 3 school buses worth of kids that had just arrived.  Oh well, it was fun.

 Rose probably spent a half an hour on this zip line, and would have kept going if James wasn't ready for his nap.  She was the youngest one using it so I had to keep the bigs from cutting her out of the line:( but she still had loads of fun.

After the earthquake...we brought snack to the park for all the neighborhood kids.  I made chocolate cupcakes, iced with strawberry icing, and rolled fruit by the foot pieces on top to look like little rosebuds.  Not sure if you can tell or not on this pictures, but they were really cute.  

While we were waiting for dinner to arrive - Rose had voted for pizza delivery - we colored a St. Rose of Lima print out. 

Overall, I think she had a good day.  The earthquake just made it memorable!