Fun around these parts

We recently went to the town celebration at the library. John made the bell ring, Natalie caught some coupons, we dressed up in silly props, and caught some candy from the bucket truck.

 

I took some pics of our YW during Mutual, and before hand tried out some poses on Natalie. She’s always willing to smile (or make funny faces, or hug a tree) for the camera.

 

Leo’s got a bucket on his head…

Natalie was taking pictures with my camera yesterday. It was on rapid mode, so she took about 200 in about 20 minutes. Pictures of all kinds of exciting things, like the bathroom and a magnadoodle, and pictures of princesses on her walls. Here’s our 4:05 happenings yesterday, from Natalie’s perspective:

Hooray for Stylish and fashionista bus stops!

Letter D- Dinosaur and Dog Preschool

So, today we did Letter D. Here's what we did:

-Played with connectagons, fed the dinosaur box

- Talked about Letter D, had d objects, felt in the bag to figure out the object (without looking, so hard!)

- Fed the dinosaur box (a tissue box with cut out opening, painted green) - picked up a number card, counted out that many "leaves"- fed it to the dinosaur

-Played Puppy Pals bingo (matching shapes and patterns and colors to a doghouse)

- Sang "We are the Dinosaurs" by Laurie Berkener

- Read "Fun Dog Sun Dog" and "From Puppy to Dog" (non-fiction about how dogs grow)

- Played "Doggy Doggy where's your Bone?" Bone was hiding under ABC cards, had to say the letter to look under it. From Dog Preschool pack

- Ate donuts (recipe here at the Curvy Carrot, I'd shape them and then let them rise for at least 2 hours or more so they're fluffier than just sweet rolls texture)

 

- Made dog ear craft

- Simon Says, dog style- howl, beg, bark, come, sit, sleep.

-Traced letter D and did tracing from dog to ball (Dog preschool pack- this site is full of preschool and older kids printables pdfs, all geared towards homeschool. And she has links to other bloggers with more preschool packs. You have to check it out!)

- Ate our lunch!

 

Hooray for the Letter D!

Letter A and B- Preschool

This year for preschool I’m doing two days of school- one day with 5 kids, another day with just my Natalie and our friend Jacob. They’re both off to Kindergarten next year, so we’re focusing on the ABC’s and 123’s with them.

A is for…Army and Apples

For math time we counted Risk LOTR army men, counting out each amount for each number. We got to 8 and then got tired of it.

We made some apples out of construction paper and paper bags (on the inside), taped around.

Then we played store and bought some apples with our pennies.

We also made applesauce ornaments- equal parts cinnamon and applesauce (small batch- 1 cup each) with a tablespoon of glue mixed in. They smelled so yummy. We’ve added them to bathrooms and drawers to make our house smell like Christmas.

 

Letter B…banana bread, body, blocks, beans, balloons, blockus, 10 in a bed…

I taught Letter B twice- so we’ve got double the fun.

We made Banana muffins as a preschool- those mini muffins made it so everyone could bring some home. I pre measured the dry ingredients out so they could mash and mix as we counted strokes and measured the wet ingredients.

We also talked about our bodies….we

READ- Head to Toe by Eric Carle

SANG- Hokey Pokey, Head Shoulders Knees and Toes

PLAYED- Simon says

CREATED- a crayon drawing of our bodies on newsprint paper.

I pulled the blocks out to play as kids arrived- but Natalie and Sophia played with them for over an hour after their dance class that night.

 

Pre-K Letter B

We counted blocks (1 inch square construction paper) and marble beads to our number charts.

We played “10 in a Bed” with 8 stuffed animals (they were the last two). They had fun throwing the animals off the couch and scooting over.

We played charades with B words- I copied clipart (and a sweet pic of my baby boy) and printed out with simple words- then they picked and tried to act it out. It was a good exercise in keeping a secret. We had a lot of fun hopping around and figuring out how to show that word.

We also glued Beans on our letter B.

And bounced balloons around and said B words each time we bounced it.

Last but not least, played Blockus (prek way, filling in and making shapes).

Hooray for letters A and B!

A Date with my Johnny and a Date with my Girls

On Labor day John and I went for a biking date all alone. It’s fun for us to go on dates during the day- I feel like there’s more things to do sometimes than when it’s dark. So we rode the trail system near our house and went to lunch at Firehouse subs. Of course I brought my camera…so I tried to do some tricks for the camera…

And that’s the only one I’ve got. And I don’t even have it really.

I attempted to take a picture of John while riding the same speed, making him focused and the background blurry to show motion. The real success here is taking a picture without crashing. This was the best out of 20 shots and only 2 almost crashes.

Dates that require no makeup and are good with yoga pants and girls camps tshirts? I’m in!

 

Plainfield’s most stunning piece of architecture…hehe…

At firehouse subs they have a digital coke machine with dozens and dozens of choices (like 5 different flavors of normal coke) and only one soda spout. It blew my mind. So I had to take a picture.

This past Friday, Sophia and Natalie and I went to an open house at a local arts center, while Leo had a date with John at home.There was woodcarving…

 

Glass blowing….

and a gallery of Elizabeth Black, a very talented student, whom my girls fawned all over. This totally looks like the artwork that Sophia will be creating in 20 years…her swirls and hearts and flowers, evolved and layered…

The girls tried out sculpting with clay, and blowing watercolors with straws. There was also wood working, weaving, and jewelry making, and pottery wheels, but we decided not to wait in line for lessons in those things.

 

The girls were most excited about musical easels- draw while the music plays, then rotate to a new easel. They were distraught at the end when they realized their drawings had been added to. But we got to play with the oil crayons a little bit more. I think this activity will be a keeper for Sophia’s art birthday party in November.

We had a great time that night, the best line of the evening was when Sophia said- “Why is all this other stuff in here…I thought art is only drawing and painting?” I guess we have some art appreciation and some new horizons to discover…

Hooray for dates!