New Year, New House (and our slightly modified schedule)

(or in other words, boring post about our daily routine)

For my journaling purposes I wanted to list out what we are currently doing on a normal school day. There are a couple of changes because of nap schedules and my running schedule this year. Mostly it is the same thing we were doing last year.

Anyway, this is our typical 'school day' schedule which is Monday, Wednesday and Thursday (the days the cousins come over). On Tuesdays and Fridays we usually have Field Trips or run errands, so those days are a bit different. Times aren't exact, but pretty close most of the time.

6:30 Kids wake up (or on a good day they sleep in until 7)
7:15 Breakfast
7:30 Getting Ready (make beds, brush teeth, get dressed, get hair done, etc.)
8:30 Free Play (I clean up breakfast, start laundry, clean house, etc.)
9:30 Circle Time
This has changed a little bit since Ellie has started Primary at church. We start by singing the song they are learning at church for the month. We then recite the scripture of the month. (Brielle is very proud to be memorizing scriptures, she has learned 3 this month!)
We then check the calendar and the weather for the day and play or read stories about our theme for the week
10:00 Snack
10:15 Craft/Project
10:50 Quiet Time (the kids each choose a book to look at on their own. I can switch laundry and clean up from our snack/project and get the next activities ready)
11:00 Outdoor Play (some free play time, some guided play time)
12:00 Lunch
12:15 Finish projects as needed
12:45 Nap Routine
1:00 Naps (Well, naps for the kids at least. I clean up from lunch, get afternoon snack ready, start dinner prep, do my scripture study and sometime have time for some fun blogging/computer time)
3:30 Run (kids eat snack while in the jogger stroller)
4:15 Outdoor play (Ethan's favorite part of the day!) I run on the bike path that goes along the river, so when I'm done running the kids get out to 'get their exercise' and throw rocks in the river.
5:15 get home to finish dinner, shower etc. Ethan loves to set the table, Ellie loves to help cook. They are not always as helpful as I'd like, but they try.
6:00 Dinner
6:30 Bedtime Routine (jammies, brush teeth, scriptures, prayers, stories, songs)
7:30 Kids in Bed (ideally Ethan is in bed by 7 and Ellie by 7:30...now that they are sharing a room we are still working on them ignoring each other and falling asleep!)

Groundhog Day and Shadows

I know we are a week early, but since next week has 2 holidays (we'll be learning about China for Chinese New Year) we had to split it up a bit.  I was going to discuss the weather along with Groundhogs, but there was way too much information to fit into one week.   Our weather themed is moved to next month; I'm especially excited about the cloud activities that we'll do.

Tracing Shadows

Shadow Play

I asked the kids what a shadow was.  We were sitting at the table in the shade.  Gavin hops down and says 'I need to run to the sun to show you!'  The kids were trying to see who's shadow was taller.

Shadow Tag

Yes, you are suppose to tag their shadow, not their body.  We're still working on that.

Identifying Shadows

We got a bunch of different items around the house and held them in front of a flashlight to see what kind of shadow they made.

Pretend Play

The box of course has been the burrow.  The kids have taken turns hibernating and popping out to see if they can see their shadow.

Making Licking Stickers

I saw this idea on a blog and knew the kids would love it.  It was really easy to do.  We made the sticky paste (2 Tablespoons boiling water and 1 Tablespoon of jello).  The kids painted the paper.  We then let it dry for about an hour since they painted it on so thick.  I thought about letting the kids practice cutting our their own stickers, but we were running short on time.  I cut them all out and let them lick and stick.

Ellie liked licking the stickers to much she wanted to keep doing it, which is why she covered up her number 4 and kept filling up the box.

Groundhog Cupcakes

You could probably think of a lot of different toppings to make it look more 'groundhogish'.   Ellie's version is the one on the yellow plate.  It made me smile.

Groundhog Puppets

I've seen some cuter versions of this craft, but this is what the kids did at library storytime about Groundhogs day.  You use the stick to pull the groundhog's head into the cup as his burrow and then pop it out.

Books

Groundhog Books

The favorites this week have been:

Gregory's Shadow by Don Freeman--Ellie and Gavin seem to like that Gregory is scared of his shadow when he thinks it is a ghost.

Go to Sleep Groundhog! by Judy Cox--one of the pages has Santa Claus.  Ethan loves when we get to that part because he yells out 'Ho, Ho, Ho!'

Double Trouble Groundhog Day by Bethany Roberts--cute illustrations.  I think Brielle likes it because the twins bickering is kind of like Gavin and Brielle's relationship

Shadow Books

I love the poem by Robert Louis Stevenson.  This is one that my Mom gave to Brielle and it is a classic.

Field Trip

LA Zoo

Ellie was really hoping to see a groundhog at the zoo.  They didn't have any.  I showed her the prairie dogs and the meerkats, but she was not fooled.  She has been quite interested in burrows however and when she sees a hole in the ground when we're walking on the riverbed she says we need to be quiet because the groundhogs are still sleeping.

 Seeing Animals up close

 Getting the chance to brush the goats

 But what could be more fun than playing hide and seek?

 Peek-a-Boo!

Forget the animals, Ethan found a grate to push rocks and sticks through.

A Little More Color

Coloring Celery

The same concept as with carnations, only you can see how the colors come up the celery stalk. The green (that Ellie put in what I thought was WAY too much food coloring) worked the best. Lesson learned, use a lot of coloring. It was interesting to listen to Brielle explain to James how the celery was drinking the water, she actually understood quite a bit.

Color Wheel

I still haven't unpacked all my art supplies, but we found enough to do a little project. In addition to cutting I had them practice tearing the paper. My idea was to have this as a collage in the shape of a rainbow, but the kids really wanted to do circles, so we were able to use the circle to create a color wheel to reinforce primary and secondary colors. (Just cut out the circles, and paste on another paper. We waited for these papers to dry on first, so I don't have pictures of the final project yet.)

Color Wheel Pancakes

I was looking at our pancakes and thinking they would make a great palate for mixing colors.

I got this frosting last year after Christmas.  It has been great to have on hand for writing letters on muffins or doing quick project.  Ellie loves any chance she gets to eat frosting, so she was a big fan.

Books

We always get a big selection at the library and then try them out to see what we like best.

I won't list everything, but our favorites ended up being:

Raindrops A Shower of Colors by Chieu Anh Urban

A great board book for younger kids, but also teaches color mixing

Lemons are NOT Red by Laura Vaccaro Seeger

Ethan loves saying NO. So I would ask 'are lemons red?' and he yells NO! All the kids really liked this one.

Color Dance by Ann Jonas

It is a little bit strange, but Ellie loved it. It teaches good concepts about mixing colors. The one we had was copyright in 1989, so I don't know if it was just old, but the red in the book looked quite pink. Other than that it was good. We always finished the book by singing what I know of The Spectrum Song (since the book actually mentions colors like chartreuse and aquamarine).

Colors by The Eyelike Series

Really good to show the spectrum of colors in nature, this was another of Ellie's top picks this week.

Color

We are not quite all the way unpacked and settled, but I'm ready for organized preschool time again, so we're back!

A note for those of you that are keeping track: I'm skipping the last few letters we had left of the alphabet. Brielle has known all the lowercase letters for a long time and is ready to move on, and it will be easier to plan activities to different ages and abilities if I go with a theme unit for the week rather than a specific letter.

So, for this week, the theme is Colors!

Goal for the little kids- learning to say and recognize the basic rainbow colors.

Goal for older kids-learn about shades, spectrums, primary and secondary colors

Each of the four kids has a definite favorite color. Luckily none of them are the same. Gavin likes Red, Brielle like Yellow, Lissy likes Blue, and Ethan likes Green. Anytime Ethan sees anything Green he runs to it and says 'MY'. Lissy sees something blue and emphatically says 'Coco, Blue'. Before Lissy picked blue as her favorite color we gave her the orange plate to eat from all the time, so Ethan still refers to anything orange as 'coco'.

And, some of our activities:

Crayon Making

It is messy, but fun.

Ethan and Lissy's preferred method of breaking up the crayons was with their teeth. Gross.

Color Words

Ellie got this See and Spell puzzle for Christmas and loves it.

We used the letters to practice spelling the colors.

Color Mixing

We've used food coloring before and mixed colors, but I loved doing it with ice. We could see the original primary colors that were used to make the secondary colors for a long time.

Color Wheel

Another color-mixing activity that the kids LOVED.

Colored Cookies

We made "Funfetti" cookies with rainbow sprinkles, but there are so many fun food things to do with color that I want to do still. A one-color themed meal (all green, blue, brown, etc.) Rainbow jello, Rainbow Cake, Playdough Cookies (we've done before), Edible Crayons...etc.

Memory

I picked up some paint sample cards which we got a lot of use from this week. We used them to play memory, go fish, matching colors around the house and using as flashcards.

Shades of Color

Again, the paint samples were used to talk about different shades of color and group darkest to lightest.

And shades of jellybeans.

Color Scavenger Hunt

Tuesday we went on a field trip to the arboretum and searched for colors in nature. Yes, I let the kids pick flowers, but only 1 each...we left the rest for everyone else to enjoy. We found blue peacocks, but decided they probably didn't want to have their feathers picked off for the picture.

Christmas in Utah

We have some great photographers in my family, so I don't have a lot of pictures of our trip.  Here are a few to show a glimpse of the great time we had with my ENTIRE family.  All 11 kids, spouses, kids...everyone was home for Christmas this year.  31 people is quite a crowd.

Swimming on Christmas Eve.  A great way to wear out the kids so they'll fall asleep.

Acting out the Nativity

Getting together with friends

Seeing the Christmas Lights

A trip to the art museum

Fun family games

Sledding with Papa (it was COLD)

Continuing the tradition of crashing the gingerbread houses at midnight

Bundling up for the snow takes a lot of time

but it is well worth the effort!

A slide full of snow doesn't work quite so well

Ethan missed the first sledding experience, but loved the second

More visits with good friends

And the down side of the trip...sick kids.  We spent Christmas day at Urgent Care for both the kids.  The kids were a bit more emotional and slept worse than usual, but still had a great time with family.