Clouds

It was a perfect week to talk about clouds.  It was cold, cloudy and rainy.  We got to see the real action of how the water cycle works.

Cotton Ball Clouds

We made some clouds out of cotton, simple, easy tactile art project

which works well for the big and little kids

Windy Clouds

We talked about how the wind causes the clouds to move across the sky.  The kids were being the wind and blowing the marshmallow across the table.

Which they loved and did over and over and over again.

Puffy Paint Clouds

 I love puffy paint (just a mixture of 1/4 glue and 3/4 shaving cream).  We used a loofah to act as the cloud to paint the clouds.

The paint dries puffy, which Brielle has thought was really cool to play with this week.

 Creating Clouds

 We talked about how clouds are all different shapes and sizes.  The kids used playdoh to make different clouds.

Painting the Clouds

This activity is one of my favorites.  I first did it when I was working with day care kids in college.

yes, it is messy...but it's just shaving cream and cleans up easily.  The little kids (Ethan especially) are finally getting to the point where I'm not as concerned about them eating everything.  Everyone enjoyed this one, especially Ellie.  She stayed and played for an additional 10 minutes after the others were off doing other things.

Cotton Ball and Water

Dipping the cotton in the water to see how it fills with water and drips like rain

Rain Stick

I love this idea for making a rainstick.  I'm going to save that one for later, because I didn't want to have nails and hammer out with the younger kids, but golf tees worked for a temporary rain stick.  We poured in some beans and rice and listened to the sound that rain can make.

Books

Favorites:

Cloudland by John Buningham.  It is a weird book about a boy falling off a cliff and landing in the clouds, but Brielle asked to read it at least once a day.  She says it is her favorite.

It Looked Like Spilt Milk, a simple baby book with repetitive words, but the kids all loved it.

It Looked Like Spilt Milk

After reading It Looked Like Spilt Milk, the kids were eating popcorn for snack and 'quoting' the book as they looked at each piece of popcorn.  "It looks like a fish, but it isn't!" etc.

we also did a simple activity where we put a drop of paint on a paper, folded it in half and then saw what it looked like when we opened it up.

Just a random picture from this week.  Putting my kids to work.  Luckily they are young enough they still think it is fun.

St. Patrick's Day

I love holidays.  St. Patrick's Day is extra special because it is James' Birthday as well so we get to celebrate twice the fun!  There are SO many fun things to do for St. Patricks' Day theme I think I could celebrate for the entire month.

Here is a glimpse of our week

Green  

I knew Ethan would be excited for this week with green being his favorite color.  We went on a green scavenger hunt and found that we have a lot of green items in our house and outside.

Rainbows

Trash Rainbow

I loved this trash rainbow, because it was an easy one to include everyone in.  Ethan was great at tearing paper, the older kids loved cutting (of course), Lissy loved the glue.  We rounded up an assortment of scrap craft supplies and the kids sorted all the colors.

And here is a good example of why I don't get as much done as I'd like to.  Doing fun things with the kids causes lots of messes that I get to clean up.  For me it is worth it---most of the time! :)

Rainbow Hair

I couldn't resist.  It is nothing too exciting, but the girls loved it.

Fruit Rainbow (idea from my friend Natalie)
I didn't take a picture of ours, but I have to say I was amazed by how much fruit was consumed for dinner.  We had traditional corned beef, cabbage and all the fixings for an Irish meal and James' birthday.

via

Leprechauns

The kids loved learning stories about tricky and mischievous leprechauns.  We set up a 'trap' (based on the Lucky O' Leprechaun book) for the leprechauns to come.  The leprechauns came and left footprints all over the house Wednesday night for the kids to follow and find the prizes that had been left for them.

The leprechauns then came back during lunch and turned all the food green! ;) The kids thought it was so funny to drink green milk and eat green pasta.  They then had to look for the treats that had been hidden by those silly leprechauns after lunch.

St. Patrick's Day Math
We worked on graphing with a couple of different methods
Snack-time with  Lucky Charms (available here)

A spinning graphing game (available here)

Books

The Favorites:
Lucky O' Leprechaun
The Leprechaun Who Lost His Rainbow

Solvang Century

After Ethan's birthday party Wednesday night we drove up Morro Bay.  James had a conference in Morro Bay on Thursday and Friday, and then had his BIG bike ride on Saturday.

The time at Morro Bay was filled with the usual relaxing activities:

Playing at the Park

Hiking up Black's Hill (we were going to go to the beach that morning, but they were all closed because of the tsunami warnings.  We were able to watch the tsunami surges from a very safe distance)

Family walk to Morro rock to watch the waves crash in

In search of starfish

And on Saturday, we met up with Brad and Margaret.  Margaret, the kids and I explored the surrounding Solvang area while James and Brad biked and biked and biked some more.

We went to the 'Little Red Schoolhouse' in Ballard.  It opened in 1882, and is still in use today.

We found a miniature Donkey farm.  We got to see a pot-bellied pig, goats, turkeys, and even a Zonkey (cross between zebra and donkey).  The kids also got to have a ride on the donkey.

We had a picnic and went hiking at the Nojoqui falls.

The Bike Ride

Here is James taking off from the starting line in Solvang

This is at about mile 87.  James was still looking great.  The scenery was amazing.  It was green and filled with wineries and farms.

James and Brad at the finish line.  It was amazing that James was able to ride with his Dad the whole way.  James with his new bike (he has already put over 2000 miles on this bike since he got it in November), and Brad with the bike that he got for his wedding present 35 years ago!

TWO!

Ethan 2-year-old Stats

My name is: Ethan (aka Fums, Little Buddy)
I'm: 2-years-old
Things I love:

-Throwing rocks in the riverbed

-Music (especially 'It's a Small World' and 'Yo-Ho-Yo')

-Going to Disneyland

-Trains, Planes, Cars, Boats anything that moves

-Cows

-Eating (SO Messy!)

-Swimming

Favorite book: He loves to bring me books to read, but rarely holds still for any of them.  He loves the lift-the-flat books.
Pet Peeve: Having to sit still for anything (diaper change, story time, scripture reading, church...)
Catch Phrase: 'MY'-said for anything green, 'hum'-means yes, 'kikiwa'-(kiki is his name for is favorite blanket, 'wa' in this case means pacifier, but he also says 'wa' for frog and water. )
Height: 35.75 inches
Weight: 31.5 pounds

Head: 50.9 cm 

Words: 'jabbers' a lot, but most people wouldn't understand his language.  The doctor wants his to see the audiologist and possibly speech pathologist to make sure everything is working normally.

Sleeping: Night-about 11 hours (7:30pm-6:30am), Nap 3 hours (1pm-4pm)

Movement: Running, Jumping, Climbing, Throwing

We had a family party the night of his birthday and then left for Morro Bay that night

The train cake wasn't my best work (I didn't have much time to spend on it, so don't look too closely!), but...

it was still a huge success.

Brielle helped to wrap...

and unwrap the presents

Ocean

I'm behind, so I'll just quickly post our preschool highlights for the past few weeks.

After going to San Diego and visiting the aquarium, we continued learning about the Ocean.

The favorite activity was making an 'Ocean in a Bottle'. We used oil, water and blue food coloring. It was a fun science project to see how the oil stays on top.

Even after you shake it up!

We had some great pretend play with the pool being the ocean. The kids made an airplane and flew to 'Salt Lake City' to go to the ocean.

The books:

Favorites:

Ocean Whisper-a wordless book with a great story being told in the pictures

Over in the Ocean-Brielle's favorite, she loves counting and the 'I Spy' aspect of having to find the pictures in the book

Mardi Gras

Last week's theme was both Birthdays and Mardi Gras

Our Mardi Gras Day

Making masks

I bet you can't guess who it is! :)

Playing with the traditional bead necklaces

The lovely King Cake. Thanks to the help from the kids.

I'm going to admit this, because it was a great learning project for the kids. I happen to have left over frosting in my fridge almost all the time from some activity or another. For our lunch time King Cake we used different frosting from the fridge and then had to figure out how to make the right colors. I had pink that we were able to turn purple and yellow that we used to then make green.

The Books

There was a complete lack of Mardi Gras (and even birthday books) available through our library system. I'll have to do some more research for next year. The one Mardi Gras book we had was interesting, for older kids (and me) but not a kids story. Does anyone know of any kid's books written about Mardi Gras?