F is for Fire

 At the beginning of the week we talked about fire saftey, checked our fire alarms, and practiced what to do in case of a fire.

The kids used a pushpin to punch holes in the F.  We then hung it up in the window so the light could come throuh the holes.

The kids created their own firefighter lunch.  They wanted a hot dog to be the fireman, the cheese to be a hose and the ketchup for the fire.  The celery is the grass that is on fire.

We collected some sticks and made fire using tissue paper.

I loved this, because Ethan came up with it on his own.  I had the beads out and told Ethan he could play with them while I made breakfast.  He then showed me he had made a letter F.  He kept working on it after we got back from dropping of Brielle at school.  He made the lowercase F and then started on the E.  He even did patterns, all without any guidance.

We got to go visit the firestation afterschool so the bigger kids and friends could join us.

Books

My kids have loved all of the alphabet books by Audrey Wood.  We've gotten them a few times and they get excited about it each time they see any of them.

Mt. Baldy

We were able to take the ski lift up to a restaurant on Mt. Baldy (the highest peak in the San Gabriel Mountains) called Top of the Notch.  The kids LOVED the chance to ride chairs.


We had a fun group we met up with.  Starting with back left (Brad, Yogi, Margaret, Vov, James, Meagan, Kurt, Charlene, Katie, Tom) and Front left (Ethan, Megan, Brielle, John)
Family, Friends, Cousins and Cousin's Cousin...try to create the family tree from that! :)

This is the view from the restaurant.  It was all you can eat breakfast buffet, which was pretty good and had a fantastic overlook.

After breakfast we took off to hike in the mountains.  There were all different ages and abilities so everyone did what they could.  These 2 started complaining after the first 100 yards, but once we started telling stories and playing word games they decided to keep going.

Once they found out Charlene had pomegranates to share, they suddenly became excellent hikers. (These kids love pomegranates!)  The hike to get to the peak is 6.4 miles round trip with about 2300 feet of elevation gain.  It is not an easy hike, but is gorgeous.

The is Devil's Backbone.  We hiked along that ridge.  I kept a firm hold on Ethan to make sure he didn't fall down the side of the mountain.

And then this is the hill we had to hike after the backbone.

We loved the views and had a great time.  Our family had to turn around before the peak to hurry down the mountain to get to a baptism, so we ended up going a total of 4 miles. The rest of this group made it all the way to the top.

(we barely made it to the church for the baptism without having time to go home and shower.  I had extra clothes in the car for the kids, but James and I went dressed as we were.  We were a lovely sight.)

E is for Elephant

From our Elephant Week 

Did you grow up with the idea that Elephants love peanuts?  Where does that come from, Dumbo?  Elephants don't actually eat peanuts, but the kids love them! This is a fun document that talks about the myths and facts of elephants.  

We did this science experiement making 'elephant toothpaste'.  After letting it foam up, the kids then were able to practice writing in the foam on the tray.

Because both Elise and Ethan start with the letter E, they are very good at writing the capital letter 'E' and pointing it out.  We worked with the lowercase 'e' a little bit more. 

Ethan insisted that since 'E is for egg' he should be in charge of cracking the eggs all week long.

We were able to make it out to the zoo to visit the elephants.  Ethan was so excited about them he ran off on his own to follow them around the exhibit.  Luckily I found him quickly and made him hold my hand the rest of the visit.

Books

Route 66 Parade

The kids love the opportunity to join their Grandma in the Route 66 parade each year.  Brielle was sick, so missed the chance this time, but Ethan was very excited about his date with Dad heading out for the day.  Everytime we drive past the spot in the video (which is daily bringing Ellie home from school) he points out where he got to ride in the parade and is very excited about it.


I just noticed what the sign in the back of Ethan says.  Guess it is a good thing he doesn't read yet, and that Brielle wasn't able to ride in the truck.  

Dancing Man

Ethan has had quite the dance moves lately.  He loves music and can't keep his body still any time he hears music playing.  I haven't captured his best dance moves yet, but here is a glimpse...because little kids dancing are always fun to watch.

D is for Dinosaur

I planned the weekly themes based on Elise and Ethan's interests.  We've done dinosaurs a few times already, but Ethan loves them, so we went for it again.


I wrote out the word and then had the kids find the correct letters to match up the stickers.

We have quite a few dinosaur themed file folder games that we did.  For this one we reviewed the letters we've learned so far matching uppercase to lowercase.

We happened to have spare ribs for Sunday dinner the week prior to dinosaur week.  Those are the same kind of bones we used last time we did a dino dig.  I love how they dry out and look old and white.  The kids loved being archeologists and digging them out.

We did a lot with eggs.  We used food markers to decorate hard-boiled eggs to make these dinosaur eggs for lunch.  We also got out Easter eggs to hide letters inside and hunt for the dino eggs.  The kids could have done egg hunts all day long.


I still love using the touchpad for our worksheets.  We can go through them together, it keeps their interest longer, and we don't have to print as much out.  The ones we are doing here were all from learningpage.com

Books

Elise loved Dinosaur vs. The Potty.  It was not one that I liked, but she loved the pictures and kept asking for it.
Ethan loved the I Am a Tyrannosaurus book (his favorite dinosaur.  When we brush his teeth and you need him to keep his mouth open, you ask for him to be a t-rex.   He has a very fierce growl with a WIDE mouth.)
The 3 on the bottom right were all easy-reader books that Brielle was able to read to Ethan and I.  

On Halloween Costumes

A random conversation at our house...


E: I'm going to be spiderman.  For now.

Me: You need to decide soon, because once we start making your costume you can't change your mind.

E: I want to be a goat.

Me: a ghost?

E: No, a goat.

B: You can't be a goat, how would we make the hard horns?

E: I want to be a deer.

B: They have horns too.  You have to be something with no horns.  Like you could be a snake and we'll make you a tail, but you can't use your arms and legs and you'll just have to slither, okay?

E: I'll be a tiger.  For now.

Shuttle Time!

On Friday (September 21, 2012) we were all able to go and see the historic fly over of the Space Shuttle Endeavour (OV-105) at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, CA.  This laboratory is responsible for much of the research that got the shuttle up into space in the first place.  Brielle was out of school for having a fever the previous day and James took a little time off work to meet up with everyone.  Brielle was really feeling pretty miserable, bu we explained that this was a once in a lifetime opportunity.  Kudos to her for allowing her 5-year old brain to grasp that concept!  Above is the vantage point from which we watched the shuttle fly over.

Megan packed us a nice little picnic, but we did not have time to eat it before the shuttle arrived.  We had not anticipated such heavy traffic near this fly over site.  There were people just pulled over on the side of the freeway with lawn chairs!  We parked about 1/2 a miles from the look out point and walked over.  It was very crowded, which made it all the more exciting!

The kids enjoyed taking turns looking for the shuttle.  We first saw it in the distance as it made a pass by the Griffth Observatory.  It then made its way over to us.

As the shuttle got closer the crowd of people began to cheer like crazy.  We tried to snap some pictures and take video as best we could, but we wanted to see it with our eyes rather than than through a view finder.  It was just one of those moments were you felt very proud to be an American.  It was also a little sad to know that this was the end of an era, especially since there is not another one on the horizon.

The shuttle had two wingmen that escorted it around the whole day.  Those were Ethan's favorite part as you can hear in the video below.

I had just a second to snap one picture of Megan and Brielle with the shuttle in the background (very far away).  It is just over the top of the man's head.

After the fly over we had a quick lunch overlooking JPL and then headed back to normal life.  It was an exciting site to see.  We are looking forward to seeing the shuttle drive along the streets of Los Angeles in a few weeks as it is moved to its final home at the Science Center.

The Broken Down Bus

A quick story:

We were driving home from school and saw a full size greyhound-type tour bus being towed on a huge tow truck.  We were discussing what could have happened.

Ethan's opinion:
"Maybe there was a boy that threw a rock in the street, and then his Mom said he needed to pick it up, but it was time to go, because his Mom had to go to Young Women's, so they left the rock in the street. And then the bus came and it crashed into the huge rock and broke it all into pieces, and it broke the bus, so now that have to take it to be fixed."