Kids Day 2010

Kids Day 2010 was a thumbs up!

Tommy at the movie theater (and NO I was not the only Mommy taking pictures!)

Charlie at the movie theater playing games

First on our agenda was taking the boys to their first ever movie at the theater. We HAD to go see Toy Story 3 since Buzz and Woody are our latest obsessions. We knew that Charlie would be glued to the screen and we were not sure how Thomas would do. They both did great! The movie was a little intense at moments, like when the toys were headed to the incinerator....nice way to terrorize our kids...thanks Disney! And both Trent and I thought it was sad, but overall a good movie and one Charlie would like to add to our collection.

Presents after naps, R2D2 for Charlie

Tommy and Charlie
And a Buzz Lightyear costume for Thomas

Week of the Big Blue Sea

Last week was a good week. We had so much planned that our lessons actually spilled into this week as well. We finished up our Ocean theme today.


We did a little kids yoga. Tommy loved it and Charlie enjoyed it as long as he could do the positions like the lady on the show was doing them. If he couldn't then he melted. He actually got sent to his room for an attitude adjustment during this portion of our day. Being banished to him, with a talking to afterward, seems to be helping curve the whining that we have been experiencing.


Charlie's triangle fish. He drew a pirate ship that had sunk to the bottom as well as a diver.

Tommy and Charlie made octopus. They really enjoyed painting these and using circle sticker as the suction cups underneath their legs. We had fun pretending to stick on one another like an octopus might stick to something.


We did a few float and sink experiments. We made a boat out of playdough and put it in the water. It didn't sink. Then we made the clay into a ball and observed that it sunk in that form.

We also saw that an egg will sink in regular water. However, it will float when you add salt to the water.

Neither Tommy or Charlie cared for the salt water....can't blame them!


Tommy "painted" the fort...with water. This was a HUGE hit for all the kids!

Charlie drew many seascapes and then had his whale, sharks and dolphins swim around.

I made a fun snack from graham crackers, goldfish, crushed vanilla waffers for sand and green M&Ms for seaweed.

We filled clear bottles with water and baby oil, put in some glitter, sea shells and a small plastic toy dolphin. It is fun to shake them up and or make waves. They all LOVED this and I only wish I knew how to keep the tops from coming off so they could play with them more.

Charlie did some pattern work with circle stickers. I made a few patterns and then he had to put the same stickers down. He is really into patterns recently.

Tommy worked on colors and shapes.

Putting straws into a small opening. This was a big hit too!

Another favorite is our dig dig box. I had small toys, letters etc and he finds them. Then has free play. Love the new construction site vest!!

Charlie worked on his word puzzle cards and put the correct letter on the card to spell the word. We are still working on sounding out words.

Impromptu tea party

Indoor excercise

Charlie having some water play time in the kitchen sink.

Shell matching game

Charlie learning to use a ruler. He really likes to use the ruler to make his lines really straight now.

Free paint.

Charlie making his Octopus word folder while Tommy does some writing.

We read some books about the ocean and found some cool kids magazines at the library about ocean life and dolphins.

Tommy started workboxes this week. He has 3 and can do them if he shows interest since he is always wanting to do school with Charlie. My only requirement is that he finishes the box if he starts it and puts it away.

We are all really enjoying using our version of the workboxes. I have them numbered and Charlie knows that when he finishes one then he is to put everything back into it, put it back on the shelf and then get his next box. It is also helpful for me because it keeps everything organized and I am not having to store or find items for projects or different subjects. Sometimes I will also let Charlie pick which box he would like to do. I do this to make it different, a little more fun for the morning and so that he can have more control in the process.

As far as subjects that we are studying go, Charlie has been telling me different topics that he would like to learn more about and I plan accordingly. I have been having a hard time find books at the library to go with our themes. We typically go to a small brach close to our house and I think that is the problem. This weekend I went to Beachwood library (same library Dad use to take us to on Wednesday nights) and I fell in love with that library all over again!! People were staring at me and my mountain of books I was checking out!!

School year is going great. We are falling into a routine and I am in the process of picking Charlie's new curriculum for Kindergarten.

Random sickie week

A short week, tummy bug, pink eye and two days of doctors appointments. But we still managed to squeeze in some fun activities.

We made a color wheel from cookies and mixed our primary colors together to make other colors. Both boys really loved doing this and not just because they were having fun with cookies and icing!
!
I had Tommy just put the red, yellow and blue icing on his cookies as I knew he would be off and running in about 5.2 seconds. I was right :)
Charlie had so much fun making his on colors. He decided to mix them all together and then asked me to take a picture of his masterpiece
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We also made a graph with M&Ms. Of course Charlie thought this was fun and even did some simple addition and subtraction problems with the candy.

I had Tommy sort the M&Ms by color. He did great!

We borrowed another cool toy from the toy lending library at our local library. It is a magnetic game and you a special pen to move the magnets to make pictures.
Charlie made a train of course, among other things. He also had fun making different patterns, he is very into patterns these days.



Tommy sorted the colors all on his own.

We also made Valentines bracelets.

Tommy got easily frustrated but managed to put a half a dozen beads on. This was difficult though since the string was SO thin. He did a great job!

Tommy also practiced drawing with a pen on the dry erase board. He colored each object and counted them as he did so
.

We had some great play time fun with Daddy and the new fort that we just got. Gotta love a man that can dumpster dive!! The fort was getting thrown out from a business that rented space where he works, but it wasn't in the dumpster...just along side of it! Regardless, it is awesome and the kids love playing "jail" and making it into a school room!


And a week would not be complete without some cutting practice. He can't get enough of it!

H is for HEART / Valentines Day Preparation / Catch Up week

The Pieces of My Heart

(this is my favorite piece of Vday art that Charlie has made. He cut strips of paper, glued them down, and then wrote the people & things that he loves)


This week we are preparing for Valentines Day. We are doing lots of crafting and baking along with our normal routine. There are also some projects and fun activities that I had planned for the kids to do over the last few weeks and just never got the chance to do them. I am beginning to realize that we are not married to the theme of the week! So here is to a hopefully fun week of school!

Charlie making a color pattern with his letters. I was washing dishes and happened to glance over to see him doing this. I love catching him doing his own stuff!

Spelling words on the dry erase board with our magnetic letters. He is starting to get the hang of sounding out words.

Playing a fun math game. He had to count the candy hearts and then put the clothes pin on the correct number at the bottom of the page. (Homeschoolcreations ?)

Matching the Capital (Mommy) letters with their Lowercase (baby) letters. He thought this was BORING until I started to pretend that they were Mommys and Babies. Then he was ALL about it! "Oh Mama zebra, your baby zebra is lost" etc....to stinkin cute!

H is for heart.

I made some read heart pretzels for the kids after nap snack. Charlie asked me to make pretzels yesterday and I thought it would be fun to make them fit our Valentines Day theme. They were pretty good, especially with melted cheese...yum!

The boys and I also made some candy cane heart lollies. The boys will take them to their "teachers" at church. We LOVE our Mastering Motherhood teachers (a group that I to each week at church). They take such good care of the boys and the boys just love spending time with them!! This is also a GREAT way to use up those leftover candy canes from making our Christmas bark! (Ucreate)

We had some friends over to decorate Valentines Day cookies and exchange cards.
Charlie's card for Nana (Green is Bot from Umizoomi)

We painted with a cool painting kit that Grandma Candace gave Tommy for Christmas
And we made "creations" out of toothpicks and marshmallows. Have you ever seen a marshmallow that big!!!?

Charlie did a great job adding the "feet" to his creation. He kept adding them until it could stand all by itself.

Tommy had fun too!

And we couldn't help but enjoy ALL of this snow!
Sleding with Daddy. Mommy was out of commission on the 3rd time down the hill and for 2 days AFTER!!. I am NOT 15 anymore and neither is my body ;(


(Pieces of My Heart Craft idea was from Spelloutloud.blogspot.com, I tweaked her idea and had the kids write who/what they love on each piece of paper.)