Harvest Time Preschool - Week Eight

Harvest Time Week Eight
Primary Book: Seasons of Arnold's Apple Tree
Enrichment Book: How Do You Know It’s Fall?
Activities: Quilt Square
Pumpkin Muffins
Art: The East River
Poem: Johnny Appleseed Song 
Flower Fairies: ABC Review 

We are a little mixed up on our activities. This week we decorated the pumpkins  that we picked out last week and next week is supposed to be about pumpkins! Oh well. Pumpkins and apples both are a part of fall and we're having fun anyway.

We saved the Curious George table cloth from their birthday party, I knew it would come in handy again. They put glitter glue all over their pumpkins and then added wiggly eyes. 

Lots of wiggly eyes....

Lots and lots of wiggly eyes.

We finally got our membership to the Kirby Science Discovery Center. I think we'll have frequent, fun visits to the Discovery Center this winter.

Astronaut Matilda. She couldn't get enough of this. Once the kids are in the space suit they are able to see themselves in a full length mirror. She loved it.

Astronaut Tavin.

Playing with rocket ships.

Matilda at the controls.

Meet Sue, the T-rex!

The water table room. We spent the most time in this room. Go figure.

The stories for story time at the library this week were also about apples, that worked out nicely! The kids had a play date with friends on Monday. Library day on Tuesday. Wednesday and Thursday we were mostly home playing, painting, coloring, reading and playing with playdoh. Friday was our trip to the Discovery Center. It was a good week! I feel like I'm forgetting something but that has been the norm for me lately. It was a good week for napping. 

Harvest Time Preschool - Week Seven

Harvest Time Week Seven
Primary Book: Leaf Man
Enrichment Book: Why Do Leaves Change Colors?
Activities: Wax Paper Leaves
Field Trip Idea: Leaf Collecting Walk
Art: Snap the Whip 
Poem: Johnny Applesead Song 
Flower Fairies: Ragged Robin Fairy

Another week with some beautiful weather! We went to the zoo again on Monday. The peacocks got a little too close for comfort. We were resting on a bench, having a snack, when I heard someone or something coming closer and closer to us...I turned to look and whoooaaa, there was a peacock right next to me! 

Tuesday was story time at the library. The theme was shapes. The last book was a very unique pop-up book that stays in the back room for safety. Someone like Matilda would have it destroyed within seconds. After story time we went to a friends house for play.

Wednesday was our leaf collecting walk (and rock collecting too, of course). We also made it to the new Costco and ate some free samples. The kids love the extra large cart that they can both sit in right next to each other.

Thursday we went to the pumpkin patch and met up with some new friends from church. We are supposed to go to the pumpkin patch in a couple weeks for this curriculum but it was too nice of a day to not go. Plus, it was a great place to meet up with new friends!

Friday Dad stayed home and played with us and we made our wax paper leaves. I also had the first prenatal appointment for baby #3!

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Leaf collecting walk...and other treasures.

Tavin started out just coloring and then decided to make all the crayons into "T's" for Tavin. He then named all the "T's" after his cousins. 

The pumpkin patch/orchard. This little area is set up especially for cute pictures. Neither kid wanted to just sit and smile for me, naturally.

The tractor train. They could've easily spent an hour or more just playing on this.

The pumpkin patch for the wee little ones. We went on a tractor pull to get to this little pumpkin patch. The kids thought the tractor pull was fun!

Tavin picked up and put down quite a few pumpkins before he made his final decision. I think next week we will paint them or put stickers on them...or both!

The wax paper leaves project. The first part was rather natural for them; peeling the paper off of the crayons. They love to peel paper off of anything. 

Then the pounding of the crayons. Tavin learned the valuable lesson of waiting his turn and listening to mom. His fingers got in Matilda's way one time. Luckily she wasn't at full swing.

The finished product. They turned out alright, not that you can see them very well in this picture. The colors melted together nicely, very pretty.

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Here is Baby Lewis! We were unable to hear the heartbeat today with just the doppler. The doctor just wanted to make sure....we not only heard the heartbeat but also saw the little bean moving around! He/she is measuring right on track for a May 10th due date.

Harvest Time Preschool - Week 6

Harvest Time Week Six

Primary Book: Johnny Appleseed

Enrichment Book: How Do Apples Grow

Activities: Apple Prints

Field Trip Idea: Orchard 

Art: Archery of the Mandan 

Poem: Little Boy Blue

Flower Fairies: Thrift Fairy and Coloring Page

This week seemed to go by quickly and slowly all at the same time. Ted was gone and I was really feeling the morning sickness. We got out and enjoyed the nice weather as much as we could. Good thing too because the last two days haven't been very nice. We did have a baking day of honey wheat bread, banana bread muffins and apple pies. I have more items I'd like to bake but first I need to gather more supplies!

Story time at the library started this week! The librarian at the Main Library does a wonderful story time. He does finger plays, gets the kids up and dancing, uses a felt board and has a great voice for story telling. This week the stories had some dragons and the kids loved them.

We are taking a break from Kindermusik. The structure of it has changed, which we don't particularly favor and it just didn't seem to be working out. The first class we tried didn't have any kids Tavin's age. The second class we tried was all girls and was in a small, stuffy room for the class size. Maybe the room size was more my deal but it felt claustrophobic to me. We felt the signs were all telling us to take a break. We will get a membership to the Science Museum instead. I think we can make a point of going there for a couple hours once a week or every other week, especially during the winter.

We visited the zoo. This day was beautiful, couldn't ask for better weather. The zoo was rather quiet, it was almost like we had the zoo all to ourselves. The kids love feeding the goats and ducks. Matilda isn't afraid to let the goats eat right out of her hands.

Funny how they have their own little kitchen with their own little kitchen items and yet they still go for my pots and pans.

We visited an apple orchard, the Hoversten Orchard. It started out as a beautiful day.

Matilda and Gideon.

Tavin and Gideon.

A video from the apple orchard. 

Some fellow homeschooling friends joined us.

We got rained on! The kids handled it rather well although they were a bit perplexed at first. It's not like they haven't experienced rain before but that was the longest they've ever been out in the rain. We ran from tree to tree for shelter on our way back to the barn.

The owner was kind enough to bring us some towels for drying off.

Apple prints! I didn't want to go out and buy red and green stamp pads so I thought using the Do-A-Dot markers would be a good alternative. Seemed to work alright.

Finshed products.

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We went to a nearby park for a picnic. The kids were running around and giving each other hugs, I even got one of the hugs recorded. Click on the link below.

A video of Tavin and Matilda sharing a hug. 

Broom Tree

Here are some photos from our time at Broom Tree...finally! This really is a beautiful place, and fun!

Outdoor play just outside our cabin. 

Matilda enjoying the motorcycle at the playground.

Tavin is a good climber, he did pretty well on this.

This was a fun playground! Tavin made some girlfriends.

They were grabbing handfuls of rocks, climbing up the steps, going over the bridge, throwing the rocks down the slide and then sliding down the slide. They did this over and over and giggled equally hard every time.

Another view outside our cabin. Ah! Bare buns!

Another view outside our cabin. Beautiful, isn't it? I think our cabin had one of the best locations.

The pool! Tavin and Matilda enjoyed some floating around. Those floatys weren't even ours, people were very nice about sharing.

A view from inside our cabin. It was a rather decent size with a nice kitchen too. If we go next year we'll be a little more prepared now that we know what to expect....and, ahem, remember our pillows.

Something about rocks make Tavin want to do this. 

Sweet girl.

Off we go on our nature walk/Stations of the Cross Trail.

They can't resist picking up sticks wherever they go.