Spring B's Preschool - Week Five

Primary Book: Princess and the Pea

Enrichment Book: One Bean

Activity: Bean Experiment Week One

Activity: 16 Bean Soup

Field Trip: Visit a Green House

Art: Repast of the Lion

Poem: Mary, Mary

FF: Yellow Deadnettle

We finally got around to painting our wooden train from Christmas. The kids had been playing with it just as it was but something inspired Tavin to want to paint the train one morning.

Our Bean Experiment. We took three different beans, put them in a sandwich bag with a damp paper towel and taped the bag to a window. Tavin and Matilda also wanted to put some beans in bags without paper towels. I decided not to argue. Tavin wrote his name on his bag. Good job, Tavin!

The beans with the damp paper towel have already sprouted! The beans without the paper towel, of course, did not sprout...much to the kid's disappointment.

One warm and incredibly windy day. Hard to believe we got snow that same night.

Chopping veggies for the soup. They thought this was great fun. Tavin couldn't get enough chopping, he kept asking for more veggies to chop. 

I made colored salt dough. They used some of the many different beans we have and some reptiles to play with the dough. 

We made some Bob the Tomatoes and Larry the Cucumbers with our salt dough. (Veggie Tales)

I ordered some inexpensive kid's binoculars. Here they are doing some bird watching.

We visited a greenhouse. 

The lawn and garden ornaments were probably more interesting to the kids than the flowers and plants.

It was nice to be in a greenhouse on another cold and snowy day.

From playing in the sand at the beginning of the week to playing in the snow at the end of the week. Some bird watching too. There were quite a few birds singing and a couple of pheasants nearby.

We put together our own mini greenhouse, the Healing Garden. This activity made my blood pressure rise a bit. This is more of an at least four-year-old activity and not so much a two-year-old activity. At least that was the case on this particular day.

The little giggle bugs. 

Another fun week! Ted was gone again for work. )-:

We went to the library for story time, had a couple of play dates (one here and one somewhere else), visited Grandpa Jerry, played with cousin Sara and went to the Gillen's to celebrate cousin Cecilia's 14th birthday!

Spring B's Preschool - Week Four

Primary Book : Whose Garden is it?

Enrichment Book: How do you know it's Spring?

Activity: Mini Garden

Art: Starry Night

Poem: Robin Redbreast

Ted was gone traveling for work for 10 days! I took even more pictures and videos than I normally do so I could send them to Ted while he is away. I won't post all of them here just to spare you. 

We didn't do the mini garden activity yet. The cold weather just hasn't been very inspiring. I am going to order a Healing Garden and a Root Viewer Garden this week. Those should be a lot of fun!!!

The kids came along to my prenatal appointment on Monday. Everything is sounding/looking good with heart rate and measurements. Then we went to Hobby Lobby and picked up some stickers (you can never have enough stickers with littles) tracing paper and finger paint paper. We had some fun with those items!

Tuesday we went to a morning play date, out to lunch, to the library for story time and to Hy-Vee for some groceries. Phew. We were all a little tired when we got home.

Wednesday Ted was home! The kids jumped all over him, literally. I made cookies for our neighbor who recently had a baby. The kids each had their own bowl of ingredients to mix, they love having their own bowl of ingredients!

Thursday we went to the mall and played on various play sets...for free!

Friday we met Ted for lunch at Great Harvest Bread for delicious sandwiches and cookies.

We had the Gillen Girls over for a night. We all had a good time. Cecilia made yummy banana bread while the kids played with salt dough. Piper and Raina played with the musical instruments quite a bit. They performed their songs with Tavin playing the bongos and Matilda dancing. The play kitchen and accessories were popular items and so was the Melissa and Doug Tool Bench. We watched the movie Frozen as well as The Jungle Book and most of The Little Mermaid. 

I love this picture. They really look like they're having a special moment.

Matilda getting a taste.

Salt dough fun! Grandma Sandy had just brought Raina back from her first swimming lesson.

The Kiwi Crate kit had enough supplies for everyone to make their own theater stage. 

Ah, a moment of quiet.

Matilda peeling a carrot. She ate it all gone too!

I thought this was just too cute. She is in love with her new rain boots. I love the way she says "boots" it sounds more like "buits."

Tavin is rather attached to his new rain boots too. They are on his lap here. He had them next to the bed and put them on right away when he woke up in the morning. Both kids have been loving peeling and eating clementines. I'm one of those moms who has to take pictures of everything. What can I say?

Cutting straws. This must have been a new thing for Piper and Raina because they thought it was just hilarious. Piper's laugh is so cute and very contagious.

Tavin saw the cuisenaire rods and practically ripped the box open to get to them. He thought they were pretty cool! That's a good sign, right?

Finger painting with on our new paper. Much better with the finger paint paper than regular paper.

Mixing their own ingredients. Yummy.

Tavin was hungry for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and wanted to do it all himself. Good job, buddy!

They are very excited for spring showers. Tavin insists that they also get umbrellas. 

Finally, outside with their new boots!

 Yay for puddles!

A little sensory bin fun of beans and pasta.

With reptiles.

Feels good on the toes I guess.

Tavin was napping, a rare occasion, so Matilda and I had some fun with a Kumon Sticker and Paste book.

She also made a nest with eggs.

They are very much into Veggie Tales right now. Aunt Heidi loaned us a Veggie Tales CD, we were listening to it and playing with our veggies. As I'm sure you've noticed, Matilda does not like to wear pants very often. It makes things easier for learning to use the potty chair I guess.

A couple of other garden-themed books we enjoyed this week were Runaway Garden and Strega Nona's Harvest.  They particularly enjoyed Runaway Garden, it really is cute!

Spring B's Preschool - Week Three

Primary Book: The Boy Who Drew Birds

Enrichment Book: How do Birds Find Their Way?

Activity: Bird Journal Page

Field Trip: Nature Center/Zoo

Art: Oregon Trail

Poem: Robin Redbreast

FF: Queen of the Meadow

The primary book this week was good but just not a favorite for the kids. The enrichment book just became available from the library. That's the downside to Interlibrary Loan sometimes. A book that they have enjoyed is Do Unto Otters by Laurie Keller. Tavin picked the book from the library and it came with a CD. It is adorable and is also based on the Golden Rule!

The kids both had nasty colds this week. With fevers, runny noses and coughs we didn't even make it to story time. I managed to keep us occupied when the kids had spurts of energy. 

The kids enjoyed their stickers from Nana. Stickers are always fun!

On St. Patrick's Day we made cupcakes! Tavin insisted on making blue cupcakes. Matilda made the green cupcakes.

They both put their own liners in the muffin tins.

I didn't get fancy, I just bought the cupcake mix packets. The kids liked dumping the contents into the bowl and adding the eggs and liquids. There was a mishap with an egg but other than that it all went rather smoothly.

They even took turns using the hand mixer. Yes, the mixer really is running. Tavin is too smart and was too excited to plug in the mixer and turn it on to fall for any tricks. They both did great!

Matilda's turn. Such concentration.

The scooping of the green batter. She was trying so hard to be careful.

The scooping of the blue batter. Matilda was begging for candy. "Pleeeeeaaaasssse!"

Frosting their cupcakes.

Matilda barely nibbled on hers but Tavin happily ate his. Well he ate most of it, he made sure the frosting was gone anyway.

While Matilda napped Tavin did a little M&M counting with the M&M Counting Book! He didn't get through the entire book but not because of eating the candy. He decided that he just wanted to make his own designs. He did well though and lasted longer than I thought he would.

Do-A-Dot fun.

Food coloring fun.

We got him his own journal for recording his findings. Similar to Sid the Science Kid! He likes writing in notebooks and ripping the pages out. His journal is special though, no ripping of the pages. 

Just some animal fun.

Marshmallow and toothpick art. Tavin made a dinosaur train. Matilda mostly just ate marshmallows.

Matilda said, "I'm going to eat your work."

Matilda was pretending to be the baby while Tavin was the daddy.

Our little jester, striking a pose for me at our friend's house. 

We were feeling better from our colds so we went to a play date for some social interaction. At first the kids hissed at the sun and nipped at anyone who got too close but by the end of the play date they handled themselves like civilized children. (If only I had a sarcasm font, someone needs to invent one.) Seriously though, people need to get over the lack of socialization myth of homeschoolers. 

It turned out to be a beautiful day to be outside too! One would never have guessed that there was a  blizzard on Tuesday.

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"The idea that children need to be around many other youngsters in order to be 'socialized' is perhaps the most dangerous and extravagant myth in education and child rearing today."  ~ Dr. Raymond Moore