Here's a bit of what we've been up to lately:
1. Great Weather
Funnily enough, today as I'm writing this, it's cloudy and chilly out, (a good baking day) but other than today, we have been enjoying some beautiful weather, and of course, as soon as the sun is shining consistently, my kids think it's time to break out the swim suits and have a water party. I think Daphne has asked me to have a water party 3 days a week for the last few weeks. I keep telling her, it's not "water weather," just "nice-to-be-outside" weather. Alas, if the sun is shining, (and sometimes even if it isn't) they just can't resist getting into the water.
2. Gardening / Growboxes
The last few weekends, Arthur has been working really hard to get these growboxes up and running for us to plant our garden. Believe it or not, but here, in one of the sunniest states in the U.S. we have a sun problem in our yard--we don't get enough because of all the trees and shade we have back there. So my garden has been pathetic the last couple of years. It was time to get serious.
The process began way back in November when Arthur started removing a couple of struggling trees from the spot where the growboxes are now. It took a few months of hacking and digging when he had time, but finally the trees and their stumps were out! He then moved one previously constructed growbox from a less sunny spot to the more sunny spot, and built the other one from scratch.
Then we had to get them filled with dirt and steer manure and peat moss, and then he hooked them up with soaker hoses so they'd be automatically watered.
Last weekend, we planted tomatoes, basil, peppers, beans and cucumbers in them and I'm so excited now to look out my kitchen window and see my garden growing! In another spot we planted broccoli, carrots and lettuce--cool weather plants, but since that box gets shade from the peach tree, we're giving it a try. Also, we cleared another space for some berry bushes. We planted a raspberry bush and blackberry bush, that have our mouths watering in anticipation of delicious garden-grown berries in a couple years! In the meantime, I can't wait for freshly picked tomatoes and homemade pesto sauce from my basil!
3, Gloriously Messy (i.e. preschool)
Sean's Preschool was at my house for two weeks in April. I figured I'd post about it since I like finding ideas of things to do with my kids on other people's blogs. In fact, on the "Ocean" days, Daphne was really trying to get me to let her stay home and help with preschool, because she wanted to do the activities I had planned--so I saved stuff for her and Dallin to make the crafts when they got home.
Rainbow/Colors Theme:
For this theme, we dyed rock salt with food coloring and rubbing alcohol. Then when the salt was dry, the kids got to scoop the different colors into empty baby food jars, and look at their "Rainbow Rocks."
We also made these cute colorful butterflies by coloring on coffee filters with markers, and spraying them with a squirt bottle. It was fun to watch the colors blend into each other.
I painted the clothespins and glued the eyes on for the kids because I figured it would just take way too long to try and have everyone do it themselves. Besides--most the boys have no patience for stuff like that. Here's all the stuff you need to make a butterfly-- clothespins, coffee filters, markers, water, pipecleaners, and I used some magnetic tape to stick to the back so they could go on the fridge.
They turned out pretty cute, I think.
The kids liked playing with them before the mom's came to pick them up.
For snack, we had rainbow jello--every color they make.
This was their favorite part of the day. They came in from playing outside and said, "Can I have this color and this color, and this color?" And I just wish you could see their faces when I said, "We all get, EVERY color!" good times.
Ocean/Ocean Animals Theme:
So the biggest hit for these days, was when I filled a tupperware with sand, and buried seashells in it, and they got to dig around and find the sea shells. Pretty messy though. I was sweeping up sand for days afterward.
We also made these little sea urchins, after reading "A House for Hermit Crab" by Eric Carle. I had the kids raise their hands when they saw the sea urchins in the book, and we talked about how they are spiky. This was SUPER easy, but the kids had a really good time doing it. It's just a ball of playdough, and a pile of toothpicks to stick into it. Several of the boys kept asking for more "spike-a-dees."
The day we had the sand and sea shell activity, we made oceans in a bottle. We put sand, sea shells, and some of those foam stickers that were shaped as fish, turtles and starfish in the bottle and added blue water to make an ocean. Some of the kids wanted to stick their fish on the outside instead, which worked fine as well. Then I hot-glued the lids on so the mom's wouldn't have a mess on their hands on the way home.
Hayden is showing the activity we did on the first ocean day. Since I had tons of coffee filters left over from the butterfly craft, we used some more to make jelly fish. (Hayden is an honorary member of preschool when it's at our house. He joins in everything--even the pledge of allegiance.)
We used water colors paint this time to make colors on the filter, and I used curling ribbon from the dollar store for the tentacles and the loop on top. The original idea was to use streamers for the tentacles which might have looked cooler, but I didn't have streamers, so I just used what I had. You could probably use tissue paper or even yarn--whatever you have on hand.
So, there you go. Our gloriously messy preschool projects. (I guess not all of them were that messy, but I needed a G-word to go with my G-themed-title.) Anyway, some of them might be fun to do with kids during the summer.
