Hiking

The kids and I took a short hike this week for what I have dubbed Adventure Tuesdays. Throwing a quick walk in the woods and a snazzy title somehow transformed an afternoon of errands into something great.

Gosh I love these kids. I am so thankful for their tiny, healthy, strong bodies.

Tissue Paper Rainbows for St. Patrick's Day

My daughters have never heard of leprechauns.  Is that terrible?  I told them stories about leprechauns today, to get ready for this art activity.  They're little people, they're sneaky and tricky.  If you catch one, he has to tell you where his pot of gold is, or grant one wish.  (I might be embellishing a bit.  Isn't that how fairy tales go?)  You can find leprechauns at the end of a rainbow, if you're quick.

Ernie's only response, much later, was "Mom?  Are leopards yellow?"  Yes...with brown spots.  "OK, so the yellow in the leprechaun rainbow is going to remind me of leopards.  Because their word roots are the same- they both start with "lep!"  My child...is obsessed with learning about animals right now.  I also just introduced her to the concept of word roots, and heaven help us all, I'm going to dig out my latin word root cards tomorrow and show her a few.  Oh, and Mimi said she would NEVER wish for all the candy in the world- she'd get sick.  OK, then!

ANYWAY!!  I love these rainbows- I remember making an enormous poster this way for my 3rd grade teacher as a girl.  I begged and begged the teacher to let me stay in from recesses to help finish it for her.  The girls took to this just as much, Ernie was actually giggling over her project.  I was awarded "Best Mom Ever!" status for the afternoon- I love that status.  I certainly didn't have that status at the grocery store today...

So, here's the supplies:

• tissue or crepe paper in rainbow colors, cut into squares- we used crepe streamers
• white school glue
• a pencil with an eraser
• construction paper

I showed the girls how to sketch a rainbow onto their construction paper, and start filling it in.  You take one square of paper, and swizzle it around the eraser end of a pencil.  Lightly tap it in the glue, then press it onto your paper; gently pull the pencil out while holding the tissue paper down.  They got the hang of it really quick, and this was a ZERO mess project.  The best kind.

Scheduling the 6-Year-Old

Have I mentioned before that my daughter is not autistic?  She's not.  I swear.  But by gum, there's hardly a "raising the autistic child" method out there that doesn't seem tailor-made for her.

A neighbor of ours has an autistic boy- he's a teen now, so she's been through it all.  He's pretty high functioning, but we were giggling the other day, and swapping stories.

"There was a year we couldn't go to the park, because she'd scream for an hour and a half when it was time to leave."

"Oh YES, we were house-bound for years!"

She asked me if I'd set up a visual schedule for Ernie yet?  Umm...a what now?  It changed her son's life- they set up a big board with strips of velcro, and laminated pictures of every single activity that would be done during the day, and stuck them up in order.

"OK, but I'm trying to get her to accept spontaneity.  What about that?"

Easy, you say "See this thing?  We're adding it right here- now move all the pictures over and make room."  So he had a visual that everything was just getting shifted.  Nothing was getting skipped or missed, so he didn't have any stress about what was coming (something Ernie REALLY struggles with.)  It gave him a way to visualize the day, without constantly asking about what was coming.  After a time using this system, you start taking things off the board that are just memorized- for example, take down the "brush your teeth" picture, because he just knows that we always do that, and he never forgets.

I sat down with Ernie today and made a list of everything we do during the day, and then drew up a daily schedule, with both of our activities side by side.  (So she could see that from 5:00-6:00 she's on her own, I'm cooking, for example.)  In some ways, this feels like a step backwards- I've been wanting her to be self regulating, and a better listener.  But I can see how this could really help her- she was practically giggling with glee at nap time, saying "Alright Mom!  I'll see you at 2:00!  And then, I'll practice piano!  And at 3:00...we're going to have a snack!"   I won't do pictures, I think, because she does so well internalizing written words.  Hopefully by the end of this week, I'll have a fun project to show you guys- I'll make a run to the craft store and make something nice.

Aquarium

Wonder Daddy took today off work, just because he COULD.

Ernie has been studying animal habitats, and just learned about water habitats (and animal adaptations) on Friday.

Perfect!!  We spent our morning at the aquarium.

We found a mirror.


We found bubble windows.



We found FISH.
















(Somewhere, I have a photo of me and the girls on this bench...but Mimi was in a moby wrap.)

An Art Day

Wonder Daddy pointed out last week that if I taught school five days a week, steady, from here on...we'd finish our curriculum in February.  I took that as a sign that we should cancel all lessons the next day and have an art and dance party day!

What?  I love homeschooling.

We got our groove on to the Tangled soundtrack on Spotify (love Spotify!  The girls will be sad when our "free" account ratchets down from unlimited to 10 hours a month.)

We made q-tip skeletons, to kick start our homemade Halloween decorations.  Mimi's seems to have met with a terribly tragic, and gruesome, accident.  I like all the heads and legs she drew, though!

The neighbor girl was busy putting up her own outdoor decorations on Saturday afternoon- big pumpkin lanterns, streamer ghosts, etc., before the girls called her over to play.  "Why don't YOU have any Halloween decorations up?" she wanted to know.

"We do!" came Ernie's earnest reply, then she marched that girl into the house to show her the ceramic jack-o-lantern, and the stuffed scarecrow that sits on the mantel.  Oh, and the cling stickers on the back deck door.  (Do you decorate for Halloween?  Am I a total scrooge?  I also don't really buy costumes for the kids, I strongly encourage them to come up with an idea, then find things to wear...maybe make a request for an accessory item they're missing.  Mean mom?)  At any rate, as my dad pointed out, construction paper projects can make up for any lack of plastic pumpkins AND they can be recycled in November!  Score!

This was our inspiration Pin:

Source: busybeekidscrafts.com via Myrnie on Pinterest

Our BIG project for the day was inspired by this pin:

Source: styleunveiled.com via Myrnie on Pinterest

The originall pinner said there was a free template to download and print that nifty tree, but alas: it has since expired.  However, I was able to scratch out some trees for the girls to go to town on!  I decided against using stamp pads- that stuff does NOT wash off fingers (I'm still blue from my test run with a turquoise pad), and WHEN little fingers forget to wash between colors, the color mixing can't be simply washed down the drain.  So, another messy tempura project for us: I love messy tempura projects!

It's a little odd looking at these pictures, knowing that last Fall, Mimi was painting on the walls when I turned my back during art projects.  The days are SO long sometimes, but the years are short!  I think I need to spend more time remembering that.

Art We've Been Doing

Ernie updated our art line- the streamers were my contribution, Ernie's work is on the left, Mimi's is on the right. So nice and orderly, right?



I'm totally in love with these flowers that Ernie started drawing.  Yum.


This, she says, is Peter Rabbit.  He's eating radishes.  And I'm not going to insert ANY other comments here, I'm just glad she's here to translate for me!



We have the requisite-for-any-Pinner melted crayon drawings- these were done a few weeks ago.  Honestly, these weren't a big hit.  The girls didn't have the patience to hold the blow dryer for that long, so I ended up doing that part for them.  My kitchen floor still has bits of crayon wax, because it blew EVERYWHERE.  And the end product...is kind of Rainbow Bright in the Horror Fun House.  But hey, LOTS of other people love doing this project!  (We used cardboard, double sided tape, and a lot of old crayons.)

Guest Post with Ernie, the Wonder Girl

Please welcome Ernie, who is practicing her letter writing and story-telling skills today!  She has chosen a picture from our last family vacation, and she is going to tell you about it.  I'll be transcribing.  And not editing.



We had lots of fun at Chelan!  Grandma and Grandpa rented the houses.  It was lots of fun there!  This is a picture of me, my cousin Ming Wai, my cousin Siu Jeun, and my sister Mimi.  Daddy's that big one in the picture.  He's spinning us around on the merry-go-round.  That's our favorite toy on the park beach!  It's so much fun.

I love going to Chelan.  I shared a room with Ming Wai!  My sister shared a room with Siu Jeun.  The room that Ming Wai and I slept in was a princess room!  It was a princess room because there was a princess bed, princess night stands, we each had our own lamp, we both shared a dresser, and we both got to share a bed. We each got to have our own pillow.  Sometimes in the night, Ming Wai would pull the blankets away from me.

On the day we were going to leave, we had so much fun, because we went to the beach before we left.  We lived in the house we lived in last time we went.  Grandma and Grandpa didn't get to sleep in it, because there wasn't enough rooms for them to sleep in it!  They slept in a different house, which is blue.  There's a driveway that goes up, it's kind of like a slide- you go up it, and when you're leaving you go down!  It was lots of fun.

I really love going to Chelan.  Daddy took me and Mimi to a pool.  We first went to the inside pool, but it said "No flotation devices allowed."  So, we had to go to the outside pool.  The sign there said "Flotation devices allowed."  We had lots of fun, even though Daddy didn't even know he was going to have a shower at the first pool that we went to (the inside pool,) he just took a shower at the house!

There were sprinklers at the house- Ming Wai has ladybug sprinklers, and Siu Jeun broke them by stepping on the ladybug sprinklers.  There were still some sprinklers left.

Thanks for having us go on a vacation, Grandma and Grandpa.  It was SO much fun!

Love-
Ernie

The Spring Event

To properly celebrate the official arrival of Spring, we had some friends over for our Spring Event! Half class party, half playtime free-for-all, Ernie really looks forward to our seasonal "Events." To keep tiny fingers occupied, we made a sticky collage garland of backwards facing packing tape, with a bowl of crepe paper confetti.

We hung our rainbow order streamers, and later everyone chose their favorite color streamer for some fancy dancing (and fancy freezing into fancy poses.)

All the kids decorated paper sacks for our egg hunt- a neat trick I learned from another mom, there was the same number of eggs for each child, and every egg had a symbol on it. Mimi's sack had a smiley face, and so she picked up all her smiley face eggs. And so on. It makes the hunt last a little longer, and puts big and little kids on a more even playing field. Plus, I didn't have to *hide* 60 eggs, I could drop clumps of eggs in the corners and on chairs, and it was just as fun.  All of Ernie's friends have siblings about Mimi's age, so these parties always end up being two in one. It's hard to keep two distinct age groups occupied with the same activities! We ended with sandwiches cut into fancy shapes, slices of apple, and fancy "ice cream parfaits" just like in Ernie's "Fancy Nancy" cookbook.

Happy Spring everyone!

Color Her World

While the baby slept this afternoon, the girls and I got busy.  Not terribly busy, you know, but just something nit picky to soothe a ramped up kindergarten girl.

I have colorful walls.  Colorful walls involve lots and LOTS of paint chips.


After sorting all the chips into colors, and then organizing by color number and letter (no, I'm not OCD, why do you ask??) we chose our favorite from each color and cut them into strips.  I lopped off the tagged side of each color strip, and she used double-sided tape to put the labels on the backs of the cards, for future reference.

(Family??  I swear I did not pick out this outfit for Ernie.  Yes, I know I dressed almost entirely monochrome in 3rd grade.  She's getting a head start.  Hey, it all matches, right?  She's all set for St. Patrick's Day...)



(Meanwhile, outside it was doing this.... that's snow.)


Mimi was busy doing this....that's her belly button.  I have a picture somewhere of Ernie doing the same thing. Apparently they're confused, but at least they understand that Mommy Milk is for babies!


After Ernie got all her cards done, I had her sort them back into colors, and she laid them out by gradient (i.e. lightest orange to darkest orange.)  We talked about the colors of the rainbow and looked at some photos online, and she sorted her color graded stacks into rainbow order, and we talked a bit about color mixing.  She thought it was pretty nifty that the color between two primary colors was a mix of those two...if she can only remember Mr.  Roy G. Biv, she'll never forget what two colors make orange again!  Unfortunately, she can barely wrap her lips around the word "Roy" so this might be a challenge for her...!  I found some great color wheel charts the other night, but I can't actually remember who linked to them right now...drat.

Anyway, we're starting on a "color" exploration right now, since there are so many fun rainbow projects to do around St. Patrick's Day!

(Inspiration came from a photo on this post, at Itty Bitty Love.  Ernie graded the four colors on each card so quickly, I'm going to go back and chop up a few more cards from each color family to see if she can grade horizontally across the cards, if I limit her to one row.  I also need to trim the edges, because it's highly likely she put them together like a puzzle, with curved corner on top and bottom!  I also need to find some red paint chips, because we only had two pale pink palette chips.  Are you surprised that we had every other color of the rainbow?  And we seriously considered putting them on our walls?  I told you: Crayola Explosion.  That's what my house is!)

The School Room

The "school room" got a little bit of extra attention this week. I helped the girls clear out the last of the toys from here, and I spent an evening moving the desks around, tossing about fifty-million old art projects, and organizing our art cupboard.

We've been doing school anywhere we land, but I want to have this room set up so that all four of us can comfortably be occupied when the baby comes. My favorite nursing chair is there, desks for the girls, all of Mimi's books, Ernie's school books and supplies, our art supplies, the easel, and a little boom box the girls can listen to songs on.

This cabinet was a huge score on Freecycle last year- one door had been torn off, but I actually like it this way since it reinforces that the uncovered side is free for anyone to use, any time. The side with the door is MY side!

Hmm...my lettering isn't showing up that great, but on the kids' side is board games, card games, paper dolls, a shelf for each girls' art supply box with markers and crayons and colored pencils, and finally the scratch paper and coloring books and a big box of "open art" supplies like stickers and such. Oh, our fabulous new Aquadoodle pad is down there, too- it was a gift from my brother, and the kids L.O.V.E it!

On my side, the top shelf is gardening supplies, followed by "my" art box and art supplies that kids need my supervision with like tempura paint and chalk. The bottom shelf has tons of fun stuff they can use, they just need to ask me first! That includes pipe cleaners, ribbons, clothes pins, construction paper, more stickers, butcher paper, raffia, more paints, little wooden pieces for painting, etc.

I actually organized this cabinet a few months ago, and I am THRILLED to say it stayed organized! Most of my work tonight was getting rid of things we didn't need any more, and re-packing things neatly into their boxes. That's a skill Ernie still hasn't mastered.

I still have a few minor things to deal with in this room-- hanging our classroom posters in visible spots, and putting up hooks to hang my tissue paper balls that are currently tossed on top of the cabinet-- but it feels good to have this room more functional!

The Fall Event

We had our very own "school party" to celebrate Autumn this year.

The kids made leaf crowns

(Well...the moms helped a LOT)

We played pin the apple on the tree- tempura paint washes off glass just fine, I love having this great big sliding door in the dining room for these kinds of games!

We almost missed this game entirely, which would have been a shame (because then I'd be left with two boxes of mini donuts), but twenty minutes before everyone leaving Ernie shrieked "Mom! What about the DONUTS!!" because I bought those donuts three days earlier, and she'd had to stare at them all week long waiting for this particular game. (She and her friend tied in their round....quickest player was the 8-year-old who snagged the whole thing in her mouth and just pullllllllled it off. So effective!)

We played duck duck goose (an Ernie favorite), and had a little lunch of peanut butter and honey on wheat, kettle corn, apple slices, and sugar cookies baked by Aunt LoLo.

I am SO lucky that some of my best friends happen to have friends who get along great with the kids! We were sad we couldn't invite more families, but inviting just 3 families already had the attendance up to 17 people! Ernie has already extracted the promise that we'll do a Spring Event too...and Nana and Grandpa, she kind of figures YOU'LL be happy to run that event while you're here, since I'll busy with the new baby. Ha.

Kids Made This: Hand Sillouhette Window Trees

These are so easy, but I wanted to write down the instructions just in case!

We traced the kids' hands and arms onto a piece of brown construction paper- if it fit on the paper, we traced it! Needless to say, Mimi (above) got quite a bit of arm into her tree!



I helped the kids cut out the hand sillhouettes, and we used watercolor paints on coffee filters, in all sorts of autumn-ish colors.  Once they were dry, I folded them into eighths and cut out leaves.



We made a simple paste of 1/2 cup of flour and a bit of water, cooked in a sauce pot until it was smooth and glossy, and used that paste to stick up our hand prints and leaves! I put the paste straight onto my leaves, but I put the paste onto the window for Mimi and let her stick the leaves into it.



Hand print idea from here
Leaf inspiration from here