Playdoh Creations

During our Easter Preschool lesson we used my Easter Cookie Cutters and beads to make decorated eggs. Rachel got creative and made lots of things. Here's some of what she came up with. One that I didn't get a picture of is her duck that she had swimming in the bead pond.

Here's her Easter Egg

This is her apple core with the seeds.

Her flower

Her flower after it got a stem, and then she turned it into a person.

Spring Time

Spring is here and the weather is gorgeous! The girls have been spending more and more time outside playing in the sandbox, blowing bubbles, and swinging on the swings. I love this picture. It's such a big sister thing to do to push your little sister on the swing and the joy in both of their faces will make any mom smile. I love these two girls!

We can't forget about Duchess

The girls made a bird feeder from toast, peanut butter and seeds. Duchess liked it just as much as the birds. To her disadvantage she doesn't have wings but she didn't let that stop her from trying to get it.

Natural History Museum

The first thing the girls wanted was to have their picture taken with the zebra.

The Shark Pool

Next was the python

In the Ancient Egypt Room

In the kids discovery room pretending to be paleontologist.

The Beach

We had a very impromptu trip to So. Cal for our niece Faye's first birthday. Unfortunately our camera died very shortly into the trip so we only got a few pictures. We had a great weekend. We literally decided Friday night at 6pm to go. But since we were already most of the way to the Temple and Wendy had the girls we decided to still go. So after a brief but wonderful time in the Temple we ran home quickly packed and made arraignment for Sunday's lessons to get taught and someone to watch the dog oh and yeah get a hotel reservation we were out the door to get the girls from Wendy's and head out of town.

We arrived at our hotel at 1am. That morning we met Kevin, Kellie and Aksel at Ruby's diner on the Huntington Beach Pier. It was funny we were actually staying at the same hotel so we got to walk to breakfast together. Yes we walked over the bridge from our hotel to the beach. Mike did a great job on picking not just a hotel but a resort with beach access. Did I mention yet that our room had a partial ocean view with a balcony?! But unfortunately before we left the room that morning Ashley threw up. We thought it was because I gave her a pecan swirl and maybe was allergic to pecans so we bought a way expensive yogurt on the resort and headed to the pier. After a very yummy breakfast where Rachel didn't want to eat anything except Ashley's yogurt and Ashley at eggs and orange juice made our way back slowly down the beachwalk collecting seashells. Rachel would put a shell up to her ear and say I can't hear the ocean. Ashley kept asking if we could play in the sand yet.

When we made it back in front our hotel we let them go play in the sand and get their feet wet. They were so excited. We rolled up their paints and as Rachel ran to the surf it was going out and took her with it and down she fell into the cold wet sandy water. She was not happy.

Ashley was not quite as brave. I'm not sure if her feet ever got wet.

After a little while later we headed back up the beach to our hotel room.

(This was the last picture we got)

When we got back room service was just making it to our room and they sprayed the first spot Ashley made and left. We started making plans with a friend to meet her when Ashley's stomach erupted again. So plans were cancelled room service was called back and sheets were changed, furniture wiped down, extra towels left, and Ashley changed. So now what...

I cuddled up with Ashley and she fell asleep. Mike took Rachel and they rented a bike and went on a look for a large conical shell she could hear the ocean in. The rented a bike with the seat attached but that was too wobbly for Rachel who won't even sit on a bike with training wheels (that wobbles too). So they had to return it and swap it for a bike trailer. And then they were off. 3 hours later they got back with shells and pizza. Ashley woke up a little bit later feeling much better. She even at pizza and drank soda.

I went in search for a book with little luck. I needed something though because Mike was going to take Rachel back over the beach for Faye's bonfire party that evening and I was going to be stuck in the hotel room! Which being stuck in that hotel wouldn't have been bad with a book. I met up with Kevin and Kellie in the hall who were headed to the shops looking for a swim diaper so they could take Aksel to the pool. Which they were having better luck because we had extras. So they came up to the room for a little bit which broke up the tedium of that afternoon for me. Then Lindsey stopped by to see Ashley before the party. But by this time it had been 3 hours since she woke up and had pizza. She had no fever and was holding down food. So we all went and just kept her away from everyone.

We roasted hotdogs, sang Happy Birthday, ate cake, had a picture taken and headed back to put the girls to bed. I went to the Starbucks and bought hot chocolate to enjoy out on the balcony. So we had a very enjoyable evening.

The next morning we remembered why we love black out curtains. We all slept in well past sunrise, when our girls normally wake up. We went down to breakfast an unbelievably high priced buffet and took at walk to see what the rest of the resort was like. We had yet to see the pool. We we found the first pool area and kept walking. We found the hot tub grotto and kept walking. We stopped to look at the koi ponds in front of the spa and ran around in the grass. The last place we got to was the fun pool with 3 smaller slides. Rachel wanted in! But we were planning on going back to the beach to play in the sand one last time before we left. We gave her the choice and she chose the pool. So back across the property to our room we went to get our bathing suits.

Ashley refused to put a swim on, she wanted nothing to do with the pool. However Rachel ran back and could hardly wait for us to get to the gate to let her in. She was immediately in the pool and when Mike offered to catch her at the end of the slides she didn't leave them. Ashley saw how much fun Rachel was having and wanted to go in. Thankfully, I brought her bathing suit with us. So we quickly changed and went to the slides. Yeah right, it was a success to get her to put her feet in!

After watching Rachel for awhile we went back to the wading pool to see if we could get Ashley in. She was very reluctant. First we got her to put her feet in it, then she say on my lap while I was sitting on the step (1/2 foot of water) then I slowly slid all the way in and she would splash! We got her to actually walk in it. Then it was time to go we got out of the water and she cried! No not that she was out of the pool she cried, "I'm wet!" and the tears came. Oh what a girl.

Before leaving So. Cal we had dinner at our friends the Mercker's home. Rachel and their son Grant have no each other since Rachel was born and they picked up right where they left off playing. It's fun to see those two together again. It makes us miss having them in the same city. After we got the girls in pajama's we said our goodbyes and got back on the road for home.

It was certainly a jammed pack fun exciting memorable weekend.

Rapunzel's Tower

The girls have gone back to building with their blocks. The latest game is to build Rapunzel's tower and place Rapunzel at the top. We have a boy that becomes Flynn Rider and he rescues Rapunzel.

Preschool update post

We've been having fun with our weekly preschools. Here's what we've been doing so far this year.

January

Days of the Week, Snow,Winter, Art,

February

Monkey, Valentine, Presidents, Dinosaur

March

Horse, Insects, Spring, Birds

April

Easter, Frogs

Days of the Week

Looked at the calendar and talked about the pattern (S, M, T, W, Th, F, S, repeat). Rachel can

now look at the calendar and if we point to the date can tell us what day of the week it is and is

more aware of what day is coming next.

Snow

Our favorite part was probably the snowball fight! Well a makeshift snowball fight indoors with socks. But it was still fun. Then we made snow from a kit (it was such a mess). Ashley was not very keen on the feel of it for a little bit then she got used to it and really started playing. We then made snowflakes from q-tips.

Winter

I tried not to focus on snow since we did that the week before but we talked about animals, and weather, and what to wear. Our favorite book is Froggy Gets Dressed by London. We made animal tracks in "snow" our playdoh, had to find the missing match to mittens and pretended to be paleontologist and chip a spider frozen in ice. We even used ice to paint.

Art

We talked about how art is made up of lines, shapes and colors. And that people who create art are called artist. Rachel wants to be an artist someday. And loves to paint, draw, color and create things. The day after our lesson we went to the library that has an art gallery for an art scavenger hunt. This was somewhat successful considering that all they had were pottery pieces. We were still able to find colors and shapes and even lines. Finding a still life, landscape and portrait proved more difficult.

Monkey

We played silly monkey see monkey do games and learned the difference between Monkey and Ape and that Monkey starts with M and Ape starts with A (this was for Ashley). It's sometimes difficult to do things educational for both of them.

Valentines

Was just a fun introduction to what it's all about and how we celebrate it. We played and used conversation hearts for graphing and sorting and of course eating!

Presidents

Since it was presidents day we talked about how our country has a president which up until

now they were oblivious about. We talked about how the president was in charge of the country and who it is. We then talked about two former presidents Washington and Lincoln. We looked at our coins and bills and found them. We even made a log cabin for Lincoln.

Dinosaur

MOMS Club had a trip planned to go to the Natural History Museum which has dinosaurs so we talked about them the day before going. This was in hopes that they wouldn't freak out over the dinosaurs since they are animatronic (?). It didn't work they still freaked out and wouldn't walk into the room which is a problem when you have to go through the room to get to fun kid area. But that's okay we made it through and had a fun lesson and trip to the museum. Which by the end they finally got used to the dinosaurs and looked at some. But on to our lesson stuff... We learned about a couple of them and Rachel alphabetized their names, we looked up how big some were and put tape on the floor for each one and then measured ourselves against it. We acted like dinosaurs popping out of eggs and like a T-rex stomping and roaring.

We used our playdoh to make dinosaur fossils. Pictures of our museum trip are in their own

post here.

Horses

We learned about different horse jobs such as racing, jumping, diving, and farm work. We watched different youtube clips of racing and equestrian and even found an old clip of the

diving horses in Atlantic City. We made a call to Pop-pop to find out what his horses name

was, Pinkie, and asked if he ever got to see the horses dive. Which he watched every summer. We played a race horse game. We even learned how to make a vendiagram and sorted what type of food horses and humans eat.

Insects

This lesson has brought the most continuous conversations and playing. We got a "bug"

infestation and had to find them all. Then the bugs got loose and we had to swat the bug with a certain letter or word on it with the fly swatter. We bought some grow pills that turned into bugs and watched them grow. We also learned how to tell if a bug is an insect and sorted those. We learned to use eyedroppers (actually nose suckers because that's what we had) acting like mosquitos. Then we played mosquito tag and when you tagged someone you put a sticker on them, first one out of stickers wins. We made a ladybug and a click beetle. For treats we ma

de an anthill and then after dinner we made ladybugs with an apple and chocolate chips. We

went looking for bugs and found a roly-poly and ladybug. Rachel has so fascinated that she even made her own bug book. She'd draw a picture of the bug and write it's n

ame. Her favorite fact she learned was that roly-poly's eat their own poo. Hence I learned to give her gross facts and she'll remember something about them. I used this in another lesson to come. When we were finished Rachel took all the bugs and have been playing with them.

Spring

We talked about the changing of the weather and made a weather chart to keep track of the weather for the next week. We kept it simple; sunny, partly cloudy, cloudy, or rainy. One day got a W with it because it was windy. We talked about the trees starting to get leaves and

blossoming. We sang popcorn popping and put popcorn on a bare tree. Then we talked about how most animals have babies born in the spring and played matching using mother and baby animals.

Birds

For birds we helped birds fly to their nest by tossing them into a "nest". We used puppets for different songs and poems. We used feathers to paint and even talked about how they used them to write with. We had the girls sit on a pillow "nest" and guess how many eggs they were sitting on and then count them to see if they were right. Then we went and made chocolate

bird nest to eat. We talked about how birds eat worms and played a hide and seek gam

e where one girl hid and would tweet for her mommy and the mommy would find her and give her a gummy worm. If I said this was a favorite would you be surprised. We ended with making bird feeders from dry bread, peanut butter and seeds. Duchess certainly liked it; her video is in a post of it's own here.

Easter

When I started planning this lesson I was trying to teach them the symbols of Easter and came across a blog that mentioned how this teacher enjoyed working at a Christian school because she could teach the real reason for Easter and thought hello! So

can you. So that's what we did. We talked about the fun stuff like Easter Eggs and played with playdoh and beads to make them (which evolved into another activity see Rachel's blog for those pictures) we even made tie dyed eggs with a coffee filter. There's a before picture and I wanted an after picture when they dried because they were so neat but it got windy and I forgot they were drying outside and got blown away and then the sprinklers came on and washed all the marker off the eggs. But they came out neat. We played and Easter Egg Hunt Game and helped the Easter Bunny color a basket and eggs by following directions and helped put the right number of eggs in the basket.

Then we moved to why we really celebrate Easter. We made resurrection rolls as we talked about how Christ died and was resurrected. While they cooked we used the Friend magazine to follow the steps of Christ the last week and we watched a music video of He Sent His Son. I know I felt the Spirit while the girls and I talked about the real meaning of Easter from the tears that I kept getting. And I had the opportunity to talk to them about how they were feeling and that it's the Spirit telling us that Christ really did live and die and was resurrected and is living today. They really got it. The rolls and letting them physically do something really helped.

Frogs

We started by putting frogs on 1 hand of each of us and sang 5 little speckled frogs. Ashley asked me to sing it again and again. We tossed two stuffed frogs on a "lily pad" towel and see how long he could stay on there. They then hopped or tossed their frog on a lily pad I made and we would read a frog fact such as that when frogs shed their skin they eat it and that their eyes help them swallow. See I told you I'd remember to use gross facts later. We talked about what it means to be an amphibian. We worked on sequencing by putting the life cycle of a frog in order. Thanks to The Cat in the Hat Knows Alot About That Rachel already knew that baby frogs are tadpoles and that they have a tail and grow legs and then lose their tail. But we reviewed that too. We talked about how frogs can jump ten times their length and tried jumping as far a frog in a single leap.