Magenta Hands

A few weeks ago I read some comments about an upset mom about her child coming home from Daycare with colored hands. She couldn't understand how they could permenently color her childs hands and only have the comment 'it should wash off soon'. I thought for a moment....do I know this person? Is she talking about me??....But then I saw the picture of her son. Y'all think I am bad about paint....his hands, up to his elbow, were very bright magenta.
So today I got out the very cool foam paint from Discount School Supply. The very cool foam paint that says right on the can that it is....washable, nontoxic, and earth friendly. It happend to be....magenta. Not really thinking about the story I had previously read, I foamed it all out onto the table. "ohhhh, PINK!" "I LOVE this stuff" "Hey guys, come quick, Annie put out shaving cream...AND IT'S PINK!
I am sorry....to those parent that don't love little magenta hands....so sorry. As soon as they put their hands in, I could see the damage. I had seen that color on hands before...I knew that it wouldn't come off. I knew it would take soaking in the bath, maybe several nights, to get it off. I let them play....up to their elbows....and when they were done...we washed. and washed, and washed. Needless to say, we will not be purchasing this washable foam again.
But....they did have a very good time, and...'It should wash off soon!'

Salad....

"I'm makin salad"
Indeed he is...he has been working on it for some time. The rule in the yard is no picking leaves and flowers off of the living plant, but if you find them on the ground, they are all yours. I have seen them sometimes...pull the flower off, ever so gently and sneekily, then quickly drop it to the ground...."Look, I found this on the ground!"...I just remind them the plant won't be pretty if they keep picking the flowers off....then let them use it...what else can I do....
But he found this all on the ground...It's hard to see, and I think he might have put that big rock (tomato?) on top of all the greens, but it was rather colorful.
And very yummy by the way.

Fathers Day

I got the idea from this cool website my sister-in-law, Anna, sent me to. The Crafty Crow . They have new ideas everyday. We will do the colored salt today!

They really took their time and did a great job!

fathers day

Heavy load....

'C' is working hard scooping and filling up the white bucket. He is on a mission.... Almost to the top, he scoops a couple more shovel fulls, and pat,pat,pat, he is finished.
Aurrrggghhhh.....he grunts, and pulls, and lifts.....
Up over the rocks...not an easy task....remember that bucket is full of heavy, wet, sand.
At this point he gives it one last tug....and...he makes it. Some fell out, but he didn't mind. Mission Acomplished.

Outside play....

cutting in half....geometry
Heeaaavy....science,building mucles Dumping, measuring, pouring, lifting, sifting, manipulating...sand...I mean cupcake batter.
Imagination....
'D' is very interested in spiders. Almost every book we read, he can spot a spider somewhere....and Everyday he shows me the spider under the slide. "Annie, Annie, Spider under (the) slide!" He is always very excited to see it.
"Taxi, Taxi's here!...Who needs a ride?" "I do...I do..." "Where do ya need ta go?" "My home, the one in Seattle...It's by the water!" "I need 5 bucks".....

Mack Strong visits

Sometimes I need to leave for an hour or so....I make sure that it is a good reason though, and try not to do it too often. Luckily I have GREAT friends that help take the boys to Dr. Appts. and what not...but today...today was important.
Every other year our Elementary has an auction. This was our last auction...and when I saw that you could spend a day with Mack Strong (retired Seahawks fullback) I knew I had to have it.
So this was the day he came. He got to school around 11am and spent the whole time with Drew...at lunch, at art, reading, at recess....and at the end of the day, I wanted to go take some pictures and have my other boys meet him. Luckily....I have GREAT daycare parents (that's all of you) and Dacia came to cover for me.
Mack Strong was awesome! He genuinly loved the kids and all their 9,000,000,000.00 questions....and more signings. What a trooper. This is a day that we will never forget.
Thank you Mack!

Lunch.....

Here is one of our yummy lunches. French dips, watermelon, apples, and milk. I know...I should be doing it family style (kids pass around dishes and get their own food) but with 8 kiddos, it's just easier to have it all done and ready to go. We sing open-shut-them and then we all eat. They can have seconds as long as they eat or try everything on their plate. When they are finished they bring their plate to the sink....then off to nap time!

birds...

We were so excited today to see this beautiful bird eating away......what is it...

Stormy weather...

The kids have been talking about storms, soooo.....we decided to explore them a little more. I found some books on weather and we read them. We talked about rain storms, wind storms, and hail storms. We talked alot about Thunder and Lightnening because the thunder is the scarey part. Some of them remembered the big storm we had last year when the power went out and trees were down everywhere. We saw some pictures of houses that had been blown down, but I assured them that the wind around here does not get that strong. They are being the wind....blowing the clouds around. (they wanted yellow to blow)

We also have little boats at the water table. I was encouraging them to blow the boats around like the wind.....Kamil needed his goggles to get the job done right!

Boomer gets a haircut

Boomer was looking a little rug-u-muffin. Brian let us borrow his dog grooming kit, so we had no excuses. We did this a couple weeks ago, and now I look at this picture and he looks so dang cute....haircut remourse.
Bzzzzzzzzzzzzz.......At first he was a little scared, but then he loved it! He wanted more and more.
It's a little like giving yourself a haircut at home....not really knowing what you are doing and all...but hair grows back, right? And.....the kids had fun. That's the important part.

Beanstalk....

Um...these are growing like crazy. Tomorrow it will be time to take them home and plant in your yard somewhere....Somewhere sunny, and you might want to give it something to grow up or against. The beans are super tall and the sunflowers are a little shorter. We planted 2 types of sunflowers...the short kind and the tall kind...I think. We also planted chives...sorry, I LOVE onions...that one was for me...but you might get one of those as well. We are going to read 'Jack and the Beanstalk' tomorrow, so ask your kiddos about it.

around the room...

We got a new top for out sensory bin....cuuuute! We also got a new, smaller, sensory bin, so we use this one for water. Water bins on wood floors is a tricky thing, but so far they are very good about wiping up thier spills. With this bin comes a smaller tray that sits on top with tubes that the children can manipulate water flow. Sometimes I put one color in the small tray and another color in the bin. They get excited when they are mixing up the colors.
I added a net this week over the slide table. I also gave them an extra table...they were getting pretty cramped when they all (yes, all 8 of them sometimes tried to fit on the little checkered table) tried to climb aboard. I also added a long plastic tube with funnels on each end. One side is on the table and it goes through the box over to the kitchen area. They use it as a phone. 'Can you hear me now?' Here is the small sensory bin. It has bird seed in it right now.

The light table has clear plastic boards on it that the children love painting on. 'What happens to red and yellow when you mix it together?'
When I was in Canada I found the cutest toy store!! No shoes for this girl...it's all about the toys. I found these blocks with printed ants on them. It's a little like a puzzle...you are supposed to put the blocks together to form an ant trail. I Love them!....oh, so do the kids. They are on the table in front of the maps.
If you look close...you can see the chair that Connor painted for me. I will tell that story later. I am sure it will be worth a fortune some day!

Spit....

We found a spit bug today. I have seen many of spit on plants, but the bug has already vacated. This time we caught him. "why is he spitting?" Very good question. So, we looked it up. They are also called froghoppers. They spit to hide themselves from preditors and keep themselves from drying out. We even found out that the childrens author 'Eric Carle' http://www.eric-carle.com/has written about a spittle bug in his book 'the very quiet cricket'. Which is one book I do not own...hint, hint, but will find at the library soon. This tells more if you are interested. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Froghopper

Boardwalk

I set up 2 long 2by8s on top of crates. I sat on the grass (with camera of course) and watched. Which I often do...sit back and watch. The kids don't need me to tell them what to do, because if I did...they wouldn't learn it for themselves.

They used about 10 more peices to create a 'boardwalk' through the sand box. The kids were so engaged that they were having a hard time leaving when their parents came to get them. The next day they were excited to go outside and work on their project.

The longest board that runs along the back of the sandbox is nailed down, but all the other boards (minus the two I started) were set up (and down and up and down and up) by the kids.

Your children were being creative and using their noggins to figure out how to solve the problem of creating a path that would go all the away around the sandbox. They had to figure out how to balance the boards and where to place them and which sizes would fit in which spots. After they figured all that out...they needed to listen to their bodies as to how to balance while on the boards because some of them were rockety.
They would fall....and get up...and refigure...and try again.
Your children were working together. They were communicating with each other to fix a problem. They were helping each other to get across or when they fell off, they were helping each other get back up.
This, right here, is what is most important in your childrens learning. Compassion. Problem solving. Helping each other.
I love watching them and how excited they get when they are creating something fun together.

Binoculars

We are learning about birds. What are birds, what do they eat, what do they do, where do they live, how do they fly, what do they look like, etc....

In order to see what they look like, we needed to make these nifty binoculars to see them with. The only part I really helped with was the punching of the holes in the side and tying the string....however their were a couple that could do that part also.

We taped, painted, holed, and tied...and then, we were ready for a bird watch.

We found some cool crows....they eat anything...really, anything.

We found some finches, so we put up a finch bird feeder.

We found some Steller Jays. Some people call these Blue Jays...(my mom did, so I did, growing up) but Blue Jays are cute little quiet birds while Stellar Jays are obnoxious crazy mean birds. We found Robins, seagulls (I don't know why they fly over our house....we are 30 miles from puget sound) an Eagle and I think a Hawk.

We will be making a chart of the birds that we see.