Mommy School-Rainbows & St. Patrick’s Day

See my St. Patrick’s Day Pinterest board for the sources of these projects.

For Mommy School in the middle of March we talked all about rainbows and leprechauns.  We read several books that involved both subjects.  Our first project was to make paper plate leprechauns, complete with red, fringed beards.

I love how Isaac put his hat together.  I also love his crooked smile, it totally looks like one of the funny faces he actually makes.  And then I love that Grace put little cheek marks at the ends of her smile.

Another day we made some dancing leprechauns.  Isaac and Grace loved that they moved.

After reading The Leprechaun Who Lost His Rainbow by Sean Callahan we had to make rainbows.  The book helped Isaac and Grace to learn the order of the colors of the rainbow.  I made this homemade watercolor paint for our rainbow project.  I loved how bright the colors were initially, but they dried much duller and it also has a gritty texture.  It was fun to try something new though and Isaac and Grace have enjoyed using the paints for other projects as well.

When the rainbows were dry we added some tissue paper streamers and cotton ball clouds.  The windsocks look great hanging in our window.

We also tried out a rainbow science experiment with shaving cream and food coloring.  Our first attempt didn’t work very well, it took a long time for the rainbow to rain out of the clouds. 

The second attempt was much better.  We loved watching the colors fall.

Another day Isaac and Grace woke up from their nap to find a trail of shamrocks leading to Lucky Leprechaun Dust.  When we added milk to the jars and shook them up really good we got pistachio pudding.  It was a fun little green treat!  Isaac was excited to be eating something pistachio since his favorite movie quote is “whatever you do, don’t eat the pistachio ice cream…”  Emma was lucky enough to get one too.  Too bad she doesn’t like pistachio pudding so I may have had to help her out!

We ended this Mommy School theme with rainbow waffles (for dinner of course!).  The kids thought these were so cool!  I think they turned out pretty cute!

Finally, all this talk of rainbows has made Grace excited to draw her own.  The order of colors might be a little backwards, but she did a good job!

Swimming Lessons

Isaac and Grace were beyond excited to start swimming lessons on Valentine’s Day.  They had been looking forward to it since I told them about it and they kept asking if they were going to go to the same pool that Emma swims in. 

The first day finally came and they were still excited.  Grace stayed excited, but once we got to the pool Isaac wasn’t so sure.  I got him to go sit on the edge of the pool after a little convincing, and he stayed on the edge for a little bit.  At least he still participated from his perch. 

After awhile he finally got in, but he didn’t let go of the side of the pool for the entire time. After the lessons Grace got out just as happy as could be, while Isaac said he didn’t want to go back.  The next lesson he got in a little quicker, but still didn’t want to go back.  After the third lesson he was hooked and asked me over and over when he could go back.  Phew.  It was so funny to see their different personalities.  Grace had little fear and talked her teacher’s ear off.  While Isaac characteristically needed time to warm up. 

One of the best things about their first session was to have their friend Phillip in their class.  They would walk to the pool holding hands, so cute!

On the last day they got to go on the rope swing.  I was surprised that they both did it without hesitation!  They loved it and are still talking about doing it again.

Isaac’s favorite part of lessons was jumping in at the end.  That’s what he likes best when we go swimming as a family as well. 

The one thing that Grace is afraid of is jumping into the pool.  She wouldn’t do it.  she would get to the very edge and reach forward as far as she could to try and hold on to her teachers hand.  She would negotiate with her teacher and try to get her to come closer, it was hilarious to watch.  She never actually jumped in, we will have to work with her on that one!

So, their first swimming lesson session was a success.  Here’s to many more to come!

38

Lee turned 38.  Eeeek! He is that much closer to 40.  We were happy to celebrate our awesome husband and dad. 

He was happy to get spoiled, he’s definitely worth it!

Emma tricked me with a big, heavy box full of canned food and an iTunes gift card. 

Grace worked hard on a plethora of cards and little presents for him.  She decorated the gift bag for them herself and was so anxious to give it all to him.  Emma was nice enough to help her draw a few pictures and write the messages Grace wanted on her pictures and cards.

Isaac was more interested in trying to take off with one of Daddy’s presents…

I found a chocolate chip cookie cake on Pinterest that Lee immediately declared would be his birthday cake this year.

It combined Lee’s two favorite things, chocolate chip cookies and ice cream.  Good thing it looked good because it was a bear to cut and serve…

Oh how I love this man.  Happy Birthday Lee!

So Little Time

The view from my bed:

I guess Emma comes by it honestly.

OBOB

Emma’s school participated in Oregon Battle of the Books for the first time this year.  We were thrilled because we knew it would be right up Emma’s alley.  The 6-8 grade division had a list of 16 books to read in all different genres.  Each team is asked very specific questions from the books during battles.  Emma read all the books before the school battles in January so she was prepared to help her team.  These four girls called themselves the Bookworm Braniacs. 

The Bookworm Braniacs did well in the school battles, but in the end they lost to the boys team.  Their name: Four Fruit Loops in a World of Cheerios (I thought they should have won just for the creativity of their team name!)

Both teams got to go to the District battles in February.  Emma read all 16 books again in preparation for Districts.  All the teams from Lee Elementary wore matching t-shirts that the students got to personalize and decorate.

Here are all the teams from Lee.

Emma’s team had a last minute substitution, but they did so well!  It must have been the matching headband good luck charms!  =-)

The Bookworm Braniacs won both of their battles, then had to sit and wait anxiously to see who would compete in the championship battle. 

It ended up being Emma’s team against a 7th grade team.  The Bookworm Braniacs lost in a heartbreaking tie breaker.  The only consolation was that a friend from church was on the other team! 

Emma had such a great time was happy with their Reserve Champion title.  She was even happier that Lee was able to sneak away from work to watch the battles with me and Granny also came to support her. 

After Districts the 6th graders took a test to see who would move on to Regionals on a Lee Elementary All-Star team.  Emma made the team of 5 All-Stars.  They called themselves FIVE Fruit Loops in a World of Cheerios.  I got to be their coach for the Regional battles at the beginning of March.  It was such a fun experience, the team was made of up great kids that Emma has been studying with for all of elementary school.   They worked well together and got along great.  Granny and Kaitlin were there along with me and Lee to cheer them on.

Again, they did so well.  They played two battles during pool play that they easily won (both against 8th grade teams!) which put them in the bracket play.  Unfortunately, after the pool play battles two of the boys had to go to an important basketball tournament game.  It was a blow to lose them, but the three remaining team members were willing to continue playing without them. 

They won their first bracket game, but then lost the second one.  They were so disappointed because they would have qualified for State if they had won that last battle.  But we were proud of them!  They finished in the top 8 of 39 teams in the 6-8 grade division.  Not bad for their first showing!  It really was the perfect way for Emma to further her love of books and reading.  She read several books that she wouldn’t have normally picked up and she found some new favorite authors.  And, she had fun!  Good job Emma!

Mommy School-Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

See my Dr. Seuss Pinterest board for sources for some of these activities and more!

We spent the whole week of Dr. Seuss’ birthday reading his books and doing activities around them.   It was much easier for me to spread the reading of several Dr. Seuss books over a week, instead of all on one day like we did last year.  Most of those books are really long!  We started the week by reading There’s A Wocket in My Pocket.  We played the “what’s the missing object” game.  I put out a bunch of small objects.  One of the kids went out of the room while the other chose one to hide in their pocket.  The one who went out of the room had to come back and guess which object was hidden in the pocket.  Isaac and Grace LOVED this game.  The funny thing was that they couldn’t wait until the other guessed the object, they usually had to show it before!  We’ll definitely be playing games like this again.

The next day we read One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish.  We made our own handprint fish.

Isaac and Grace also graphed some colored goldfish crackers. 

Later in the week we pretended we were Yinks who like to drink Pink Ink (yinks make an appearance in One Fish, Two Fish…).  Isaac and Grace thought this was so funny!

The next day we read Bartholomew and the Oobleck.  Of course we had to make some oobleck.  This was a huge hit!  They were a little tentative at first, but quickly dug right in and made a huge mess.  It was fun and kept all of us, me included, occupied for quite awhile!

Later that day we read Green Eggs and Ham and made some easy green eggs out of white chocolate and green M&M’s.  We finished them just in time for Emma to eat them with us when she got home from school.

The next day we devoted to The Cat in the Hat. We made the cutest project out of paper plates and we ate some red and white striped hat snacks.

Isaac and Grace also made their own striped hats to wear.

The next day was Dr. Seuss’ birthday.  We continued with The Cat in the Hat theme by having a red and white stack of pancakes for breakfast.

We also read Horton Hears a Who.  We made Horton the elephant out of toilet paper rolls.  He was even holding a pink clover with a speck of dust on it.  When we first made the clover Isaac and Grace were cracking me up by putting it up to their ears and listening for a Who.  Isaac also decorated the Horton in the book with the pieces to his project.  So funny!  I tried to feed them a pink clover snack.  I was hoping the pink cottage cheese with the white chocolate chip on top would trick them into thinking cottage cheese was good.  I was mistaken.  They each took a little bite and quickly declared it yucky.  Oh well, I tried and they sure looked cute!

For lunch that day we had a special Cat in the Hat spread.

That afternoon we went to the local Dr. Seuss birthday celebration.  Isaac and Grace talk about going to it last year whenever we pass the store where it is held.  They were so excited to go again this year.  Unfortunately we had to leave early before they let the kids pick a book to take home.  They were definitely disappointed but were happy to take home a few other goodies.  I stuffed them into their Thing 1 and Thing 2 shirts again this year.  Good thing 3/4 length sleeves are in right now!  Pretty sure this is the last year for those.

Later that night they watched the Horton Hears a Who movie with Emma while Lee and I went to the temple.  The perfect way to end our Dr. Seuss week!