It's a Cloud, It's a Plane!

Monday, we had an exciting surprise outside our door.  We were headed to the grocery when we ran across a lizard.  We followed the lizard for a bit, commenting on how it moved and what it looked like.  It camouflaged itself in the mulch, which was fun too.

We tried to look for clouds too while we were outside, but there weren't a lot of clouds to see.  This week we are concentrating on the things we see in the sky, as we have two different family members flying in this week.  Even though we saw no clouds, we came home and painted cloud pictures.  We talked about the three main different types of clouds: cumulus, which are very fluffy; cirrus, which are wispy and the highest of the clouds; and stratus, which are thick like blankets and sit very low in the sky.  Fog is a type of stratus cloud.  We often comment on the clouds we see and what they look like, so we used clouds from memory.  For cumulus and cirrus clouds, we used cotton balls.  When you stretch the cotton balls out, they make great cirrus clouds.  All the clouds can also easily be painted with a foam paint.  Although you can buy foam paint, we like to make our own by mixing shaving cream (we prefer regular Barbasol) and some glue.

We also worked on our animals of the alphabet book.  This week was D-F.  For D, we included dogs, deer, dragonflies, dolphins, and ducks.  For E, we included elk, eagles, and most especially elephants.  For F, we included frogs, fish, foxes and flamingos.  Then we stood like a dog, walked and trumpeted like an elephant, and balanced on one leg like a flamingo.  She incorporated these movements in our game of "Elbow."  Elbow is her name for Follow the Leader, in which she is the leader.  We start with our elbows up, hence the name.

Then we played some catch, with different types of balls to see which stay in the air the best.

Tuesday was elections here in California so we all walked to the polls.  Genevieve took turns on her tricycle too.  While we walked, she looked for items to add to her nature collection. She added some rocks, flowers and small green oranges off the ground.  We decided to do an experiment to see if any of these oranges could grow without the tree.  We also stopped at the train station in town when we passed by to try to see some trees.  Finally we went to story time at the library.  We arrived late, but heard a story about a little girl learning to swim before it ended.

At home, we talked more about elections, using the Daniel Tiger episode as reference.   And since grandma arrives tomorrow, we read How to Babysit a Grandma and Llama Llama Gram and Grandpa.  She loves the Llama Llama books, and although both of these are about going to grandma's house, they talk about fun things to do with grandma.

Finally, we did some experiments with paper airplanes.  We crumpled a ball of paper and made some standard paper airplanes and a helicopter.  For those that haven't made a helicopter before, if you are using this pattern the solid lines are cut and the dashes are folded.  C and D are folded into the center and held together with a paperclip.  The paperclip will help provide weight to keep that part down.  A and B are folded in opposite directions to create the propeller.  It was fun to see which designs flew best.

Wednesday we had a music/dance party in the morning and read Pete the Cat's Train Trip (another favorite character of hers) and Amelia Bedelia's First Apple Pie.  We also drew a picture for grandma before we went to pick her up from the airport.  After we got back and she played some with grandma, we took a break to look at Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh.  Then we painted pictures with swirls and thick brush strokes like Van Gogh.

Thursday we were getting ready for dad to come back.  We read Nelly Gnu and Her Daddy Too and While You Are Away.  We worked in the garden then painted some pictures in dad's favorite colors - green.  After we finished we used lids to create patterns using both color and size.  We also talked about complimentary colors and the color wheel.

Friday, for the last week of gymnastics for this session, we played with the parachute which was a fun exercise in teamwork and turn-taking.  We played some music and played in the park.  We read books about body parts and sang Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes at storytime.  Despite the exhausting week, we still took the time to do a short activity in the afternoon.  While we were doing some yard work, we created a solar print since the sun is another object up in the sky.  We placed a few interesting shaped objects on the paper and let it sit for a few minutes.  After rinsing we had the finished project, which is pretty neat.  It works best if you use a variety of sized items though.  Genevieve mostly had skinny items on her print, which is harder to see in the end.