Monday, June 26, 2017

Celebrating the Sun or a Week in the Heat

This week has been difficult because of the heat and Tobias is reaching the age when he thinking about getting rid of one nap, so everyone has been a little cranky.  We also had to hold off on some of the outside activities like shadow tracking.  Still, we have had a lot of fun.

Camp Creativity at Michael's this week was Finding Nemo/Dory themed, which followed up on our discussion of fish the week before.  She practiced using scissors on foam sheets and used her fine motor skills to set out beads to melt together.  They have patterns and I offered to help her follow them, but she likes to do her own thing and I prefer she do it herself.  The final product doesn't matter.  It's all about the experience.

Story times this week focused on water, since it's a great way to keep cool.  We have a little wading pool for them to play in too.  It was also animal week at the library, when an animal rescue group shows off some of the animals they care for and talk about the best ways to protect wild animals.  We saw a kinkajou, a bush baby, a baby raccoon, a lemur and a large Burmese python.  Everyone was invited to pet the snake.  Genevieve also learned this week that cutting up a library book is not the thing to do if you want to keep it.  The library was able to repair it, but we decided she can't check out any more books until July.  And we modeled the proper behavior by adding books she wants to the Amazon wish list we share with our family.

Tobias had a great time on the trampoline this week in gymnastics.  He didn't want to stop running and bouncing.  Genevieve worked on a new skill on the trampoline too, jumping backwards.  She had a lot of fun trying to travel across the bar as well and is getting great practice mounting the balance beam.

Soccer this week had a great obstacle course, where they worked on ball control, jumping, multi-step instructions, and shooting.  They played some running games like Avalanche and Red Light Green Light to work on endurance and listening.  Then there was a passing game for teamwork.  I also love that their fitness activities stress stretching and hydration, even if Tobias doesn't want to sit through the stretches.

We had a friend over for a science play date, where we tried out some of the Magic School Bus Chemistry Kit.  We used baking soda and vinegar to blow up a balloon, made some oobleck and used salt to make ice stick together.  We also played with prisms, used different types of scratch paper to demonstrate opaque and transparent, made kaleidoscopes, and made solar prints.  Our friends were really lucky, because that was the day our caterpillars started forming their chrysalis so they were able to observe that.  It was also nice, because our friends have a girl and a boy close in age to both kids.

We started trying out chore sticks.  I put different chores and activities the kids can do like reading, sweeping, and playing games on some colorful craft sticks.  We draw from there at random to find things to do when we have a break in activities.  She's drawn art, hugs, reading, helping put laundry on the line, and playing a game to name a few.  So we played the Owl Game and Hi Ho Cherry-o.  We also played a lot with puzzles and wooden trains this week.  Tobias has been practicing empathy, and has the cutest "Oh no" face when something sad happens.  He's also making bee noises at the bees pollinating our pumpkins and getting good at signs like please, cookie and fish.  He's trying to say kitty more too.



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