Princesses, Pumpkins and Petting Zoos

It's been another two weeks.  Time flies when Grandmum is visiting.

We've had several sessions of soccer.  Tobias is slowly learning to pay attention through the whole class, especially if it means he can ride on the parachute.  Genevieve painted some pumpkin art and played with pumpkin slime.  We colored and assembled a cardboard haunted house and a small foam princess castle.  She made a web of friends in art class and set up her birthday aquarium.

We went to Lambtown festival, or as Genevieve called it Unicorn festival.  We had a nice walk there, rode a train, rode some ponies, went to a petting zoo, painted a pumpkin, helped Grandmum pick out some yarn, and rocked out to some music.

We enjoyed gymnastics, the park, storytimes, dance and music class.  The author came to one storytime, and after we were able to explore a career fair.  The library also had a speaker about bats, who brought some along for the kids to see.  Our  friends met us at a pumpkin patch.  We also started the fall  session of zoo classes.  Genevieve feed the giraffes, met some animals and made art around the habitat themes.  They talked about animals and skills needed to survive in the Savannah and swamps.  We also played at Fairy Tale Town.

When we weren't in class, we spent most of our time inside to avoid the smoke from the wild fires.  We talked about the fires and made some pictures to show people we were thinking of them.  We read about and did some science experiments.  We started a book about the first explorers to possibly reach America and read about Sukkot and Diwali.  We colored, played with slime, played some PBS Kids games and workbook pages.  Genevieve started her Star lab and tried out some new puzzles and games.  Some of her new puzzles are word building.  She also got a great geography game (Scrambled States of America) and The Memory Palace by Peaceable Kingdom.

She helped decorate for her princess party and made some pizza for everyone.  The girls had fun dressing up and making lots of different art - wings, jewelry boxes and princesses.

Two Weeks of Fun

We just finished a great book - Vincent's Starry Night and Other Stories.  This book sorts some interesting pieces of artwork from all over the world and gives them a little historical context.  There are only a few pages for each piece, so it's not too hard for short attention spans.  After we finished, we headed back to the Crocker Art Museum for a fun day looking at art.  We like to follow that up with a walk through Old Sacramento, stopping at the school house and ending at the train museum.

We started working on our own book about the way things move.  We read about ramps.  I wrote some basic principles about directions and force and Genevieve watched for examples throughout our week.  Gymnastics and the park gave some great examples, but we also went to the trampoline park and Imagine That.  They painted some cars and a plane.

Of course, we still had our other weekly activities.  We played soccer and went to art class, where Genevieve made a craft stick Frankenstein.  We walked around the area and rode the small train too.  We had some great fun playing at the park and with dance and gymnastics classes.  Mr. Dan read about fall in storytime.  We had our last week of animal songs at Music Makers.

At  home, Genevieve helped design a haunted graveyard and made some fall jewelry with Grandma.  Genevieve started working on princess decorations for her birthday party too.  She finished some sun catchers, wind chimes and a mobile.  Tobias has been really interested in lining up his toys and taking tours of our solar system, walking by the line of pictures on our wall as we name them.

As October began, we celebrated Chuseok, making some lunar observations and painting the night sky.  She also helped me carve a pumpkin in a pattern of stars and moons.  We read about spooky animals like bats and spiders plus dealing with feeling scared.

Pirates, Leaves, and Parties

Genevieve's friend had a birthday party this weekend, so after soccer we headed to the park to play with them.  Then on Sunday, we celebrated Talk like a Pirate Day by reading pirate books and following a treasure map.

We had gymnastics, storytime and Music Makers.  Between classes, we practiced patterns and puzzles.  She practiced writing some numbers and made some math symbols like plus and minus.  Genevieve made some doughnuts with Grandma too.

Our friends came over and we had great fun experimenting with plants.  We used some liquid water color to color some white flowers and some celery.  We sorted some fall leaves by color and tore them up in some hot water and rubbing alcohol.  Then we used coffee filters and chromatography paper to see the different types of chlorophyll inside.  Whenever we do chromatography, we like to try a few markers too.

Grandmum Arrives

This weekend, Tobias joined the 4 others in his soccer class, playing with squishy balls, cones, bubbles and parachutes.  Genevieve had fun in her soccer class, then created an owl out of a clay pot in art class.  We stopped at the rock and mineral store to have a good look around.  At home, we did laundry, decorated some presents for friends, blew bubbles and created our own Halloween village collage with pictures from Michael's.  We also played a great game of "what does that spell," where she arranges letters and I attempt to pronounce the word she created.

Tobias went back to gymnastics, and is so happy to be back to trampolines and balance beams.  We then enjoyed some time at the park.  Genevieve was inspired by some pictures from Beauty and the Beast, so used some Model Magic and markers to create her own versions of the stained glass windows.  We enjoyed some storytime, then enjoyed watching baggage claim at the airport while picking up Grandma.

We let Grandma settle in by playing lots of games, art and puzzles and including her in bath and outside play.  We all went to Music Makers in the park this week, which was great fun but a little challenging since it was a little chilly for the California kids.

Off and Running

With it being Labor Day weekend, there was no soccer but Genevieve made a windsock in art class and we stopped by the rock store.  She found some citrine, peacock ore, blue agate and some fun Magic School Bus books.

We spent Sunday with grandparents.  She had made a treasure map of their back yard, so they followed that.  Then we headed to the Bay Discovery Museum.  Tobias appreciated the Daniel Tiger exhibit, but Genevieve was more excited about other things.  She made a trolley, played with glitter sand and took a nature walk.  He played in the construction pit and they both enjoyed the room with trains and boats.

On Labor Day, we read some stories and built with some unconventional blocks like bottles.  We played with water, and Genevieve asked if she could make a fountain.  I found some instructions from Australia, which involved making a small hole in a plastic bottle, where you should insert a straw.  We sealed it with some tape.  We filled the bottle with water and blew up a balloon, placing it over the opening.  The air pressure then creates a fountain.

We went to storytime, then all worked on some cleaning.  They both helped with dishes.  Then Genevieve helped with one of her favorite activities - baking.  We made some blueberry muffins.

We had some friends over for science activities.  We experimented with trying to float fruit, cut them open to see the seeds and used them as stamps.  We also tried to explore what might help keep an apple from turning brown, but actually just had fun with baking soda, vinegar and lemon juice.

We went to music class, where we sang about animals.  Tobias was happy to be back for marching and Genevieve had a great time throughout.  After music, we came home and she started working on invitations for her birthday.

We ended the week with building the tallest towers we could and painting a Day of the Dead skull.

Week off

This was the last week before most of our activities start up again, so we had lots of fun at home.

Outside the house, Tobias had his first week of soccer.  He was a little confused about being allowed to play on the field, but had great fun building with cones and playing with the parachute.  Genevieve made a neon name plate in art class, so she got to practice her letters.  Then she painted another rock; this one was in the shape of a heart.  She decorated a jar and mixed some glitter in some slime.  Tobias also spent some time in the UC Davis Language Learning Lab, where he helped in a study about recognizing objects with multiple names and a few longer term studies.

We did a few science experiments this week.  We've been practicing eye-hand coordination and demonstrating density in pouring water in different containers.  We experimented with surface tension with bubbles and watching pepper on the surface of the water.  Salt was used to help stick ice cubes together and to attach ice to a string.  We used chromatography to see the colors inside black markers and used vinegar to remove the shell from an egg.  We just keep the cards that came with our Magic School Bus kit out, so when we feel like an experiment we just draw one.

We did some foam painting, making marble patterns and playing with color.  We also had a great time using our Melissa and Doug magnet shape set to create pictures.

We also played quite a few games.  There were a few rounds of the Very Hungry Caterpillar Game.  We played a few matching games, including Tobias a little.  We also enjoyed some Hi Ho Cherry-o.

The Solar Eclipse

This week we invited friends over to celebrate the solar eclipse.  We served bagels because they are ring shaped and crescent-shaped croissants.  Everyone had some solar glasses and we talked about how it isn't safe to look at the sun without these glasses.  We made some pinhole cameras too, which worked pretty well at showing the eclipse  and also make fun shadow art.  We dropped balls into a tray of sand to recreate the surface of the moon.  We also had some shaving cream and liquid water color to paint the sky, making fluffy clouds.

Besides the eclipse, we had art class where we painted a canvas and used gems to create a shape.  It started as a heart, but Genevieve decided she wanted to make broccoli instead.  While waiting for it to dry, she also painted a rock and drew Pete the Cat holding broccoli.

We played some Peg + Cat games, and watched some Peg + Cat which led to her, unprompted, explain that zero means nothing.  We've done some cleaning, everyone taking turns sweeping and scrubbing.  She also made a treasure map for Grandma Stacey.  We've played a lot of trains and building as well.