It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

We have been busy making and delivering Christmas presents and cards lately, so many secret surprises.  Candlemaking, wreaths, and paintings.  We've also begun decorating.  Genevieve has painted a snowflake, hung her garland and they both began decorating.  She also painted some additional decorations like a light up box.  At the Christmas tree lighting here in town, she created some ornaments for the tree.  We were able to see the animals as well.  We also have begun reading our favorite Christmas, Chanukah and Kwanzaa books.

When we weren't busy with Christmas activities, we've been talking about the ways animals deal with the cold - from migration and hibernation to color change and finding different foods.  We also talked about how a extra layer, be it fat or fur or feathers, can help keep an animal warm.  We then talked about snow, and used paper snowflakes to talk about six sided symmetry and why snowflakes are hexagons.  Genevieve also found a book she enjoyed about the history of ice cream.  And shipping boxes make excellent imagination boxes, so we've flown to the moon, sailed a boat and built a castle.

Thanksgiving Week

With classes closed this week, we decided to take some field trips.  The Crocker Art Museum just opened a new kid-friendly exhibit which they enjoyed.  We walked around Old Sacramento, visiting the school and the train museum as usual.  We took a couple tours of the trains before playing with the train tables and the model trains.  We checked out some new books from the library, but there was no storytime this week.  We had a playdate at Rockin Jump and Imagine That, where we had great fun bouncing followed by some painting, experimenting with air, and building marble runs.  Our final "field trip" was to grandparents for Thanksgiving, where Genevieve helped make cookies.

When we weren't on the go, we began getting ready for Christmas.  Genevieve decorated a gingerbread house.  Tobias and Genevieve began to make Christmas presents for family.  We read some books about Thanksgiving, like a Daniel Tiger book about Thanks, Bear Give Thanks, and non-fiction about harvest festivals around the world.  We made a turkey with thankful feathers, and Genevieve drew a family picture with a young turkey for Grandma and Grandpa.

Getting ready for Thanksgiving

We had fun creating a Thanksgiving tree this week, making some leaf, pumpkin and animal ornaments while talking about the feast of 1621 and the creation of Thanksgiving during the Civil War.  We made a few Creatology decorations - a tree house and a teepee.  Although our decor had the traditional view, we talked about how the Puritans and Wampanog didn't really look like that.

We went to all our usual activities, knowing that we wouldn't be able to next week.  Our last zoo class was this week, where we learned about rivers and ponds.  We read "Over in the River" to prepare, which also is  a lesson in some of the rivers of the US.  In class, they made fish hats and frog mail holders.  They met a toad and a kookaburra, and fed some Koi.  She made a tree banner at Michael's. 

We also made our own instruments at home out of recycled materials.  Boxes and rubber bands for guitars and shakers out of old bottles and rice or beans.  We observed how different materials make different noises when hit.

Playing Catch Up

We passed a cold around for a bit and poor Genevieve took the longest to recover so we stayed home and rested a lot.  Now we've been catching up with classes and returning to our regular schedule after dropping off Grandmum at the airport.

Before she left, Genevieve and Grandmum made "snow" out of baking soda and shaving cream, experimented with melting ice, and played music with glass bottles filled with water.  All those ideas came from DK's Look I'm a Scientist.  We've built puzzles and enjoyed some games.  Genevieve enjoys the new Disney princess cupcake game.  Tobias has been painting and lining up trains.  We made some Day of the Dead art and enjoyed some nature walks.

We had some friends over for a science day, but since we missed one we combined topics.  We explored light and shadows with a Herve Tullet book and compared flourescent and phosphorescence using a black light and the Thames and Kosmos kit.  It was fun comparing the tonic water, tumeric and detergent under a black light.  We used some red cellophane to create a red light to explore the opposite end of the spectrum too.  We also played with magnet wands to discover what is magnetic.  We also made our own electromagnet by wrapping copper wire around a nail.  We looped the ends and used electrical tape to attach them to a D battery and watched the nail pick up paper clips.  We used some balloons to have fun with static electricity too.

We made it back to Music Makers, where Genevieve and Tobias try to help me play piano this month.  Genevieve made it back to zoo class where we learned about the rainforest.  She learned about the layers and the animals that might be found there.  They used plastic eggs and beads to create a snake as well.  At Michael's, she made an ornament out of craft sticks.

On our own, we've been coloring and creating some Thanksgiving cards.  We read about simple machines and looked for some toys that are simple machines like our balance and toy screws.  We've been reading about Thanksgiving as well.

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.