November 24, 2010 - Posted by CayleenRae - 0 Comments
We prayed.
We looked at our Gospel Picture.
We discussed how the records were written and saved for our day.
Or tried to anyway.
Giant was most concerned about the orientation of the picture. He was pretty sure Mormon’s feet should be at the bottom.
Then we looked at the Morning Message.
Now, before the Message, Giant had built a spaceship that he was especially proud of. In fact, he took this picture (and several like it):
In the middle of our Message work, the spaceship crashed. Problem? Ettin interference.
Ettin apologized and gave Giant back the pieces:
We carried on.
Our focus today was sounds. I asked Giant to write what he could hear:
“Frij” [fridge] and he started writing “Heat Vent.”
But then he had to go potty.
And Ettin got the chalk.
So we were finished.
To explore sound, and because I had some deflated balloons hanging around that I had been saving just for this activity (seriously), we made little drums:
“My boon pop too?” Ettin pleaded, asking me to make him a drum too.
Then, totally unrelated to sound, we drew some roads for cars to drive on, and places the cars might go to:
We played a sound game where I made noise with some familiar toys, and Giant was supposed to guess what toy it was.
Our game ended early when Giant threw a fit about me having one of his toys under the blanket.
Later, I was showing the boys how vibrations make sounds.
Note how I brilliantly capture the vibrations of one of the elastics the boys had brought out to play with?
Yes, the boys were equally astounded.
Wow, this has been one long – snowed in – no naps – big messes kind of day.
Hooray for early to bed!
November 23, 2010 - Posted by CayleenRae - 0 Comments
We got our snow gear on.
We had prayers.
We looked at our Gospel picture.
…we were running a little late for Gym.
We survived the snow and cold and made it home for a well earned snack of hot chocolate.
During snack we looked at a book about the sense of Smell.
We played a game from the book that involved someone hiding a smelly thing (like strong cheese) and then someone else trying to sniff it out.
We used an onion.
We discovered that our sense of smell sucks.
Really, we could only smell the onion if it was right under our noses.
Nose fail.
Then we played some charades:
“grasshopper”
“elephant”
After lunch and Ettin went for his nap, I played a different smelling game with Giant.
I put different smears or drops of food and extracts on cotton balls, shoved the cotton balls into some paper tubes, and gave them to Giant:
Giant smelled them…
…and wrote down what he smelled:
Then, in spite of Galoot having a blaster,
and in spite of Galoot hanging out for most of our lesson game,
and in spite of Galoot being a grump for most of the lesson game,
and in spite of the fact that mechanical pencils can be way more interesting than a lesson game,
we actually got some neat work done.
Giant thought peanut butter smelled like “nuts”
that almond extract smelled like “MrsHMlo” (marshmallow)
that chocolate extract smelled like “choclit”
that red licorice smelled like a “carit” (carrot)
that an onion smelled like an “unein” (this is impressive sounding out, just so you know. )
and that lemon juice smelled like “lemin.” (okay, actually I told him that one. The lemon juice just really didn’t smell like anything.)
Then he got to do what he had been itching to do for the whole lesson game:
take apart all the little paper and cotton ball scent tubes and see what mysteries lay inside.
November 20, 2010 - Posted by CayleenRae - 0 Comments
Still Life…
Is never Still for very long at my house.
November 20, 2010 - Posted by CayleenRae - 0 Comments
Today’s Morning Message is brought to you by…Giant!
“Friday” [FribaY]
“Snow” [Snwo]
“cold” [c/o/d]
“boots” [b____oots]
Note: I really must write the Morning Message before the boys are up.
If I don’t, I get accosted at the chalkboard and sometimes, like today, don’t even get to finish the Message by myself.
Which may or may not be a good thing.
Anyway.
It was cold, it did snow, and we wore our boots as we went to the Gym today.
Yay for us!
No really, 1 hour of kid getting ready and traveling time for 1/2 hour of exercise is something worth clapping for.
(Started getting kids ready at 8:30, was actually exercising at 9:15. Changed a diaper and outfit and cuddled a baby. Started getting kids ready to go at 10. Got home at 10:45. I stand corrected: 1.5 hours of kid and traveling time for 1/2 hour (with diaper changes and baby cuddling) of exercise.)
Why bother?
Because if I didn’t, I’d probably be more than likely to go stir crazy sitting at home with 3 crazier little boys.
It really is worth it.
Really.
I think.
When we got home (at 10:45) Giant and Ettin wanted to play a bit in the snow:
Ettin got fed up with the idea faster than Giant did:
As I was unpacking the Gym/Diaper bag, I noticed that I’d lost a shoe.
Somewhere.
Somewhere on the long trip home from the Gym.
Somewhere that would involve me bundling up the kids again and traveling to look for it. (Read, 2hrs 15 mins of kid and travel time for 1/2 hour of gym time).
I called Daddy Bear.
Daddy Bear looked for it when he got home for lunch.
Daddy Bear found it.
I LOVE that man!
After lunch I read stories with the boys:
And sang them “Mary Had a Little Lamb”
Ettin was impressed by my rendition.
After the little ones were napping, Giant and I made some more bagels to give away.
We may have eaten one or ten ourselves.
Yum!
November 19, 2010 - Posted by CayleenRae - 0 Comments
More Snow.
Ettin observed the weather in his cape and sunglasses:
Finding myself with a quiet moment (Galoot having fallen asleep in the bathroom while I was hanging laundry), I made good use of my inclination to clean the basement. Giant and Ettin joined me for a bit, and then took some books and toys upstairs.
A while later, Galoot woke up looking for a snack. Or maybe he woke up because Giant was on the potty yelling at Ettin not to touch his stuff while he was busy. Either way, I came upstairs and got the boys all a snack.
Then we did a craft.
To go along with our Mother Goose theme, we made some Humpty Dumpty Eggs to sit on a pattern filled brick wall:
They glued
They cut
Galoot observed
They stuck up their eggs
(tee hee, I think Miss Muffet may have more to worry about than a spider…)
Finished, my boys were looking for something else to do.
So they turned Galoot’s chair over and pretended it was a race car.
While there is nothing wrong with pretending, I was worried that 70 pounds of combined boys would do some harm to the infant seat. So I told them to play with something else.
Giant replied they didn’t have anything else.
I started to feel guilty for not having a lot of big fancy toys around. I mean, some kids actually have toy cars to ride in—and my boys were making due with their baby brother’s bouncy seat. And I wouldn’t even let them play with that!
Then I remembered the laundry baskets I had recently rescued from the basement.
Perfect.
If nothing else, make sure you have some laundry baskets for your kids to play with…they out perform big fancy toys any day!
They are race cars:
They are ice cream shops :
They are dog cages:
They are trains:
They are pet stores:
They are tunnels:
They are towers:
And Temples:
Four baskets + Imagination = Lots of busy fun
And, you may have noticed, I did not do a Gospel Art Picture or Morning Message.
But I do have a much cleaner basement!
And in the Mother Goose recipe books I was reading tonight, I noticed that the food for Humpty Dumpty was exactly what we had for lunch!
Which means I’m not off the ball as much as I thought I was.
…
I am also very disturbed by the fact that Humpty is eating an egg. Just so you know.
