Slime

A couple of weeks ago, we were at the library picking out books.  Somehow, Corey ended up with a book titled "How to Make Slime" and he was very insistent that this was a book he really wanted to check out.  Not wanting to stifle his enthusiasm about the library and learning in general, I said ok and off we went to the checkout counter.

Later at home it was one of first books he pulled out.  "Mommy, can we make slime?" We read through the book, looked at the ingredients list and instructions, and even though it seemed like it would be terribly messy, we gave it a shot.

Let me be the first to say...it was actually really cool!  The little boys loved playing with it, however, they weren't very keen about getting it on their hands (crazy I know).  And in the end, it really wasn't all that hard to clean up. Maybe, just maybe, we will do it again someday.  Someday when they are old enough to get how cool it is that something can be slimy and solid at the same time!!

Sliding (pictures only)

 

1..2..3

Let me start by saying that we have very cute little boys who are both brilliant. That being said, they occasionally have moments when I wonder "how can they possibly NOT get this."  One of those moments occurred yesterday.

Our oldest loves to count.  He tries to count everything...snacks, books, you name it. He doesn't always get it right, but he is close...he has the right idea.  However, somewhere in his number learning, the number 16 disappeared. Ask him to count to 20 and no fail 16 would be missing.  Coach him over and over saying 15, 16, 17 to help him hear where it belongs and still 16 would somehow be left out.  It was getting to the point where he had said it wrong so many times that I was beginning to think/worry that his brain had made a permanent connection and he would never be able to count 1-20.

Yesterday evening Daddy decided that maybe he needed a visual.  We wrote out 1-20 and asked him to count pointing at each number...still no 16.  We tried some more.  No 16.  We finally bribed him with m&ms.  He was determined to get it right (yes, the bribe of even just one m&m is THAT strong).  He tried and tried and he finally got it!! Well, giving an m&m to one child makes the other child think he deserves one too.  So to be fair (I am a middle child after all), Daddy offers an m&m to our youngest if he will say 1, 2, 3.

Easy, right.  He is two. He repeats EVERYTHING. Here is how it went:

Daddy: Kyle say 1, 2, 3 and I will give you an m&m
Kyle: 8, 9, 10 (mouth pops open for said m&m)
Daddy: say 1...2...3
Kyle: 8, 9, 10 (repeat maybe 3 more times with Daddy saying 1,2,3 and Kyle saying 8,9,10)
Daddy: say 1
Kyle: 1
Daddy: say 2
Kyle: 2
Daddy: say 3
Kyle: 4
Daddy: say 3 (heavy emphasis on 3)
Kyle: 3
Daddy: Finally!! Here is your m&m!

Oh boy...I think I have my work cut out for me. ;0)

O, P, Q, R, S, T, U and V

I can't believe that we have covered all of these letters since I typed last about homeschool.  Sadly, I am not even sure if I can recall what we did with some of those letters.  So here goes nothing:

O. I do know that we played with some "O" sight words for this week.  We played a game of "on" and "off" using some sight word cards. I would love to think we did an owl craft, but I am pretty sure that did not happen ;0).
P. I was prepared for "P" week.  We went to the post office, mailed a package to ourselves, made peanut butter cookies and got out a couple of new puzzles.

 

 

Q. The only thing I remember about "Q" week was that we had some Q themed library books. Oh yes, we crafted some with Q tips :0).
R and S week were pretty well neglected.  We were sick for a majority of both those weeks, so mommy was just trying to make it through.  As we live in the NW, "R"ain was probably mentioned, and "S" was definitely for Sick.
T. This week I think we were trying to make a comeback. We played with the train tracks, talked about tigers and I am sure there was a tickle or two throughout the week. We even did some tongue twisters :0)
U. Again, being from the NW, we did Umbrella crafts and sang rainy day songs.  And, now don't come all Undone, we baked pumpkin pie...just because.

 

V. The week isn't done yet, but it seems like it was full of errands...or we could call them Visits! And I am happy to say that the boys really loved playing with the Vacuum!

Looking at this list makes it look like our weeks aren't very full.  But this doesn't include many of our weekly routines (grocery shopping trips, MOPs days, Library story time,  and going to daddy's work for lunch) and it also doesn't include all the time we have for free play (which often has plenty of teaching/learning opportunities).  And since the weather has been getting nice (here and there) we have had lots of outdoor play time lately!!

 

Hats and other accessories

Recently, Kyle has taken to trying on hats.  Not just putting it on and wearing it around, but almost as if he were practicing the art of wearing and placing a hat on one's head.  I must say that this new little habit of his has made for some really cute pictures. Enjoy!

 

 

 

I guess his practicing extends to accessories in general. It was quite hysterical to watch him trying to wear this pair of glasses.  His cute little nose is just not quite the right size to hold them up!

 

 

And since I am here posting gobs of cute Kyle photos, I figure I might as well add these treasures too.  Sometimes he is just too darn photogenic...and he hasn't started hiding from the camera like his big brother ;0)

 

 

Project Guitar

Just before Christmas, Corey saw a toy guitar at Target.  It wasn't just an ordinary toy guitar, no, it was one of those "I know it is going to be obnoxious" toy guitars with so many bells and whistles that you just could tell it would eat through batteries in a few hours and drive you nuts in much less. Unfortunately, he kept talking about this guitar.  Thus the idea of project guitar was born.  Daddy was going to be off work for several days for the holidays, and that would be plenty of time to do a daddy and me project with Corey.

It was great.  Corey and Daddy went out to the shop and together they cut out, routed and sanded a little wooden guitar (Daddy made a second one too so Kyle could have one too). 

And yes, we know he is holding it backwards in this photo.

 

 

Inside, we painted the guitars, and Corey picked out the stencil we used for a design on the front.
They were pretty much done with the exception of stings.  We weren't really sure what we were going to use, so it took us a while (okay weeks) to finish that last step.

Funny thing is, he referred to the Target toy guitar as the "purple guitar"
so I figured he would choose purple paint...nope, he went with RED :0)

 In the end we found some really large rubber bands, and instead of cutting them and trying to figure out how to attach them, we decided to leave them whole and have them wrap around the entire guitar...this would also make it much easier to replace broken "strings" ;0).  With a few well placed notches and a simple bridge, we had them well secured and ready to play! 

 

And Corey hasn't mentioned that silly toy guitar since :0).

Name, Numbers and Noodles oh my!

As you probably guessed from the title of this post, last week was N week.  I had all sorts of wonderful things thought up for the week, and I think I used them all up on day 1 (well, used them up, or had my idea completely rejected...Corey often wants to do a craft or project HIS way, and well there is just no changing his mind!!)!

First we started with his name.  We wrote it out on his white board, and I had him point to and name all of the letters in his name (this is not the first time we have done this...we have spelled his name out to him pretty much from the beginning).  I am happy to say that I think he actually got it this time...both letters and order!  We glued noodles in the shape of his name, and then I tried a play dough mat with his name.  He was supposed to form play dough into the shape of each letter, but he had his own ideas, so instead I did it and let him chop it up when I was done.  At least that way it was done both my way AND his way ;0).  I had the wonderful idea to let him use the play dough mat as a dry erase board so he could trace his name...but no such luck.  He just wanted to color in the O.  Oh well.

 

Don't be fooled, mommy did ALL the work ;0)

 

Corey enjoying destroying his play dough name

 

Kyle destroying his name (which mommy also made for him).
I think he was his brother's inspiration!

 

Later that day (while little brother was still napping), we dyed noodles.  He had a great time counting out the drops of food coloring and helping me pour in the vinegar (we used this as opposed to rubbing alcohol just in case Kyle tried to eat them...which he did ;0)).  It was lots of fun, but I think I left them in the dye mixture too long and the noodles had gotten a bit soggy so they were much harder to dry than I had anticipated (all the links to dying noodles made sound really easy...they also forgot to mention how stinky it was...perhaps another problem due to my letting them sit too long!).

 

 

Several days later, we were able to play with them.  We tried making necklaces (notice the N ;0)), but the noodles were a little to long for easy stringing.  I had to help Kyle with his, and Corey stopped at about 4 noodles.  Oh well.

 

 

 

Kyle modeling his necklace

We also spent some time working on number recognition and counting.  We have some neat dice that a friend of ours let us borrow.  They have the numbers 1-6 written on the sides, so we would roll the die and Corey would have to name the number showing.  All in all I think we had a very productive homeschooling week...even if it didn't all go as planned.

Oh and just a side note, the play dough mats/dry erase boards inspired yet another idea.  We made face mats.  We used them as place mats for snack and made faces with our snack food.  This could also be used with the dry eraser pens to make funny faces...like the face Corey made with a giant tooth and mouth and nothing else, then told me it was ME! Ha! (unfortunately, I didn't take a photo of that piece of work ;0))