Rudolph: Center for Puppetry Arts Performance

I'm not sure what I expected when we arrived downtown at the Center for Puppetry Arts to see Rudolph, but I know I walked out in awe. This was by far the COOLEST puppet show I have ever seen. I mean, there was animation involved for cryin out loud! The stage had depth, lights, moving dancing scenery. The crew was amazingly talented and even gave a brief "behind the scenes" after the show. I was stunned. Both kids really enjoyed the show and both sat with friends leaving me to myself - I'll admit, that stung a bit. They knew I was nearby but didn't need me to be next to them, not when there was an opportunity to be with buddies. I did get cheered up when another little 3 year old friend of mine came and snuggled on my lap for part of the show :)

Oh, and we got to make out very own string puppets too. We will definitely be making a trip back there in the future for another production!

Tis the season to be BUSY! Happy Thanksgiving

I was finally getting back into blogging, and then BAM! Holidays. Traveling. Packing and unpacking. Decorating. Busy busy busy. We packed up the kids and the dog and spent 32.5 hours in the car and about 80 hours in Buffalo, NY - where we managed to eat 2 Thanksgiving dinners in that short time with lots of family gathered round. It was a cr

azy few days filled with food, family, friends, fun and lots of other stuff that doesn't start with an F. Snow. Suitcases. Laughter. Brake lights. Scattegories. Happy belated Thanksgiving!

stART: Cupcake

While browsing the library shelves after story time, the cutest book caught my eye. Maybe it was the bright colors, or maybe it was because it was past lunchtime and there was a giant cupcake on the cover. In either case, I flipped though it and brought it home.

The book tells the story of Vanilla Cupcake, a lil guy who is so happy when he first comes out of the oven, but is soon saddened and thinking less of himself when he is the last

cupcake left in the plate ; not chosen because he is so plain when compared to his colorful brothers and sisters. I thought the story had something to offer - teaching self love while also giving insight to the fact that there is no pleasing everyone.

Anyhow, the kids liked the story well enough but what they really seemed to enjoy was the craft and activity that followed. I cut out cupcake tops and bottoms using all kinds of materials and let the kids decide how to pair them up and decorate using the stash of "stuff" that has collected in my craft closet. They both really took their time and it was very rewarding for me to watch - I did spend a good amount of time preparing after all!

The follow-up activity was a trip to a small local bakery to buy us each a cupcake. Yeah, that was fun :) It smelled soOooOOO good in there and the choices were a bit overwhelming. The book has a recipe for baking vanilla cupcakes, but I thought a mini field trip was more up our alley for this week. Besides, the dishwasher was acting wonky and I didn't want to make a big baking mess ;)

stART: Fancy Nancy

Sydney has been asking me to teach her to read, so I started with some lessons from The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Reading. Today we learned the beginning verse of the vowel poem:

A is the first vowel we will say

/a/ is the short vowel sound of a.

I wanted to follow the lesson with a complete story, so what better than a Fancy Nancy book? Two short A's in her name after all :) Sydney chose Fancy Nancy: Every day is Earth Day. Afterwards she made a Fancy Nancy puppet, with a little help from mom. She chose to make the hair from red pipe cleaners and needed help poking it through the bag and curling them. She colored in a face, complete with eyelashes, and glued on a leftover-fabric "dress" and other fancy things. (the glue is still wet in the photo, that is the dark pink squiggles you see on the dress)

Pretend Passports:Our adventures around the globe

This week we started a Social Studies project that we will continue for the rest of the year and maybe even beyond - we made passports :) Every time we study a new place (any place, even ones we wouldn't need a passport to get to), the kids will be able to add a new "stamp" to their passport. I found the printable passport here and some cool printable stamps here. I even purchased some clearance stickers with city names on them at Hobby Lobby. Our first areas of study? Georgia and Africa.

I decided to start with Georgia and just go over some basics - the state flower, bird, Capitol city, etc. I integrated in some map skills with a couple of worksheets, new for Sydney and as a review for Nicholas. It was nice to see Sydney raise her working level to try and meet with Nic's, and to see him step up and help her when she needed direction. Both kids made a GA collage, pulling images from magazines that could be found in the state.

We spent some time on the couch for the Africa unit, watching Youtube videos about the cultures and animals in Egypt, Kenya, and South Africa. A new kid safe browser that I downloaded,Kidzui, helped us find safe videos quickly - and it's free to download! A printed traditional African fable made for a great story-time with us all piled on the couch. Later on they branched into separate directions, Nicholas playing some African puzzles and trivia online and Sydney making a safari picture and paper doll in traditional Kenyan clothing.

I'm really enjoying this project so far and hope that the kids are too. My time isn't split between the two of them when we study together, so I am looking for more ways to bring them both to the table at the same time :)

Scientists in the HOUSE!

Somehow, in the whirlwind of chaos that I like to call my life, I have lost sight of SCIENCE in our home curriculum. I paused one day while going over the lesson plans, realizing I'd neglected the subject. I was never a big fan of science class as a kid, but all of my experiences revolved around reading from textbooks and not understanding WHAT they were trying to tell me. Nicholas already has an interest in the sciences and I want to encourage that in both of my children. To make up for the oversight, we spent much of the past two weeks submerged in science.

In my original lesson plans, I should be through the Magic School Bus Germs kit by now. Instead, Nicholas and I did the vast majority of the experiments just last week. Too bad for us, the yeast that came with the kit had expired (no date on the package, GrrRrRR) and so had the yeast in my cabinet. Needless to say, the experiments did not do what we wanted...the yeast did not react better in warm water than cold because it didn't react at all, it didn't release carbon dioxide to make the balloon fill, and the bread was super dense. Nic still learned a lot, but active yeast would have really SHOWN him what I was telling him. I'm proposing a do-over next week and will also include Sydney - I think she'll like participating. Instead of participating with us this failed time, Sydney instead had her own curriculum about the human body using books in conjunction with a workbook I found on the Fernbank Science Center site , a valuable resource!

In another and much more successful science adventure, the kids and I went to visit the Bio-Bus, brought to us by the University of Georgia. The day consisted of a power point presentation as well as demonstrations and experiments all about the phases of matter. Both children have heard the basics of chemistry and matter before and I am excited to see that they both were able to pick up a few new pieces of information and also came away with their curiosity sparked. Nicholas mentioned perhaps becoming a scientist and was heartbroken when the instructor told him that, no, he could not buy his own liquid nitrogen at Walmart. Sydney sat (mostly) still while listening to the lecture, remembered to raise her hand to answer a question, answered a question about density correctly and got the experience of being in front of the class while demonstrating how tightly knitted molecules in ice are. We all really enjoyed watching the chemical changes made in the experiments.

My plan is to follow up this field trip with some of our own experiments, perhaps getting out some more polymer to play with and also getting some growing foam from a hardware store. I also have an episode of Sid the Science Kid all geared up for Sydney to watch that shows irreversible chemical changes in easy to understand examples, like cooking pancakes. HmmMmM...maybe I should get both kids in the kitchen to show them that same example. Sounds like science and home ec. rolled into one breakfast!

Story + Art = stART

This idea come from another homeschooling blog, A Mommy's Adventures. I think it's pretty cute, so we are joining in on the fun. Today we read "What Makes a Rainbow" as well as "What is a Rainbow". I gave Sydney a rainbow template with cut up construction paper and she made a rainbow, complete with raindrops to be the prisms and a shining sun. And if you look closely, you will see that her headband coordinates with the rainbow theme - hehe, I couldn't help myself!