Birthday Field Trip

Today is my husbands birthday so we took a break.  We should have been cleaning, packing, unpacking and doing other productive things.  Instead we loaded up into the car and went to the "Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum."

A nice lady took our picture in front of the Spruce Goose, so you can see I was there too.

She was very nice and told us the tale of Charlie Brown, an American pilot who was helped by a German during the war.  The girls listened well, which was a relief for me, and Merry was fascinated by the patches and pins on the gal's vest.

We made sure to go look at the type of plane plane Brown was flying.

We then began exploring the many other displays. 

I did my best to get good photo opts.

  My favorites were definitely the lunar landing and simulated rocket launch. 

I feel the most patriotic when I hear of the brave men and women who were a part of the space race.  Probably because in school "Astronaut" was my #2 career choice (right behind being a mom.)  A little piece of me would love to see the world from the moon.

 Charry really liked the GPS maze.  It was something new I hadn't seen before

 and we learned about Geocaching.  I don't think we'll try the real thing any time soon but the mini maze experience was fun.

 Merry loved anything that was "hands on."

 I think she got a little tired of being told "don't touch."

Charry liked the "hands on stuff, too.   She tried not to worry about it being "educational."  No one wants to learn while on break.

Merry managed to grab a block, she was pretty proud of herself.

Jon spent most of the time showing and explaining just out of camera range.

Jon's favorite parts were the black bird and video game, he may be getting older but he hasn't grown up yet.

I think he had a good birthday.  Now back to packing, unpacking, cleaning, and Christmas Fun.

Fabulous Fifty Days of School

Last week (or so) we celebrated our 50th day of school!  This was a big deal for two reasons, first this is the first year I've kept track of how many days we did school.  And second it is our first major theme school day.  We have various theme days but always instead of school.  So for the fiftieth I had to balance school and fun.  Step one was to look the part.

I found a poodle printout which I had the girls cut out.  We then hot glued it to simple felt skirts.  The skirts were just slightly more than half circles no sewing involved, we kept them on with safety pins.

 Once the dogs were on the skirts they glued on cotton balls for fur, well actually I was out of cotton balls so they used torn batting but its close enough.

 While the glue dried we had some 50's themed worksheets from Teachers Pay Teachers

 We dreamed of life with 50... Merry picked pink poodles.

 Then we made records of life in the 50's.

 Charry was very focused and wanted to make sure she had her facts right.

 Then it was time to dress up fifties style, neck scarfs and pony tails.

 Charry managed to look extra grown up.

 Here are the complete sock-hop outfits minus the socks.

It was a fun day of learning and crafts now I have to start planning for 100 days.

Hex-a-flex-a-gon

Turns out October is flexahexagon month. So we decided to explore the wonder of these flexing hexagons.

 The first step was trying to flex them (well step one was me trying to make them but my kids are too little to get in on that frustration.)

 Pinch, fold, flatten, if you couldn't fold pinch the other side of the triangles.  With a bit of practice they were flexing like pros.

Then we decorated the sides, this way they could discover the hidden 3rd side, it was quite a surprise for them.

 Soon we were experimenting with patterns.

 Then it was time for them to create their own flexahexagons, this turned out easier said than done and flexahexagon isn't the easiest thing to say.  They unfolded their originals and tried to use them as a template.  Eventually I stepped in and helped (maybe next year they will be able to handle them on their own.)

 Charry being older I made her decorate before folding into the hexagon.  She had to figure out where the sides would be.

Soon my table was full of hexaflexagons and I pulled up Vi Hart on youtube so they could see the hexa-flexa-possibilities!

I wonder what else we can do with hexaflexagons?

The Thankful Tree

It is finally Autumn, the season of Pumpkin Lattes and other fall stuff.  Besides coffee Autumn always makes me think of thankfulness and handprint crafts.  Thankfulness is pretty self explanatory, with Thanks Giving coming up and all, but I'm not sure why "handprint" crafts.  Maybe because in school teachers had more energy for crafts early in the school year, maybe because handprints lend themselves so well to autumn craft projects or maybe I'm just a tad crazy.  What ever the reason, I have been planning a Thanksgiving handprint tree for a few months.

 First we traced our hands (for the leaves)

 Then I tried to figure out a way to make the tree trunk.  There were some brown lunch sacks in with the construction paper.  So I twisted then into branches.

 Next I hot glued them in a tree shape.  Hot glue worked great, especially since I was out of tape.

 While I glued, the girls finished tracing their leaves and cutting them out.

 Next we wrote what we were thankful for on each leaf.

 Charry kept thinking up more (probably since it was bed time.)

Then we put our leaves on the tree.

Here is our work in progress, we plan to keep adding leaves and thinking up more things we are thankful for all season long.

Yo Ho Ho, Mateys

There are a few things I tend to get carried away with,Talk like a Pirate day is one of them.  I declared a day of Mutiny!  We hoisted the main sail for revelry and sailed in search of adventure.

The day started with the outfitting, how pirate-y were we willing to dress while going out in public?  I think we were scruffy enough.

Next we set sail, getting a bit of cabin fever as we waited for cousins to arrive, but as we called "Land Ho" they were no where in site (It appeared they too tried mutiny but were sent to the brig for naps.)

So we set about are pirate-y business smaller in number than expected but a mighty fine bunch none the less.  First on the agenda, bury our treasures (imaginary treasure they be).  To keep our plans a secret we drew out the maps with white crayon on our white paper.

Then assured of our secrets were safe we used watercolor paint to reveal the paths.

There was much (imaginary) bootie to bury and each pirate took a turn leading the others around the island.

We celebrated our success by singing a pirate-y tune.

Then it was back on the ship to watch "Curious George sails with the Pirates"

The pirate ship in the movie inspired some buccaneer creativity as they each designed their own pirate flag.

Cabin fever hit again so we went ashore to play "Polly Says" (like simon says but more pirate-y and a bit parrot-y)

We rowed back to the ship for a pirate match game.

Then we designed ships to go with our flags.

They be a good crew, not a one of them had to walk the plank so I let them dig for some real treasure.  Not dablooms but gummy ring buried in pudding.

Having had our dessert first, (a very pirate-y thing to do) we had our grub.  Cannon balls (meat balls) and deserted island fruit salad (gram-crackers over mixed fruit.)

The sun be set now and our pirate day over, tomorrow we'll be land-luvers again.  Our patches we be hanging up, until next year when pirate day comes again.