Just Like School

Just like going to school!
(She did NOT want her picture taken, but she looked so cute with her backpack and lunch box!)

As I am trying to get a job, the reality of our kids possibly ending up in public school after all is setting in. There is a local Montessori school that I really like, but Reagan wouldn't be able to start going to school for kindergarten for another 3 years (Fall 2011) because of when her birthday falls. Sadly I think she'd get really bored of preschool after 3 years.

Penguin Parade

One of our recent projects that I hadn't yet managed to get posted. We learned about penguins!! We read Your Big Back Yard, which had a section about penguins, then did a craft project and a cooking project that were listed in the back of the issue. Reagan made a penguin, and then helped make iceberg cookies (meringues.) The recipe only had them flavored with vanilla, but since I have so many different extracts, I let her choose which flavor she might like to add. She chose root beer! So we had root beer float meringues. Yum!

Reagan made favors for her brother's family birthday party on Thanksgiving. We got wooden beaded necklace kits, and she strung most of the beads herself. She's very excited about Adam's coming birthday, and we've been doing a lot of fun learning projects related to it. We were at the dollar store yesterday getting some party supplies for Adam's friends party, and I have her enough money to pick out one thing to give Adam as a gift for his birthday. She decided on the type of item first, and then was choosing the specific design. She told me which she liked, ut picked a different one telling me that Adam would like that one best. She was very specific that we had to put it away when we got home, because Adam had to wait until his birthday for her to give it to him.

Of Mice and Barney

This week Reagan started playing her Dragon Tales computer game. At first she was just doing the work, but mommy was working the mouse. As she showed some interest we worked on one of the activities that gave her good mouse practice without failing at an activity for lack of mouse control. She picked it up very quickly, and can now navigate her way around the game and do most of the activities on her own until she gets fatigued. She's doing so well with it! The game is actually rated for ages 4-6, and there are a couple things that are challenging for her, but nothing she can't do! We probably should have started out with one of her other games that are more targeted to her age group, but this is the one she really wanted to do!

Yesterday we did school work, and did 6 pages form her Barney workbook by special request. We covered shapes and colors... all things that she knows, but she had a great time practicing. And worked on a new skill of actually drawing some shapes other than circles.

Learning Out on the Town

Yesterday we wet to Kids Club at the mall and learned about the desert where we live and some of the animals who live here. After Kids Club, we headed over to the book store to story time where we learned about apples. Reagan had a good time listening to a story, playing ring-around-the-rosie with other kids and making an apple tree with sponge painted apples!

Update on the last week!

We finished off last week with doing some more fun Halloween activities, including coloring paper pumpkins, drawing pumpkins, practicing letters etc. Reagan also did several journals.. a favorite of hers. We've watched several different episodes of Super Why and Sid, and did a magnifying glass investigation one day after an episode of Sid.

On Friday we made Witch cake for cousin Maddie's birthday. Cousin Maddie lives in Virginia, but Reagan insisted that since she was turning 3, we needed to make a cake for her. So we did... but made it kind of Halloween themed. Reagan mixed it all up herself, and picked which special pan we would use. Then I decorated it while she was napping.On Saturday Daddy was home! Reagan helped make home-made trail mix for going camping this week! It was also Yukon's graduation from puppy class. To celebrate we took her for a groom before class. Since that takes a while, we headed over to the mall where we got dinner and took the kids to the soft play. It was Adam's first time there since learning to walk, and he had a great time! Reagan had a really good time as well except that little girl bit her on the arm. The girl then bit an older girl and Reagan started lecturing her about how she shouldn't bite people because it's not nice. We got smoothies, and then all went to Yukon's class and got to see her graduate!

On Monday, daddy's vacation started, and we packed up and headed to the lake for some camping!!! It was the first time for both of the kids! Vacation for daddy didn't mean vacation from school though! Reagan made a camp journal while we were there and we learned a little bit about our senses; doing bark rubs and talking about touch and the way different things feel, and their textures, what things we heard, saw and tasted! We took a great nature hike, and also simply had a good time! Thursday and Friday were relaxation days and we really didn't do too much as far as school work. We did watch some Super Why and Sid of course, especially Sids about our senses! We'll be learning more about that this next week hopefully! (For more on camping check my regular blog, and keep an eye out here for photos of Reagan's camp jounrnal!)

Today, by request, we watched Reagn's favorite Sid; The Perfect Pancake! She loves if because the experiment they do is making apple sauce, and she likes doing that. So we made apple sauce today too! We also watched one about science tools and she's asked to get a ruler for her pencil box so that she cna measure things. :-) One of the great things about doing things over and over is that they really start to understand the concept better with the reptition. Reagan can now tell you that to change the apples from hard and difficult to mash, to softer we should heat them up because heat will change them. She also understands that they can not go back from being applesauce to being just apples, and will tell you that this is called irreversible change! So wonderful to see her learning all these great basic scinece concepts. Thanks Sid!

Pumpkin Patch Diorama

Well we did get around to that craft project after all! We made a fun pumpkin patch diorama. First we colored the background with crayons, and then Reagan decorated with sticky back foam Halloween cutouts. We've used it to decorate our mantle for the holiday!

We also had the chance to check out the Sid the Science Kid website and played a bunch of their learning games! Reagan loved it, and was begging to play more!

Sid Sauce

Today we watched the review Sid the Science Kid about how and why things change. They reviewed change in general, growth, and decay. We then did the project from the change episode... making apple sauce!! First we tried mashing the apples right after they were cut. It was really hard to do, and we couldn't mash them up much at all! (Sorry no pic of that.) Then we put them in a steamer bag in the microwave to heat them up. The heat change the apples and made them all mushy.
We decided to make ours into baked apple sauce, so besdies the cinnamon Sid added, we also added raisins to ours!The finished product sure looked yummy!
And apparently it was!
Yesterday we did some Halloween studies and put up some decorations. Yay! Today we still might do some more... possibly an art project. If we do I will add an update about that later. :-)