Baby's First Play-Doh, Dodo's First Floor Drawing, and more!

Today I let Quinnlyn play with some Play-Doh for the first time!  I had to watch her the whole time, of course, since she's still very much in the "put-everything-in-my-mouth" stage :)  I was amazed that she played with it a good 5 minutes before attempting to taste it!  She really liked the squishy feeling of it, and had fun squeezing it in her hands.  Then she started pulling little pieces off and concentrating so intently on the task at hand.  Finally, once she decided to take a taste of it, she cried her sweet little eyes out when I took it away!  Little dolly.... :)

And here is the first artistic piece of Dorian's to grace our basement linoleum floor.  It's actually been on the floor for months and I haven't bothered to clean it up.  I'm so glad I didn't, because today Davin said, "I have to show you something.  I think Dorian's a genius!"  He showed me this and I said, "Yes, I know, Dorian scribbled on the floor."  "No," Davin said, "Look closely, stand over here.  It's a drawing of a face!"  Can you see it?     

Today we also did some activities from "Little Hands to Heaven", which is a fun, gentle, preschool curriculum for ages 2-5.  Here is Dorian doing the action for the letter "A", "A-A-Adam!"  There's a little fingerplay we do that starts with: "A-A-Adam, can you believe?  God made animals and you and me!"

Next, we read the story about Adam and Eve having to leave the Garden because they disobeyed God:

Then, the boys' favorite activity today: pretending that the striped scarf pictured below was a snake (the "serpent" in the garden).  The boys had so much fun jumping over the wiggly snake as I held the end and made it move!

Then, Dorian held the other end while Davin tried to go under without getting caught by the snake:

Here's Davin trying to sneak under the snake:  Why the snake is flying in midair, I'm not sure :)

Dorian crawling under the snake:

Scooting under again.  I swear they could have played with this all day long! 

Dorian pointing to the A's:

Coloring a tree Davin drew for him:

Using scissors for the first time!  I was pretty impressed with how well he did, for it being his first time.

He helped glue his 1 tree onto the page.  Doesn't his face look so sweet?

He was quite proud of the finished product :)

Fearless Quinners!

Recently, I went into Quinnlyn's room and found not only Quinnlyn, but Dorian in her crib!  They were having a grand old time playing in there :)

Yesterday, Quinnlyn discovered that she can climb onto Dorian's toddler bed, which she thinks is great fun!  The problem is, she has no sense of caution and dives or falls right off!  We need to keep a close eye on this little girl!!

Exploration Day (105): Science with Water-Mixing

My Father's World 1st grade: Day 105

We had another fun day exploring using Science with Water and learned about "Mixing" today and how different things mix with water.  We also talked about separating mixtures, what solutions are, and how to separate solutions.  Davin said it was "the funnest experiment ever!"

I set up some trays with four different substances to be mixed with water.

 The first one Davin mixed was the sugar:

After stirring it, he noticed that it took a while for the sugar to dissolve into the water, but it did dissolve completely.  Later, I heated up the water and Davin noticed that the sugar dissolved faster in the warmer water.

 The next one to mix was shower gel:

 After stirring slowly, nothing seemed to happen.  I suggested that he stir more quickly and he was delighted to see bubbles form...."Ohhh, bubbles!":

 The next one was dishwashing detergent:

 Davin remarked that the water looked "misty":

 Next was some vegetable oil.  This was his favorite one to play with:

 He liked making different designs by dropping the oil onto the water.  He noticed that unlike the other substances, the oil did not mix with the water and seemed to float on top of it.  I asked him if he thought the oil and water could be separated and how he would do it.  He thought that since the oil seems to be floating on top of the water, it could be scooped out with a spoon.  Pretty smart!  It didn't work perfectly, but theoretically it could be separated:

 We talked about solutions: mixtures that mix so well that they cannot be separated by scooping or sieving.  Davin figured out that our first three mixtures were solutions: the water + sugar, water + soap, and water + dishwashing detergent.  

I decided to get some coffee grounds and had him mix those:

 He saw that the coffee grounds didn't dissolve, but did turn the water brown:

 Then I got out my little coffee cone filter and let him filter the coffee:

 He had fun pouring it in and watching it drip:

The End!

Puppy love!

This afternoon we heard a knock on the door and answered to find one of our little neighborhood friends, E. He said, "I have some sad news. Martin, you know the dog a few doors down, has had a stroke. He's not doing too well but can have visitors if you want to see him. We're just getting the word out in the neighborhood."

When he left, I asked Davin if he would like to make a card for Martin. He thought that would be nice so he set to work at the table and this is what he made:

And the inside:

We walked over to deliver the card and see Martin. His owner was so pleased with the card! I'm so grateful for opportunities to brighten people's days and will strive to do this more often with my children!

The Assyrians, History Kart, and A Sunny Day

For history last week, we learned about the Assyrians.  I have to say, History has turned out to be one of Davin's favorite subjects (and mine too!)  It is just so fascinating, and I am glad we are starting with ancient history and learning chronologically.  It just makes sense that you'd want to start at the beginning of the story and move on from there, right?  We're using Story of the World for history:

After reading the chapter in the book, here's the narrations from Davin.  I just love doing narrations as it really shows me if he has retained what he has heard or read.  It also amazes me what he remembers and can put in his own words!:

"Shamshi-Adad was a king of Assur.  He was a bad dedicator (*he meant, "dictator").  His empire was called Assyria.  Babylonia was too great and mighty for him to conquer, so Babylonia conquered Assyria."

"Gilgamesh was a half-man, half-god creature.  He was a bad man.  A half-man, half-beast named Enkidu came down to defeat Gilgamesh.  Then a trapper's boy saw Enkidu and taught him how to talk, eat, and wear clothes.  They had a fight, but Gilgamesh said, "Let's be friends." 

Then it was time for some map work:

 We read the story of "Gilgamesh" and discovered it's one of the world's oldest fairy tales!  Davin colored this picture:

Next, he was to draw a picture of what he imagined "Enkidu", the half-man, half-beast, to look like:

This gave him an idea to draw "Enkidu's Kart", his own take on a historical "Mario Kart."  Is that totally adorable or what?  He also has Abraham with his beard shown below:

After that he wanted to go through our history book and illustrate every person we've read about so far to be a character in his "History Kart" set.  Here we have the "White Crown King" or "King Narmer" of upper Egypt (I think!) and the "Red Crown King" of lower Egypt:

Next are some Egyptian gods:

The last project was for him to write his own fairy tale, and here it is:

Super Yoshi and the Giant

"Once upon a time there was someone named Super Yoshi.  He got lost in the forest once and ran out of all the food and water he supplied.  At last, he found a house.  It looked like a giant house.  He thought, "There's no such thing as a giant!"  Was he right?  No!  "Fee fi fo fum!"  He heard a giant.  But, Yoshi didn't hear this until he ran into the house.  Slam!  The door slammed shut.  The Giant ran into see what was happening.  Yoshi hid under a giant chair.  Then the Giant locked the door!  Yoshi knew the Giant might eat him.  He had to escape!  He ran out from under the chair to hide somewhere else.  Yoshi was right; he got under the Giant's refrigerator just in time.  Ding dong!  The doorbell rang.  The Giant ran to see who rang the doorbell.  It was his wife.  As soon as the Giant opened the door, Yoshi got some food and water and ran out the door just in time!  And he found his way back home.  The End.

Last week we were blessed with the most beautiful day!  A day of sunshine and temps in the 60s does wonders for lifting the spirits in the last weeks of winter.  It also melted a lot of snow, but there were still areas where the snow piles were still 1-2 feet tall.  My boys played outside for hours on end and got oh-so-muddy, but it was so worth it!

Here's smiley Dorian, jumping on the little trampoline:

Davin, looking cute in his boots:

Quinnlyn was napping most of the afternoon, and then played in the sunporch.  Here she is trying to play peek-a-boo!:

Davin saying "Hi Quinny!" and felt sorry that his little sis was missing out on the fun outside!  I held her outside for a while, though, so we could soak up some Vitamin D :)

Watching her brothers:

Look who I found when I went to get Quinnlyn from her crib!  My sister mentioned that it looks like something my brother Matt would have done (who is 2 years older than me).  My mom said that it certainly was something that happened!  There's a lot of Uncle Matt in Dorian, I'm told :)

Hugging little sissy:

We had some fun times last week!  I'm hoping to blog a little more frequently, but we shall see.... :)

Our Valentine's Day

We had a nice Valentine's Day today!  I've always loved this holiday since I was a little girl and hope to pass that on to my children :)

Let me back up a few days and share what happened at our Homeschool Co-op on Friday.  We arrived and I noticed that several kids had Valentine's boxes with them.  I wasn't aware of a Valentine party and hadn't been informed of anything, but discovered there was going to be a party and the kids were going to pass out valentines.  I felt so terrible for Davin!!  Here all these kids had these lovely homemade boxes to store their valentines and had brought with valentines to pass out......and my kid had nothing.  Since I just go to the nursery with Dorian and Quinnlyn, I asked somebody if I could run to the store with my little ones to get valentines for Davin.  They said that was okay, so we raced to Wal-Mart and picked out some candy and a cute little bucket for Davin to put his valentines in.  So, it turned out alright in the end!

When I picked Davin up at the end of co-op, he said to me in a hushed tone, "Mama, I'm in love with a girl, and her name is Laura."

"Oh really?" I said, quite taken aback at this news!  "Where is she?" I asked.

"Right there," he said while shyly pointing to a pretty blond girl with a heart-shaped barrette in her hair.   

When we got in the car I asked, "So are you friends with Laura?" 

"Well, I didn't even notice her until the end!" he said, which made me laugh a little.  It appears as though Davin may have seen a few Valentine's Day commercials and wanted to make sure he had a valentine of his own :)

"But," he continued, "she's the most beautiful girl I've ever seen and I'm going to marry her some day!"  

When we got home, he wanted to make her a special valentine.  He cut out a heart and wrote "Be my valentime" on it.  How cute is that?  Then he put it in an envelope, sealed it, and taped a granola bar on the front.  :)  

That night before bed he said, "You know my girlfriend's name is Laura, just like from Little House."  You are on the right track, buddy, if you can talk about Little House with girls :)

So, back to today-Valentine's Day!  We made some shortbread cookies and decided to dip them in chocolate.  Dorian can always be counted on to be "Mama's helper", so he asked for an apron and said continuously: "Dodo do it!" wanting to help with everything.  It can be difficult being patient with a toddler in the kitchen and I don't always let him help (especially if I'm in a big hurry), but I know that it will pay off to have him learning and helping!  Plus, he just loves it!

"Mama's Good Helper", as he calls himself when helping in the kitchen:

 Yummy chocolate!

The finished product:

Davin had fun working on his new Mario puzzle:

Quinnlyn under the kitchen table, looking for scraps I'm sure!

"Uh oh, Mama caught me with this cracker I found!"

 My happy girl:

Quinnlyn likes looking at books:

The valentine Daddy made for Quinn:

 Here's what it said inside: "Love you, Quinners! Love, Dada Beard Face" hahaha

 The valentine Daddy made for the boys.  They loved it!!

The boys' valentine inside:

 The valentine Davin gave me:  It says "It was a fine day at the beach until someone had a case.  I had to go out in the sea and save a airplane from crashing.  I also had to arrest my arch-enemy, dr. fire.  I reflected his fire attacks and deafeated him!  Now I had to get the airplane to safety.  I saved the day!  Happy Valentimes day!"  Quite a unique valentine, eh? I love his creativity!!

The valentines I made for the kids.  Not too impressive!

We also had a nice candlelit dinner as a family!  I put a nice tablecloth on our table, had nice napkins, and the boys' favorite part was drinking their strawberry milk out of wine glasses, or "fancy glasses," as they called them :)  I didn't make a fancy dinner, though!  We had chicken enchilada casserole with a salad.  

We hope everyone had a great Valentine's Day!