Imagine It!

I took my two middle bugs on field trip to the Imagine It museum in downtown Atlanta. We love children's museums. The best ones we have been to so far are the one in Chicago and the one in Raleigh. The one in Atlanta is small but my girls still had a really good time.

Ladybug's favorite part was milking the cow.

The special exhibit right now is music. They had a jazz club set up.

Plus many instruments to play.

A country touring bus.

I liked the painting wall.

Kids for sale.

The last thing we did before leaving was watch the music performance/lesson on music. The girls got to volunteer to play instruments and hold parts of the scale. This was the highlight of the museum.

What special day would be complete without a little special treat. I got them starbucks hot chocolate!

Button Caterpillar

Buttoning has been a challenge for two of my girls. I love the idea of these button toys. They are such a fun way to get them to practice this skill. I also added a ribbon to practice tying as this is another skill the girls need some work on. Other ideas I have for this toy is size, color and pattern activities.

Aquarium

We got memberships to the aquarium in January of this year. We have really enjoyed coming here several times this year. It is a very small aquarium so we are easily in and out in an hour. It is also close to the beach so we have made several beach days out of coming to the aquarium. Today we met several families from hubby's work to have lunch and look around the aquarium.

There were many snakes today. The girls loved the one called candy cane snake.

Dragonfly wanted to look intently at each tank. This is something she hasn't been interested in any other time we have come. I loved to watch her fascination with everything.

Scissors

Dragonfly has been begging to use scissors. She struggles with all motor skills so I wasn't sure I wanted to try scissors yet. I was picturing other things being cut instead of the paper like clothes, hair or herself. But I decided to show her how and I used scrap paper and stickers. I intend for her to cut each sticker into its own square but I soon realized that wasn't going to work for today.

I showed her the proper way to hold the scissors. Her poor hands are so tiny she can't open the scissors all that wide but she was pretty content with what she was capable of doing. This was a big relief to me because I thought she would get really frustrated.

Then she started using the scissors like this but was actually able to open them up more so I figured for now that will work. She didn't manage to cut all the way through the paper but made a nice fringe. The little pieces that did get cut off she said were the snowflakes.

Art Work

The girls have been busy with art work at school. They have come home with some pretty cool pieces. I love this picture of Butterfly's. It is such a great winter scene.

I find it interesting that the school can still create Jewish art but can't do anything that would suggest Jesus exists. PF made the same observation. She thought that religion couldn't be taught in schools and I explained that really it is just Christianity that they have taken out of the schools.

Here is Dragonfly's candy cane. J for Jesus, Red for his blood and white for salvation. I think there was something about salvation and the blood being mixed but I can't remember the rest of what Ms. Joan told me. Just proof that I really need to always write everything down.

Dragonfly Preschool

This week has been busy as we prepare for Christmas. Mondays Dragonfly goes with me to MOPS and enjoys the play/preschool group there. Ms. Joan is so sweet and does the best little activities with the kids. This past Monday Dragonfly did a candy cane project and they discussed how Jesus is represented in the candy cane. I will post more on that tomorrow. Tuesday, I helped with Ladybugs class so Dragonfly had one of my friends with her for an hour. When I got back I opened a new manipulative for her and she explored that while I scrap booked with my friend that was over. I haven't scrap booked in almost 2 years so I have a lot to catch up on. Dragonfly also got to see how a lot of my scrap booking tools worked and played with stamps.
Wednesday is gymnastics for Dragonfly. She did so well this week paying attention and following directions. Last night when we got home from piano practice and church, my order from oriental trade was on my doorstep.

I ordered snowflakes for my snow box so now my box is complete!!!! I love the way it looks with all the blue and white.

I also ordered more trays. These are smaller than the other ones I have and will work really well for a lot of Dragonfly's activities. She really likes the snowman pencil grips. I have no intention of using them as pencil grips. They have holes through them so we will use them for stringing and they are different colors so we can do patterns and sorting as well.

Here is her table set-up for today. 1.Glitter snow play dough with snowflake cookie cutter. 2. big and small snowman print out. 3. jingle bell containers with snowman pencil grips. 4. button sun. 5.counting and sorting bears(her favorite). 6. Snow box.

She has yet to enjoy the button sun activity but I am hoping she will like it eventually.

Holiday workshop

I went into school today to help with Ladybug's class. They had four different craft tables set up with two moms at each table. Four groups of kids would rotate through each station. I got to help with the wrapping station. Each of the kids decorated a brown paper bag with stamps, stickers or marker drawings. Ladybug also got to make a tinsel stuff ornament, puzzle picture frame and a peanut butter pine cone bird feeder.

The kids all looked so cute with their little hats on and worked so well with each of their activities. Something I really liked that her teacher did was made one kid in each group the manager. The manager was in charge of taking their group to each station and making sure they stayed on task. At the end of all the rotations the manager gave a report about how well their group performed and depending on performance the group earned pennies to send in their class store.

Jingle Bells and Snowman Containers

I got a few winter things for Dragonfly while we were on our date on Friday. I didn't have many containers for her to just explore/play with. Then we saw the jingle bells and I knew she would have fun with both.

While playing she demonstrated:Pouring, filling, counting, sorting (two different colored bells), opening and closing, sound and of course she turned the bells into humans with voices and they interacted.

Crayon Molds

I made crayon molds for the first time. I have been wanting to make crayon molds for awhile and have had a bucket of crayons to use, it was just something that got pushed down on the to do list. I made gingerbread men and women which turned out so cute.


I also made trees for each season that I am really excited about. This batch I made for a gift but I plan on making another set to use with the girls next year. I don't have a specific plan yet but I can see incorporating them into a talk about the seasons.

Whip Cream

This is a sensory activity that I learned from a friend of mine. Can you tell Dragonfly is having issues with this activity? She only lasted about 2 minutes before we had to wash her hands. Dragonfly is sensitive when it comes to her hands and feet so these are areas we focus a lot more time on.


We need nothing specific with this activity. I just allowed them to play with it how they wanted. The other three enjoyed the activity so much that by the end of it, I had whip cream on

my walls, chairs and all over the table. We will be working on the skill of keep things in the trays we are working with.

Gingerbread Houses

We had a few friends over to make gingerbread houses with us. I had a bunch of candy leftover from PF's birthday and wanted to use it up and get it out of my house. We are striving for a low sugar diet and having candy around doesn't help. The girls also bring a bunch of candy home from school weekly. So I thought why not do something fun with it before I throw it out.

Some gingerbread sandwiches being constructed.

PF made a house boat.

Dragonfly started to just pile the candy on her plate. The girls ended up consuming alot of the candy in the process of creating which didn't surprise me. My two youngest girls were bouncing off the walls hours after I put them to bed......oh this is why sugar is being eliminated from my house. After hour two of them jumping on the beds and not settling down, I went into the kitchen and threw away all of their houses so they wouldn't be tempted to eat them the next day.

100 Club

PF has read over 36 books since school started in late August. She has earned enough points to be part of the 100 point club. Not sure what the school does with this but it is a big deal. This is PF first year in public school and minus a few adjustments she has adapted just fine to the school and is excelling. Just proof to me that homeschooling has been such a positive move in my kids life and I am so excited to return to homeschooling in a few months.

Prep Work

Life seems to always be go go go. I like to stay busy but I don't want to be busy anymore with worthless things but profitable things. I finally had a day to be home so I made a list of a bunch of things that I needed to get done.

I have been seeing a lot of button activities so I decided to make a sun because I need alittle sunshine right now.

PF helped me by making gift bags for their teachers' gifts.

Dragonfly helped with the chocolate...well just with licking the spoon clean when I was done.

A button sorting activities to keep Dragonfly busy.

Making glitter playdough.

Colored rice.

I ended up getting alot done and it felt so good to get this stuff done. Plus I did our Christmas cards which took the longest out of everything. And there is still so much more to get done. A mommy's job is never ending which is a really good thing.