Sand Art

It was POURING rain yesterday!  I don't just mean pouring, but the kind of rain that overflowed all of our rain gutters to the point of waterfalls happening around the house.  It was incredible!  Remember how I accidentally repeated a weeks of curriculum?  It made me dig through my reserves as far as quick projects go.  I pulled out some sticky board sand art projects.  The kids worked on trays to contain the sand. 

The goal is to only pull the paper off of the sections you want to color, one piece at a time.  It required my help, pretty much the whole time.  No biggie.  I would remove the small pieces for them and cut open the bags of sand.  I think I purchased these kits here at Oriental Trading.  I think it came with 24 kits total, and we have been using them every Spring at Henle House for 3 years at least.  I love these because each sticky board includes it's own supply of colored sand. 

The kids poured the sand onto the spot they wanted to color, and spread it around with their fingers.

Half of the fun was just playing in the discarded sand.  They could've played in it for a while.

The results are beautiful!

♥♥♥Happy Tuesday!♥♥♥

Husband!!  It's taco Tuesday!

Music Monday

Friday we finished up our week of letter Uu, and this morning I opened up my curriculum to see that I accidentally planned to do it all over again.   Oh well!  

We created our final umbrella and glued the letter Uu under it.

We knew that soon we would be getting the umbrellas out again for real.  Sure enough, the rains have returned!  I love the feel of it this morning.  It makes me feel like Fall is near.  What is wrong with my brain?  I could skip summer sometimes and get right back to Fall and be happy.

Sunshine snack times are the best! 

It's Monday and I have decided to try to post on Mondays about great music that I am loving at Henle House.  We'll call it Music Monday!  Music is one of my favorite tools.  It creates a mood.  The music that I have playing can affect the overall feel of the place.  It sparks creativity or calms a crowd.  It amps them up just as easily.   It's a very dark and stormy morning in Snohomish.  I needed something soothing, not too sleepy. 

♫This morning I am LOVING Joni Mitchell's Hits album.  "Carey".  It carries me away. ♫ You can listen to samples and download it here at Amazon.

♥♥♥Happy Music Monday!♥♥♥

Best Day Ever

Any day that contains peanut butter is the best day.  I noticed that we had an excess of it and decided we would make some more bird feeders. 

This is what we did.  Slop, spread the peanut butter onto the t.p. tube.

The blobbier it is, the better.  Is blobbier even a word?  We all understood it.  It was, afterall, the best day ever.

Into the bird seed the blobbiest tubes went.  Mission completed.

We took off down the street to the park.

Climbing ensued.

If the goal was for none of the kids to look at the camera, then I reached the goal.  We were just so happy to feel the morning heat!  It was well into the 80s yesterday.  This kind of heat just doesn't usually happen in May.  We soaked it up.

It was sunshiny, happy, sweaty, thirsty fun!

 Look at that smile.  It really was the best day ever!

We always say "Goodbye, park!  See you next time!"  It makes it easier for the kids to leave.  We continued down the street to visit with our giant tree.  I thought we should look at what the leaves look like in the Spring.

 "Hi, tree!"  "Remember the leaves on the ground, Miss Nicole?"  Of course I do.  It was one of my favorite times at the tree.

I love that they remember things that we have done.

We can't do anything without a group shot. :)

Thank you God for such a beautiful tree, and for giving us the best day ever!

♥♥♥Happy Friday!♥♥♥

Group Shots Throwback

We practiced writing our names yesterday. :)

This is what I created for each child to trace.

 Because name writing is so boring, I use stickers to motivate the kids.  They all did a great job!

I love to take group shots.  It is so fun to look back at the ones from the past and laugh and remember all of the kids who have made their way through Henle House.  I also like to just make the kids wait and see what happens.

 "Come on, Miss Nicole!"

 "It's taking forever."

 They thought they were hilarious!

Here is my favorite from yesterday.

Throwback photo time! 2013.  These kids already look different.

2013.

2013.

2013.

2013.

2013.

2013.

2013. Cookies!

Early 2013, using "binoculars".

2011?  I LOVE this shot.♥

2011?

2011?  None of these kids are here anymore! (That's my Aiden in the center.)

2010.

2010 or 2011... Not sure.  Raspberry picking at Biringer Farm.

ANYWAY-- I could reminisce forever. :)  Good times are had at Henle House.

♥♥♥Happy Thursday!♥♥♥