Watercolor Z

We are learning the letter Z.  I think the perfect book to read for the letter Z is 'The Cat In The Hat Comes Back' by Dr. Seuss.  The cat comes back and lifts his hat to reveal all of the other cats, whose names are the letters of the alphabet.  The most important cat is cat Z, who possesses "Voom" in his hat, a force that can clean up the cat's mess. 

We decided to watercolor paint the letter Z.

When the kids are younger than 2 years old, I don't give them a cup with water.  I just spray the paints with a spray bottle of water to keep their paints moist.  This group can all handle a cup of water for rinsing the brush off between colors. 

Paint paint paint.

Paint paint paint.

They enjoyed the act of rinsing the brush.  It's nice when they get to the age that the whole paper isn't just a muddy mix of brown.

I don't use these often.  The cleanup part drives me crazy because I get a little obsessive about it.  (Wipe all of the water off underneath, wipe the paints themselves, lay them out to air dry all night.)

Look how beautiful the Z's are!  

The Z's were mighty suggestive of nap time.

Meanwhile, I purchased this at my own yard sale!  My mom had some stuff for sale.  I couldn't let someone else have this play tent.  It's large enough for all of the kids to cram themselves inside. 

♥♥♥Happy Wednesday!♥♥♥

Free Day

We had a free day on Friday.  That means no group time, no art.  Just freedom.  The girls chose to dance it out.

The boys chose the D.S.

Out we all went!  (No D.S. allowed.)

There was some tree swinging.

Some tractor driving.

The kids watered their sunflower seeds.  We were productive, while not being productive.  Play time is so important!  We will be seeing a lot of free time soon- and I am anxiously awaiting it. 

When I think back to my childhood and what it felt like to be out of school for the summer, I think of long days with time to run and play.  It's doing NOTHING that makes summer break feel like summer.  That's my goal for the kids this summer.  We didn't plant pumpkins, but we are watching and caring for the ones that planted themselves for us.

♥♥♥Happy Music Monday!♥♥♥

Taking It Outside/ Visitor

All of our work took place outside yesterday.  My adorable little handsome pants nephew came for a visit!!  The kids thought it was so cute that he stood patiently in line waiting to go outside to the flower garden.  It was time to release the butterflies.♥  

Something of note:  the hair!  I couldn't get enough of running my hands through his luscious locks.   Nor could I stop grabbing him and planting kisses on his cheeks.  He's one year old. 

 We found some pretty flowers to release the butterflies near.

The kids enjoyed taking up all of my sister-in-law's time.  They like visitors.

We weren't sure whether or not the butterflies would exit on their own.

Taking a closer look!

This one stayed on the flower that was in the butterfly garden house.  

I was glad because the kids got a good final look at it!

They were great about not touching, and being careful not to step on them.  The rest of the butterflies flew away remarkably fast!

More smiles, cheeks and hair!

"Bye butterfly!

We moved to the back yard to plant some sunflower seeds.

The kids scooped their own potting soil into the cups, planted and watered their seed.

This is something we can work on and keep eyes on over the next week or so. 

Mammoth Sunflowers!

Going for a ride in Auntie's chair!

Smooch smooch smooch!!!

♥♥♥Happy Friday!♥♥♥

Colors Of Fire

Talk continues about what fun things we might do this summer.  Campfire came up.  We thought we should create a campfire for art.  In the past I have actually planned to have a real one and to roast marshmallows, but have had to scrap the idea for lack of a helper.  Fire+preschoolers+too little supervision=nightmare!  Let's make one out of paper instead.

We glued some logs onto the paper.

We started with the red tissue squares, wrinkling them a little and gluing them onto the logs. 

They immediately noticed the resemblance to a camp fire.

Next, they added orange.  Finally, yellow.

We couldn't have a campfire without a marshmallow, so we created marshmallows out of a cotton ball on a pipe cleaner.  Hooray for campfire!

Today we need to release the butterflies.  The cats have been trying to get them.

♥♥♥Happy Thursday!♥♥♥

20 Fingers Make A Butterfly

The excitement about the butterflies continues!  I have decided that we will be releasing them tomorrow.  We learned that the life expectancy of a normal butterfly can be up to one month.  Of course, there are many factors that determine that.  Something neat though- if a butterfly emerges from it's cocoon and it is too cold outside, it will go into hibernation rather than die.  Once it warms up outside, it will come out of hibernation and do it's thing.   All five of ours made an appearance yesterday morning.

Hi, little fella!

To celebrate, we got out some paint in the same colors of our butterflies.  We are working on the number 20 right now, and we decided to use 20 fingers to create a butterfly!  Those colors remind me of Halloween.

First, we counted out 20 toys. 

"But Miss Cole, I don't have 20 fingers." 

It took a bit of convincing, but I told them that if we use both hands TWICE, we will see 20. 

They love to have their hands painted.  This project can take some time with multiple kids.  We normally spend about 20-25 minutes on our table activity.  This one took about 40 minutes for 5 kids, and they had a lot of waiting to do.  They did very well because of the anticipation of them having me paint their hands.  It tickles.

Creating a butterfly is fun!

Pretty!  Messy!

♥♥♥Happy Wednesday!♥♥♥

Butterflies

I can't believe it is June!  I often times wish that I could just skip Spring and Summer and get right back to my favorite, Autumn.  This year, however, I am truly enjoying each season to the fullest.  I've said it before, but God is a genious.  We are so lucky that the seasons change, our minds can feel refreshed with the changing scenery.  We are talking about summer, which arrives June 21st.

When I got up this morning (5:45AM), there was one butterfly in the house!  Within half an hour, another had emerged.  For the first time, I could see the colors through the chrysalis!

Soon after, another one literally exploded from it's encasement-- Aiden was describing how it just popped right out, all at once!   Then there were three.

See how the wings are all wrinkled up?  They are still filling up with blood.  They have such vivid beautiful colors!

The kids have all been watching and checking on them. 

We placed some fresh flowers in a bowl with some sugar water.  We also drizzled some of the sugar water over the flowers.  Butterflies will also drink from an orange slice. 

What an exciting day!  We had another one emerge before we left for the bus stop, and now we are waiting on the last one.  Interested in watching your own caterpillars emerge as butterflies?  

Get yours from Insect Lore.  It is truly mesmerizing every time.

♥♥♥Happy Tuesday!♥♥♥ 

Feels Like Summer

Look at the sunshine!  Here we were last week, feeding our visiting ducks after the bus stop walk in the morning.  It has been so lovely outside here in Washington.  It already feels like summer.  I'm ready to be finished with preschool.  Only two more weeks to go!

We got out the tacky glue and some Q-Tips again.  (Repeat offender.)

X-Ray!

Did you have a good weekend?  We sure did.  Adam and I cleaned out the attic together and took several loads to the dump in preparation for a yard sale.  It was nice to sit back and roast marshmallows after all of that work.  It feels like summer.  I'm THINKING summer.  It's wonderful.

'Flower' by Moby.  Turn it up.

♥♥♥Happy music Monday!♥♥♥