Week of June 8, 2014: Ocean Week

We've had a really fun week learning about oceans!  We've read lots of books, did many activities and even made a trip to the zoo to see a few ocean animals.

 

 

One of our first activities of the week was counting sea shells and putting them into buckets.  I wrote a number in dry erase marker on each bucket and Katie counted out the shells and placed them in the bucket.

Rich and I went to Florida the year before Katie was born and brought back some sand and seashells.  Katie has had a great time this week playing in the sand.

 

 

 Both girls have fun coloring and get the crayons and paper out many times throughout the day.

 

Knox and Brex are going to start spending the day with us once a week!  All 3 of these kiddos are so excited to be together.  This past week we had a day of learning about octopuses.  The kids had a little "circle time" in the morning where we did our daily board of days of the week, the date and the weather.  They made octopuses out of toilet paper rolls and read books about octopuses.

We went to Evan's house for tot school this week.  The kids went on a seashell hunt, played in edible sand, made art and played in blue gelatin.  They had a blast!

Audrey loves, loves, loves the slide now.  She has no fear and has so much fun sliding down really quickly. 

 

 

 

 We took a trip to the zoo Friday to see some of the ocean animals.  We saw seahorses, sea lions, penguins, pelicans and flamingos to name a few.  The girls really enjoyed themselves and you could tell that Audrey was really paying attention to the animals on this trip. 

And just to add a little color to your day here are our beautiful zinnias in full bloom.  I am certainly no photographer but, just wanted to try to capture a little bit of their beauty. 

This was one of those weeks where we got a lot done and were really busy but, I didn't get many pictures of all the fun we had.

 

The weather has been pretty humid and warm around here...the good news is it's humid because of all the wonderful rain we have been getting.  The vegetable garden is growing like crazy and the girls are eating the sugar snap peas as fast as we can pick them.  They have lots of fun blowing bubbles on the back patio out of the hot sun.

We learned about ladybugs this week.  Katie and I made and played with lots of ladybug activities.  In this game she rolled a dice and put that number of buttons on the ladybug until she filled the ladybug with dots.

Here she's counting out the number of ladybugs to place on each numbered leaf.

We met Hannah, Sam and Ethan at the splash pad.  Katie and Ethan played in the water a little bit and then played at the playground.  Audrey stuck in the shade with me until the very end when she got brave enough to venture into the cold water.  Hannah and Sam went and got all of us some snowcones and the girls quickly slurped ours up.

 

During tot school this week we read The Very Grouchy Ladybug and Are You A Ladybug?  The kids did a counting activity with ladybug counters and leaves, we observed a ladybug we had caught in the backyard, they did a lacing activity with ladybug ribbon and they made a red and black collage.  After lunch the kids all went outside to splash in the pool.

Katie wanted to look like Daddy so she put on his glasses and sat at her computer.

Audrey is starting to color more and more.  We leave the colors out a lot on the picnic table so she can color as often as she likes. 

At the end of the week we were able to go to Arkansas for a visit with some of my cousins.  One of my cousins has a daughter who is almost 2 so Katie and her had lots of fun playing outside and jumping on the trampoline.  I thought I had forgotten my camera so I didn't get any pictures but, as we got in the car to leave noticed I had brought it and put it in the center console.  Ugh!  No pictures of our fun trip to Arkansas!

Week of May 26, 2014

 

 Miss Audrey got over being sick (for the second time in two weeks) so we were able to enjoy ourselves and our normal routine this week.

The girls colored together many times this week.  Audrey tries to copy big sister as she's coloring but, she still sneaks in bites of crayons.

 

 Katie has played a lot of dress-up.

We made delicious toffee, pecan, chocolate chip cookies and both girls chowed down on them.

 

 We enjoyed hosting a Flat Stanley from Louisiana this week.  Katie made pizza with him and he tagged along during our tot school this week.

 

 Katie dressed up like in Daddy's work clothes.

Both girls had fun playing with all their buddies at our house for a lego themed tot school.

 

 Audrey started eating whole strawberries instead of cutting them into tiny pieces.

We blew up the girls' wading pool and played in it on Friday afternoon.  It was still a little too cold for Audrey to venture in but, Katie jumped right into the frigid water.

 

Both girls have been eating the sugar snap peas growing in our garden. 

We visited Grandma's house and made fried pies!  Grandma made Katie a new apron and they made and decorated strawberry cookies.