other stuff

the other morning i came into the kitchen to find tesla like this.

i was informed that he was making lemon cookies.  he sawed a lemon in half (i stepped in to supervise/assist right after i walked in and saw that huge knife in his hand), squeezed it into the bowl, and then dumped in some 9-grain cereal.  mmm.  tasty.

he was really set on having cookies though, so i promised him that we'd make some after he and D took their baths.  we ended up making chocolate chip cookies (for breakfast).  i was ready to make lemon but he changed his mind and decided chocolate chip sounded better.  can't blame him.



i love desmond's posture in this picture.

we found some kipper books at the library (not pictured) and the boys were THRILLED.  thrilled, i tell you.  they adore kipper.  so much so that i've been informed by several people that the boys sometimes speak with british accents.  (it's very amusing.)



the boys are finally getting to the age where craft projects might be in our foreseeable future.  i let them paint the other day and they loved it.  it actually occupied them for around 20 minutes, too, which is about 16 minutes longer than the last time we tried it.  

 tesla

 desmond

the final products 

and in other, very exciting news...the subaru keeps breaking down so i have been forced to learn to drive a stick shift.  i am proud to announce that today, i drove the troopacabra* to the grocery stores and home without any mishaps, tickets, or maiming of pedestrians!

ye olde troopacabra.  i feel so legit driving it around.

what's new with you?

---------------

*a while back we nicknamed the trooper "the troopacabra" (see chupacabra), and now that's what the boys call it every. time.  "where's daddy's troopacabra?  you gonna drive the troopacabra mommy?  we go ride in the troopacabra and see the snow**?"

**they're obsessed with snow, even though we don't get any here.  we're going to have to take a trip up to flagstaff during break so they can see some.

preschool: counting train

so you know tesla loves to play alphabet train.  (and that he is smitten with trains in general.)

every single day, without fail, he asks to play alphabet train as soon as we put desmond to bed.

the alphabet train has been really helpful in cementing the capital vs. lowercase concept for tesla.  i hadn't really introduced the vocabulary before because i didn't want to confuse him, but now he can easily identify the capital and lowercase forms of each letter.

however, i was getting bored of playing alphabet train every day.   :)  so i decided to expand the concept.  tesla's pretty solid on his letters, but numbers are still a bit shaky.

enter the counting train!

 available in the homely thanksgiving-themed colors of brown, cream, and orange!

(we ran out of construction paper)

i  made cards with the numbers 1-20 (although we usually just use the 1-10 set, since recognizing the written numerals is a relatively new thing around here and the 11-20s just confuse him).  we practice counting and numeral recognition as we add each "car" to the train.

and still, the simple fact that i told him it's a train makes this game enthralling.

toddlers.  so easy to please.

i plan to continue the train game, adding a sight words set and possibly a set for rare color names.

let me know if you have any ideas for categories!

preschool: prewriting skills

placing coins into a slot,

threading pieces of straws onto yarn,

and stringing and sorting froot loops.

skill-building doesn't have to feel like work.   :)

preschool: homemade playdough

finally.

FINALLY the boys are old enough for playdough!

we've done it before (both homemade and storebought) with limited success.

well, limited success with the storebought.  the homemade was pretty bad.

in the past, playdough has only captured the boys' attention for about 3 minutes.  also, they ate a ton of it.

but this time, they loved it.

and, they didn't eat it.

(maybe we're actually starting to move past the "everything-must-go-in-my-mouth" compulsion.)



i gave the boys each some plastic easter egss, some lids, and some straws (full-size and cut up).

they also claimed some butter knives from the cutlery drawer.

tesla loved making playdough worms (he informed me that they were actually "trains", in accordance with his locomotive obsession) with the straws.

they both loved pressing the lids onto the playdough to make circle imprints.

(they do this a lot on the carpet with lids and pots.  making circles is thrilling.)


they were entertained for quite a while.

until an airplane flew over.

----------------------


here is the recipe we used!

playdough

from art nest

1 1/2 c of flour

3/4 c salt

1 1/2 c water

1 TBS vegetable oil

1/2 TBS cream of tartar

food coloring (amount needed to achieve desired color)

Whisk all ingredients in a saucepan over medium-low.  Once mixture is smooth, exchange the whisk for a rubber spatula or wooden spoon and continue to stir occasionally until mixture thickens and begins to form a mass.

Remove from heat and scoop mixture out onto a sheet of wax paper.  Allow to cool for a minute or two, or until cool enough to touch.  Knead for a couple minutes, and then use or store in a ziplock.

yield:  about 2 1/2 cups

messy

messy hair.

desmond

messy beans.

 tesla and desmond

(now imagine every single one of those beans spread across the entire living room and kitchen.  i'm still finding them.  sensory bins and i are not on good terms right now.)




and an unrelated but delicioso cheese sandwich.

happy monday.

window crayons

we love them.

the boys have asked to do this every morning this past week.

they're very easy to clean.  they wipe right off skin, and (so far) wash out of fabric easily (thanks for testing that, desmond).  to clean the windows, just wipe with glass cleaner and a rag.  make the wee ones help.

preschool: alphabet train

a few days ago i decided to try out this activity with tesla.

(question:  i've seen all these activities and crafts using paint chips--are you really allowed to just take handfuls of paint chips from walmart or home depot or wherever?  i've never even taken one...i have this paranoid fear that if i try the paint section workers will swoop down on me and demand in nasally tones, "Ma'am, exactly where are you going with that paint chip?")

anyway.

so since i obviously had no paint chips, i made my train out of construction paper.  (between doing stuff with the boys and teaching primary on sundays, i'm pretty sure i'm using up about a tree a month.)

we did this during tesla's focus time, and he looooved it.

as in, he finished it and asked to do it again.

and then again.

and cried when i said dinner was ready and it was time to put the "train" away.

he picked up on the idea of matching upper/lowercase fairly quickly, which surprised me.  and the simple fact that i told him it was a train made it exponentially more fun.

every few matches, he would exclaim, "MOMMY!  I make a train!"

conclusion:  simple activity with a high repeatability factor.

definitely recommended.

preschool: matching (and things to do with socks)

today i had a stroke of brilliance and brought out all our tupperware.

 we lined up all the lids and all the containers and then i had the boys match them.

 they loved it!

and they actually did really well.  there was a lot of "yes!  i got it!"s from tesla.  i just sat back and watched and gave occasional commentary.

"good job."

"oops, that one's too small.  try another one."

(low-involvement activities are my favorite.)   ;)

after all the lids and containers were reunited, the boys moved on to making "big towers".

of course.  (i can't remember the last time a day went by wherein i didn't hear the phrase "mommy, it's a BIG TOWER!!!I" at least once.)

(and of course, that's when the arguments started, since desmond was interfering with tesla's big tower. we moved onto another activity before moods started to shift too much into "fight mode".)

we tried matching socks, but the boys just struggled over who got to wear the pink socks.

(i'm serious.)

desmond

 tesla

my pretty little princesses.

lucky for us, there are tons of things you can do with socks.  socksketball (with a bucket).  "sock"er.  bowling with sock balls and tp tubes.

now, if i were a Really Fun Mom, i would have hand-sewn or crocheted the pins for our bowling game.  

or at least decorated the toilet paper tubes.

but that's not me. i don't cut my children's sandwiches into elaborate shapes.

i'm pretty sure some of the tubes still had bits of toilet paper stuck to them.

but what the heck.  they were clean, all right?

preschool update

so i thought i'd let you know how things are going.

i slacked off for a while on preschool and there was a big difference.

the days seemed longer (especially the dreaded afternoons) and i had less patience with the boys.  i don't know what it is about having some planned activities, but it makes a world of difference in all of our moods.

when we first started i was hand-writing out my plan for every day (ugh) and trying to figure out a good rhythm.  i've pared it down a lot and this is what i've been using to plan my "lessons" (and i use that term quite loosely):

 i printed the page and put it in a clear page protector, and i write on it with wet-erase markers.  it's in my command central binder (which i haven't actually worked on much yet).

 the beginning (when we i sing the days of the week and months of the year), starfall time, and music and movement are always the same, so i don't have to "plan" anything there.

(for music and movement, i have a list of a bunch of songs to help me if i get stuck.  basically we march/run around in circles and sing every song i can think of.  today we did instruments and brought out the bells, shakers, drums, etc.  it was actually pretty fun, even for me.  [let's be real here.  as much as i love them, hanging around with toddlers all day isn't exactly intellectually stimulating.]  music and movement usually lasts from 10-20 minutes, depending on the boys' moods.  and on how quickly i get bored/my throat gets dry from singing.)

theme:  this is where we usually do some sort of art project (if i feel like it).  coloring, gluing, etc.  i usually pick a random theme for the day (a shape, a color, body parts, an animal...whatever) just to help me come up with an activity.  today we did sorting and matching, so no messy art projects.  :)

activity:  so far this is has been things like blowing bubbles, food coloring in water/oil, "washing dishes", etc.  not always water activities, but that's all i can think of right now.  basically i pick something simple, not messy (water isn't a big deal, as long as we do it in the kitchen), that will take 10-15 minutes.

independent play/focus time:  this is usually 20-30 mins (depending on whether or not they're crying during IP).  ;)  one boy goes in the room while i do a focus activity (usually something geared towards practicing a skill, counting, letters, colors, etc.) with the other boy.  then switch.  usually i have some ideas of things to do and then see how it plays out (like today, the focus time activity i had planned was over desmond's head so we ended up counting eating cheerios and threading them on toothpicks).

morning activities:  here i just list ideas of things we can do if there's a lull in the day.  stuff like blanket time, reading time, maybe an activity that i come up with that they can do with minimal supervision.  i use this section for ideas of things to occupy the boys if i need to work on dinner (often i cook it during naptime, but sometimes i...nap instead.)



and a lot of days when we haven't done formal "preschool time", i just pick random activities to fill boring spots in our day.  on those days i'll just list a bunch of stuff on the planning sheet and pick whatever sounds good at the moment.

*i just feel i should add, that preschool time does not have to be a lot of work.  i don't put a lot of work into it.  it takes me just a few minutes to plan, and i have so many activities pinned on pinterest that it's usually fairly easy to find something.  it might look like i'm doing all this cool stuff, but...i'm not.  writing it out like this and taking pictures makes it seem way more involved than it is.

**my second point.  i do not believe that children should be entertained every minute of the day.  that is not my job.  i also do not believe children should have crazy academic schedules ("okay bernice, first we're going to have your mandarin lesson, and then we'll move onto violin appreciation and toddler algebra concepts!")  children learn best through play.  but i think it's okay (and even good!) to have some predictability, some structure to your day (if you want it).  balance is always nice.

and to end, 2 amusing stories for you.

yesterday we were sitting in church with about 10 minutes left to go, and silas remarked on how bored the boys looked.  (desmond was in my lap with his head tipped back, saying, "umbrella...umbrella...umbrella...")

i said, "good."  silas gave me a weird look.

"i just meant that it's good for them to be bored sometimes," i said.  "life isn't always fun, and they need to deal with it."

i wasn't feeling very patient yesterday.

and this morning, i was in the kitchen when i heard this excited stage whisper:

"desmond, look!"

less than a minute later i turned to see two grinning boys, standing in front of me, with a fistful of condoms each.

they found the treasure trove.


(duNUH!!!)

our foray into the realm of sensory bins

i've been intrigued by the concept of sensory bins for a while.

they just seem so...cool.

i mean, i want to play with some of them.

but they also seem so messy.  jello, birdseed, beans, rice...tiny and squishy things that i do not want to be cleaning up off the floor.  (if we had a house i wouldn't mind doing some of these things in the driveway or on the yard but alas...we do not.)

so i decided to start simple.  with shredded paper.

i tossed in a couple plastic serving utensils, a horse, a dinosaur, and a cow.  (yeah, so i didn't make an artfully constructed themed sensory bin...)

desmond

but they loved it.






...and then they did this.

tesla

tesla

i didn't get a picture, but by the time they were done, the carpet was covered in tiny bits of paper, and the kitchen had been sprinkled liberally.

plus pieces of paper kept sticking to the boys' feet, and they obligingly tracked them through the rest of the apartment.

so.

was it messy?

YES.  YES,YES,YES.  i fully expected them to dump the contents of the bin out, and i had prepared myself to be okay with it.  however, i did not anticipate the full scale of the mess that would ensue.  thankfully, it was just paper.

was it hard to clean up?

a little trickier than i expected.  i enlisted the boys' help by telling them they couldn't eat dinner unless they assisted me (and yes i would have sent them to bed without the evening meal if they had refused to help).  we scooped up as many handfuls of paper as we could, but there was still so much left on the floor that we couldn't get.  so i had to bring out the vacuum for the rest of it.  not the best thing to do to your vacuum, but i didn't really have any other options.

(it was, however, a piece of cake to clean the kitchen--all i had to do was sweep the paper into piles.)

was it worth it?

well, when i was taking the above pictures, tesla came up to me and said (unprompted), "it's great!  oh mommy, thank you!"



:)

well then.  i suppose it was worth it.

maybe i'll do it again sometime.

next year.

i can do it myself

so today during naptime i was scanning blogs and my pinterest board for preschool activity ideas.  nothing was really jumping out at me, so i decided i would actually try to come up with something on my own.

and do you know what?

it can be done!

(shocker)

i was inspired by this book (it's one of my favorites and the boys adore it):

here's what we did.

i cut a piece of construction paper in half (one for t and one for d) and glued on their respective pictures and names.  then i cut out 2 sets of 10 apples and labeled them with the numbers 1-10.  (obviously if you had apple stickers you could save yourself the cutting and the gluing.)

i showed the boys the book and their pictures and told them that we'd be reading Ten Apples Up on Top and that they would get to put apples up on top of their pictures, too.

so i read the story aloud, and each time an apple was added, we stopped and glued another apple "up on top".   (and of course, counted all of the apples...)

overall, this was a little bit of a stretch for desmond's attention span--plus he kept ripping his apples off--but it was a great activity for tesla's age. (2 1/2 +)  i thought it was fun and kind of a cute idea, and i was proud of myself for coming up with it (as complex and brilliant as it was).  ;)

behold, apples up on top:

we also did a pouring activity

and another, extremely messy activity that you will hear about tomorrow.


have a happy week!  i hope it's starting to cool off, wherever you are.  (unfortunately, we've still got at least 3 1/2 months of summer left.)

clean messy fun

we did preschool again yesterday.

(2 whole days in a row!  i'm so proud.)

desmond

tesla

silas remarked at dinner last night, "preschool makes them...really happy."  

meaning that dinner was actually a really pleasant experience for everyone involved.  (score)

they do seem to like it, and it puts them in good moods.  (i don't have high hopes for today, since i'm anticipating them to be tired, cranky beasts.  we played at nana and papa's today and then they FELL ASLEEP IN THE CAR on the way home...so of course naps were not taken.  naptime's about 30 minutes from being over and there is still a lot of noise coming from that room.)

this is what "ice cream cones" turn out like when you do them with children under 3.

tesla

desmond

we did the indoor bubble blowing from play create explore yesterday for our activity.  i figured it would be an easy "messy" activity to help me ease into that sort of thing.

it was a hit!

after taking a few pictures, i wanted in on the action.  (it was actually pretty fun...of course i made the biggest bubbles.  not that i'm bragging or anything.)

not pictured:  the floor after they splashed and then dumped the rest of the water out.

but hey--it was just soap and water!  the floor was actually cleaner after we wiped it all up.  win win.

*confession:  sometimes i can't tell the boys apart in pictures, from behind, and from above.

and they're not even twins.