Adventureland

What kid doesn't love an amusement park? All of them do, then it's crying, whining, and vomiting, lots and lots of vomiting. At least this is what I'd imagined for years. I've used the excuse that our kids have been too little so I could avoid any of the above mentioned atrocities. However, this last year they have both grown in height and can now ride many of the rides. So we planned a trip to Adventureland.

After taking high school students to Adventureland, I have a method to going through the park with little children. Start in the front of the park and work your way back doing little kid rides only. If you get there when it opens it will be cool for those rides. At the back of the park is the water park, so when it gets hot in the afternoon they will be ready for the water. After that many parents throw in the towel and call it a day. However, this is when the tired kids crawl in the strollers, and it's time for adult rides as you walk back through the park to the exit. The lines are usually shorter in the late afternoon.

My mom stayed home with our 6-month old while my mother-in-law came with us to have more eyes on the boys and help take turns riding rides. Of course, it was one of the hottest days of the year, but it didn't dampen our spirits. We didn't get through all the kiddie rides before we hit the water park. After the water park we finished the rest of the kiddie rides. However, we realized that the boys were tall enough to go on some roller coasters, so the kiddie rides turned out to be some of our rides. We all had such a great time with very little crying and whining and no vomiting.

Shadow Tracing

Curious George is a favorite at our house, which is where the ideas for many of our activities come from. In one episode George becomes a window washer on a skyscraper, but he gets distracted by all the shadows in the windows. Many times Nash, my 4-year old, will ask if we can do that, which was the case with this episode. It was very tempting to have them wash my windows, but instead we did shadow tracing outside.  

In the late afternoon, we put a writing board on the lawn with white paper over it. The boys picked dinosaurs to trace, so we put them on the white paper. They kneeled off to the side of the board and started tracing. After that I traced their shadows on the sidewalk with chalk. Then they traced Daddy's big shadow.

This activity is great to show how the shadows move. The connection was made between the shadows moving and the sun moving. The dinosaurs were left in place while we traced on the sidewalk to illustrate the moving shadows. We talked about what makes a shadow, and how we don't need the sun to make them. We need light, so the boys made shadow puppets in their room with flashlights.

This activity was also great for the boys to practice their tracing skills. They work on tracing letters and numbers, but this is far more fun with the same added practice. It also gets them outside.

Money Honey

Bug Juice is the boy's most often requested treat. The last time the boys asked for it my husband's comment was to have them get money from their piggy banks to buy it themselves. I thought it had been forgotten until the next day when I found the boys dumping out their piggy banks. This is when I decided the boys needed to be taught about money. 

I wanted to teach the boys that their money should be put into three categories: save, give, and spend. I made containers for each of them to help visualize the three categories. Their piggy banks are for savings; my homemade canning jar containers are for giving and spending. I had the canning jars leftover from my mom's homemade salsa, so I covered them with some square cut pieces of bandanna from Graham's birthday party. I made little slits in the bandanna squares for the money. I wrote spend and give along with their names on the jars. 

The boys emptied their piggy banks and lined up their coins. I explained that the same number of coins were going to go into each container. I explained the piggy bank money is to be taken to the bank to save it for when they are older. The give jar is to be given away to people that need it more than they do. I used the church as an example because they know we give some of our money in the church offering. The spend jar is to be used to buy things that they want, like Bug Juice. After the boys had added their coins to each jar they lined them up on the floor in their room to show Daddy. They were very proud of their three banks. 

I did not explain the value of each coin to them. I thought that the concept of the three categories was enough to comprehend. That was the goal today.

Pineapple Propagation

Many people like to have gardens to grow their own food, but who ever heard of growing pineapples? Most kitchen scraps can be used to grow new plants. Potatoes, onions, celery, carrots, and avocados to name a few. But don't forget about the pineapples.

My family loves pineapple, so when they were on sale I grabbed two. They were in a visible spot on the kitchen counter for a couple of days, which was like a beacon to my 3-year old. He touched and played with the pineapple until one afternoon I heard, "Mama, I boke it." The pineapple head popped off. It was twisted off cleanly, which gave me the idea to propagate it. I had my 4-year old son twist off the other pineapple head. Next, we filled two styrofoam cups with water and set the heads in the cups. The lower leaves of the pineapple head kept the bottom suspended in the water. We set the cups in a south facing window and waited and waited. Finally, about two months later roots started emerging. 

The boys checked their pineapples regularly and changed the water when needed. They liked this chore because they could touch the tops and pretend the sharp leaves poked their little fingers. I would hear a lot of ouches followed by giggles. 

It took a lot of patience for them to eventually see something happening, but it worked. The roots were fun to look at, and it gave me a chance to explain their purpose. Eventually, each pineapple head had new leaf growth, which I explained that the leaves soak up the sun for food. The boys were more impressed with the new leaves than anything because they were sharper and didn't have any brown on the tips. This made them better for the pretend ouchies. 

The next step is for them to be potted. We haven't done it because if we are gone at all in the near future, they can't be watered everyday. If they stay happily suspended in the water, they are self sufficient. 

Baby Food

Rosina is 6 months old already, which means bring on the baby food. We have been giving her rice cereal, but now we can actually start introducing real food. We decided that her first food would be based on what was available in the kitchen, carrots and sweet potatoes. The boys and I got to work making it.

I dumped half a bag of cut and peeled carrots in the steamer. I did the same with the sweet potato. After they had cooled the boys got to help. They washed their hands and put the carrots in the blender. We pureed the carrots first, washed the blender, then pureed the sweet potato. We spooned each puree into an ice cube tray for the freezer. 

The boys are always in the kitchen when I get out any appliances. They love to run the blender and try out all the buttons; a puree is good for that. Spooning out the puree into the containers was good for them to measure and improve their accuracy. After everything was done, they were very proud of the meal they prepared for their baby sister. They wanted to feed it to her right away. 

Hint: A food processor works better than a blender.

Baptism Bonanza

"A man who doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man." -Don Corleone, The Godfather. My brother was made the Godfather of our daughter on Sunday. With our families gathered together for the 4th of July holiday it becomes a great time for a baptism. I made the food for the baptism, which was a variety of meatballs or meatless balls. A local grocery store made a tiered cake, and the boys helped make a special dessert.

I wanted to make whoopie pies, but that seemed very involved. I came up with my own version that would fit with a little girls baptism and the boys could make easily. I took 2 Chips Ahoy chewy cookies and spread them each with pink frosting. I mushed the two cookies together so the frosting oozed out. Then it was rolled in pink sprinkles. I made the first one and showed the boys how to do it.

I gave each boy a plate with pink frosting on it, a plate with sprinkles, a butter knife, and two cookies. After washing their hands I explained that they couldn't lick or eat anything until everything was finished. They frosted the cookies and added sprinkles anywhere there was frosting. After the pink cookies were made they made their own designs with triple decker cookies, different colored sprinkles, and frosting on the top of the pies. They also got to have their cookie treat after the hard work was done.

4th of July

Happy Birthday America! We celebrate by attending a picnic that brings family members from across the country. My mom has hosted the annual picnic on the century farm for the past 6 years, so this year we tried making decorations for it.

I saw some white stars made in the grass from Parents Magazine. The magazine called them flour stars, so that's what we did. My husband had a star template in the garage made from plywood, which is what we used. If your husband doesn't have a hodge podge of everything in the garage a cardboard cutout star would work perfect. My sons took turns spraying the grass with a squirt bottle of water. We laid the template over the wet grass and sifted flour over the top of the wet grass. When we took the template off we had white stars in the grass.

My sons liked the feeling of textures with this activity. I didn't really think that a 3-year old and a 4-year old would use this activity to explore textures. As an adult, I take texture for granted and don't think about it unless I'm eating something that has an awful texture. The boys loved to feel the flour, which I thought was interesting because they have helped me bake before. I realized that when the boys helped me bake I didn't let them touch the flour or other ingredients too much. They also liked touching the sifter, the grass, the grass wet, the flour grass, and the flour sand.

I liked watching the boys try new ways to expand on the same activity. For example, what it would look like in the sand box, or what if we used the flour around the star. Both were fun ideas that we tried.