Weekend fun! (and learning!)

Greetings All!

I hope your weekend was as lovely as ours was!  As a general rule, I do not travel on holiday weekends if I can at all help it.  Pre-kids it wasn't an issue, obviously.  But with kids - forget it.  I have to say that my older 2 are fantastic travelers (having a car with a DVD player definitely helps on the longer treks) but our 17 month old is only so tolerant.  Anyway, we remained close and did things mostly around the house.  I did more lesson planning, more organizing in our classroom, and prepared for upcoming art and science projects.  My husband and older kiddos did some much needed weeding in our front gardens in addition to transplanting a couple of sad azaleas that are now in a much happier spot.  I found our children in the classroom about 60% of the time this weekend!

I love that our kids naturally come into the classroom on their own accord to do art, read and hangout. It makes me so happy that we've created a space for them where they always want to be! (and one that involves learning and creativity!  I won't wax on, I'll just leave you with some pics. (and captions, of course ;)

morning walk find

happy and loving anything by Kevin Henkes

the tongue means he's really focusing!

using Copics with Saturated Canary...my girl has exceptional taste!

so sweet

family walk time!

naps DO rule

too cute

totally enthralled with the newest Usborne Books catalog...makes my heart want to burst!

he smells like cookies...always...#hesmellslikecookies

rosewood...yum

besties

walking at sunrise

exceptional gardening by hubby and older kids!  

creepy AND cool

Daisy - our cousin =)

snuggly

sunrise walk #beautifultimeofday

my walking buddy

We performed an experiment in combination with the discussions we've been having on Ancient Egypt.  We've been reading about how important make up was to the Egyptians in their everyday life and decided to find out how they made their makeup or face paint.  We ground up different flowers and berries to see what colors they would produce.  We did two different groups for each flower, plant or berry.  The Egyptians would mix their minerals or other items used for makeup with animal fat to enable it to stick to the skin.  The first group we did was simply the plant, berry or flower ground up.  We used a piece of slate and a rock and ground them by hand.  We then used a paintbrush to brush the smashed substance onto watercolor paper.  We drew the item we were using, wrote predictions and then our observations.  Both kids remarked a number of times how difficult it must have been to grind up enough to have the quantity needed to wear it every day.  Interesting...

The second group we did the same thing only this time we mixed the "smashings" (for lack of a better way of describing them) with a little butter (I don't regularly keep animal fat lying around;) to see the results.  They would put that on the watercolor paper next to the first sample and we'd discuss our findings.  It was beautiful to see them so interested and focused on what was going to happen next! The end result is a great exercise in observation!

We ended the day with a taco dinner followed by ice cream sundaes in our bed, a new Scooby-Doo movie and snuggles with our favorite puppy.  #thegoodlife

Until tomorrow friends!