Year Three: Week Four: Journey to the Past

"Absence, with all its pains, is, by this charming moment, wiped away."

~James Thomson

It has been a crazy couple of months! The craziness started in November and it only now settling back into some form of normalcy. So, here we are taking a look back at our schooling, from last year (sheesh!), and I am going to really try and catch us up before next Christmas. *crosses fingers*

Meet Mr. Dry Bones. A lovely friend we made from paper plates. Another great Pinterest find that I cut out while Sidekick was taking a bath one evening. Yes, it's that easy. Here! 

 After we put our friend together and went over the bones (total simplified version), I had him draw his own version of a skeleton. I think he did wonderfully! But I am his mom so yes, I am biased. 

Sight words! Sidekick is on his way to reading! So, this is some reinforcement practice of common words. 

 It was once October. Which means, it was Halloween and pumpkin decorating was a must. Abstract art is quickly becoming a favorite of mine. Again, I am happily biased. 

 Pumpkin structures! We had a lot of fun with this and imagining the rooms and all the friends that lived in our house. 

Sidekick wanted nothing else but to be Yoshi for Halloween. So I stretched my crafty wings and made his little dream come true. I bought the crochet hat on Etsy, turned his spiked dragon tail into a more appropriate Yoshi tail, and fashioned a shell and white belly out of felt and cloth. They slipped onto his shoulders so I didn't have to ruin a good set of thermals for one night of fun. Yes, it looked quite homemade but he was happy and that's all I care about. 

Birthday fun! Daddy was leaving shortly after our Sidekick's actual birthday so we took advantage of Halloween weekend and had a costumed birthday party! Our Mario obsession continued into the party planning and our little Yoshi was ecstatic! Another bit of craftiness went into the cake and one of the party games. The entire cake is homemade: the bottom is rainbow cake (per his request) and the mushroom is made of Rice Krispie treats. All covered in homemade icing. My mom made my birthday cakes for many years and it is something I enjoy doing for my sweet boy every year. 

The last drop of my craftiness was this Pin-the-Mustache Mario. I googled a picture, found a piece of cardboard (that I knew I would find a use for eventually!), drew him in pencil and then painted the day away. The mustaches are simply felt. The kids loved it so, all the work was worth it. 

So there we are. After this, my days got crazy full of school and fun visitors. Then the traveling came; which I'm still recovering from. But all that is for another day. One, maybe two, more posts and then I am caught up! More adventures to come, see you soon!

Year Two: Week Nine {and Ten}: Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Bones

Never let your schooling interfere with your education.

~Mark Twain

Well, somehow almost a month has gone by! I knew we would lose a week with our traveling and then I was sick and wasn't up to much. I still think I've lost a week that I can't account for. Hmm...but, it's gone now! So let's move on. Here's what we HAVE been up to, in our little lost-time world.

We talked about our bones and our 5 senses these past couple of weeks. 

Take a look!

 For this one, I traced our hands with pen and then glue. Then I made my "bones" and had my sidekick come in after and copy my picture. He did fantastic! We talked about our bones in our bodies and how they work. HERE is where the idea came from.

This was a fun one! I got the idea from HERE. I changed it a little though. This was our process:

Favorite Shape = Body of monster

Favorite Color = Color of body

Age = Number of eyes

Rectangle/Oval Mouth = Boy/Girl

Hair Pieces = How many letters in your name

Favorite Number = Teeth

Then my sidekick insisted on arms, fingers, legs, and tickle toes.

He really enjoyed this one! 

This one was all about our senses. While he was at school, I put some treats into three bags. Once he came home, he asked for a snack, as always. So, we played "Guess the Snack" game! He thought it was a lot of fun!

 His favorite part was tasting, of course.

 We did a very simple, and yummy, version of THIS.

 So, we got to spend some time with Mimi a couple weeks ago. Sidekick and I took a plane to Oklahoma, picked up our dogs, and our Mimi, and road tripped back across half the USA to our new home. It was quite the adventure. {This is also when I was at my most sick. Not so fun for me, or my poor mom who was stuck driving while I felt like death in the passenger seat.} We made it back safe and sound and got almost a whole week of Mimi time! 

Then she had to get back home and I needed a distraction because it was going to break my sidekick's heart that she was gone. So...CAKE! Bright green cake, bright blue icing, and as many sprinkles as he wanted. Yep, I'm that mom. And yep, it worked. Until he asked for Mimi to come back so she could eat our amazing cake with us. So, it worked for a little bit. 

Now this looks like it was fun but, I made it hard. On both of us. I wanted him to work on his *listening* because, it's been lacking the past couple of weeks. Which is exhausting. So, we pulled his wood toys out of his busy box and set to work on building a castle together. My intentions were to follow the instructions this time, instead of building a crazy castle. So, I look at the instructions, he follows what I say, and ta-da, we make a cool castle. But, he didn't want to listen the whole time. He didn't want to smile for a picture once it was finally completed. I wanted to kick the whole thing over from his attitude and give him something to cry about. Don't worry, that didn't happen. We took a time out from each other and then came back to marvel at what we did accomplish. It wasn't what I had set out to happen, but in the end, it worked out for both of us.

Now, I would have loved to make this cuter. Like THIS. But our printer isn't working and my art skills only go so far. So, I asked for help. From my four year old. :) See those eyes, nose and mouth? All him! I, then, asked him what body part we use for each sense. He got them all and then added some tickle toes for good measure. Everyone has tickle toes. Every. One. 

We're already almost done with this week (last weeks??) work so hopefully, I will get another post up soon! Keep an eye out!