Two Kinds of Fun
I have 2 preschoolers today, 1 toddler and 4 "big kids" ages 10, 10, 12 and 7. The big kids have been allowed to hang out in Dakota's room this morning playing video games until 10. It's gorgeous outside just now so they are outside jumping on the trampoline and I am ready to give them a Nature Scavenger Hunt from wwwthetaylor-house.com. My son, of course, had to pout and run his mouth, but he's going to live through it. He looks back on his summers so fondly, but at almost 11 getting him to act like he enjoys things is a challenge.
We are still waiting on the other preschooler so right now my 4 year old granddaughter has watched the Sid the Science kid DVD on insects and is not watching Magic School Bus Gets Ants in It's Pants. Our current theme is Bugs and Butterflies and today's focus is ants. It's hard when I don't get both preschoolers at the same time because now one has probably slept in and the other is going to be tired soon and we still haven't done out activities for the day.
The big kids completed their scavenger hunt much too quickly and are now at the picnic table teaching each other the "cup dance" where you tap and move a plastic cup to a certain beat. That lasted 10 minutes. Now back inside they are building with Legos and doing the first Lego Quest, which is building a car. They are getting along well, but that bedroom is very crowded now that they are so big! They also watched the new Night at the Museum while they were in there and part of another movie. I don't even know what, but it was from our home collection.
The littles got up from watching their movie for rest time and we did our fun afternoon activities all about ants. We did an ants on the log counting activity, putting the correct number of pony beads on brown pipe cleaner logs. We did a counting ants activity with number recognition, reviewed ant body parts (3 body parts, 6 legs, 2 antenna and no teeth!). Colored a picture. Practiced writing their names, did ant mazes, found letter Aa in a grid of letters then learned the Ants Go Marching Home complete with stomping and patting and read 4 books and THEN went outside and put ants in our bug catchers to watch. That earned them 2 freezy pops each and they happily played on the deck for the rest of the time before their parents came and I got dinner on for my guys before they left for baseball practice.
I helped my daughter get the girls settled in the new/used van that has so much room for them and the girls have their own DVD player to watch! Now they won't want to ride with me :( lol. It's what made Nana's van special! Once they were gone I cleaned up the backyard, did some work on the fence so Riley, our shephard/husky doesn't escape too easily, put organic homemade weed killer on all the weeds in the 3 part garden, cleaned up dinner and washed the dishes and now it's 7:40 and I still have the deck to clean, the playroom to clean, the laundry to do, dinner for my oldest son who wanted french toast and then maybe I can read a little if I'm not asleep. Long, long day. Glad tomorrow is an "off" day and my daughter and I will be taking the kids to my best friend's new farm to meet all the animals. We will still be taking 5 kids, but at least there will be two adults.
We are still waiting on the other preschooler so right now my 4 year old granddaughter has watched the Sid the Science kid DVD on insects and is not watching Magic School Bus Gets Ants in It's Pants. Our current theme is Bugs and Butterflies and today's focus is ants. It's hard when I don't get both preschoolers at the same time because now one has probably slept in and the other is going to be tired soon and we still haven't done out activities for the day.
The big kids completed their scavenger hunt much too quickly and are now at the picnic table teaching each other the "cup dance" where you tap and move a plastic cup to a certain beat. That lasted 10 minutes. Now back inside they are building with Legos and doing the first Lego Quest, which is building a car. They are getting along well, but that bedroom is very crowded now that they are so big! They also watched the new Night at the Museum while they were in there and part of another movie. I don't even know what, but it was from our home collection.
The littles got up from watching their movie for rest time and we did our fun afternoon activities all about ants. We did an ants on the log counting activity, putting the correct number of pony beads on brown pipe cleaner logs. We did a counting ants activity with number recognition, reviewed ant body parts (3 body parts, 6 legs, 2 antenna and no teeth!). Colored a picture. Practiced writing their names, did ant mazes, found letter Aa in a grid of letters then learned the Ants Go Marching Home complete with stomping and patting and read 4 books and THEN went outside and put ants in our bug catchers to watch. That earned them 2 freezy pops each and they happily played on the deck for the rest of the time before their parents came and I got dinner on for my guys before they left for baseball practice.
I helped my daughter get the girls settled in the new/used van that has so much room for them and the girls have their own DVD player to watch! Now they won't want to ride with me :( lol. It's what made Nana's van special! Once they were gone I cleaned up the backyard, did some work on the fence so Riley, our shephard/husky doesn't escape too easily, put organic homemade weed killer on all the weeds in the 3 part garden, cleaned up dinner and washed the dishes and now it's 7:40 and I still have the deck to clean, the playroom to clean, the laundry to do, dinner for my oldest son who wanted french toast and then maybe I can read a little if I'm not asleep. Long, long day. Glad tomorrow is an "off" day and my daughter and I will be taking the kids to my best friend's new farm to meet all the animals. We will still be taking 5 kids, but at least there will be two adults.
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