Infectious

The one thing kids don't mind sharing... germs! Aislinn was sick last Monday, then Liam came down with the same thing on Thursday and now I have it. At least I think I do, my symptoms are different than theirs. They each had a fever and fatigue, I don't have the fever, but the fatigue is kicking my butt and it feels like I have rocks in my head. Aislinn and I both had a nap today.

But let's look on the bright side, or at least a different side. We took out our Halloween decorations out today, and even feeling as awful and I do, watching the kids go through the bins was so much fun. Aislinn is so excited, you can't help but feel her energy. The best part was when the kids started trying on some of their old costumes, Aislinn makes a damn cute Pigglet!

Hopefully I feel better tomorrow so I can clean up the mess they made...

Week 3

Another great week! Aislinn was actually begging me, "please, can we do preschool!" So it looks like she is enjoying herself as much as I am. Here is our focus for this week...

Our letter for the week was B, our animal was Butterfly and our word of the week was Bug. We talked about bugs having six legs and the fact that a butterfly is a bug. We looked at the life cycle of the butterfly and read a great butterfly book. We crafted a handprint, construction paper bee, a coffee filter and clothespin butterfly and "colored" a butterfly by gluing on dried beans.

We also planned on making a pine cone bird feeder with peanut butter and bird seed, but got as far as finding the pine cone in the woods before I realized that our bird seed is in a bin, on the deck, under the roofer's tarps, so I guess that project will have to wait. She was too cute, when we were in the woods, she kept saying that we were looking for a "pineapple!"

Here's our paper bee and coffee filter butterfly

And our dried bean butterfly

The number of the week was two. We colored a big number two and colored a picture of two flowers with two butterflies fluttering over them. We'll focus a bit more on our numbers in the after the first 10 weeks pass. We'll be starting back at number one and adding new challenges.

The shape of the week was the square. Shapes are another thing we'll focus more on later. For now we just did a workbook page, traced some squares and colored them.

The color of the week was blue. We gave her blue crayons and marker quite a workout this week! We also talked about the other colors that start with the letter B, like black and brown.

We ended our week with our B collage and the B page of Aislinn's alphabet book.

A bit distracted

As we wrapped up or third week of preschool Aislinn seemed a little distracted today. I wonder why. You think it could be because this...

...was going on over our heads? The roof is finally getting done, yippie! There is a dumpster at the end of my driveway and a swarm of carpenters banging away. Ripping off the old and putting on the new. I'm most excited about the new skylights. I'm looking forward to the next rain storm, it'll be the first time in years that we won't have to shove towels around the edges of the skylights to keep them from leaking. There's excitement in the air, Aislinn likes watching out the windows and Diego (the dog) is hiding under the bed. The poor thing is NOT thrilled with all the banging and the strange men on top of his house. If all goes well I'll have some after pictures on Monday, and a much happier dog.

Custom Crayon Colors

Our attempt at making our own aqua crayon wasn't really a success, but it wasn't a failure either. First, I must tell you this... don't attempt to melt crayons in the microwave. It doesn't work out too well. The paper cup started to burn and the crayons were still solid. So Aislinn and I scrapped that attempt and tried again.

Our second attempt worked out much better! I use a double boiler approach with a empty tin can.

The crayons melted in no time and we mixed our two colors together in hopes of creating an aqua colored crayon....

We wrapped the melted crayon in wax paper and waited for it to cool.

And then gave it a try!

Did it work? Kind of. I think we needed to add more blue to the mix. It turned our more of a forest green than an aqua color. But that's fine. Aislinn had a blast with this and learned about mixing colors. I will do this again for sure, when our color of the week is a secondary color, and she can have her own little collection of custom crayons.