No School + Hot Day = Water Play

There was no school today, so we had all day to play. We had Josephine (my daughter) here, of course, as well as Iain in the afternoon, but we also had two sets of siblings: Georgia and Jack, as well as Eden and Gabriel.

Gabriel was very pleased to discover a play kitchen within the real kitchen, and he set right to work ironing. I don't know what inspired him to add in the ear protection, but he looks very intent, eh?

So the most exciting part of the day was when we took the brand new Slip 'N Slide out of the package and set it up. It's a special "junior" version of Slip 'N Slide designed for younger children. It has a much shorter runway, and then the first part of the landing strip is inflated, for a softer landing. I was worried about things getting chaotic with wet children running all around the backyard, so I asked them to line up on the steps and take turns one at a time. They were amazingly wonderful. Each child stayed on his/her step and moved to the next step after each turn was taken. Never did we have a collision or any squabbles about turns.

Don't they look angelic? This is the second photo I took--when they realized I was taking pictures, they posed for me.

Now for the fun . . .

Josephine

Gabriel

Georgia

Jack

Eden

Iain

Shrinky Dinks!

Today we made shrinky dinks (or, rather, #6 recyclable plastic). The kids had a great time coloring the plastic with permanent markers, cutting it out, and punching holes into it.

Meanwhile, Ria watched on as she ate her snack.

The plastic then headed into the 350 degree oven. All eyes were expectantly watching . . .


Here is the cookie sheet before baking, and then the finished products just underneath, to show how much they shrank.

And here are some more finished products . . .


It was a bit tricky to be holding the baby and taking hot plastic out of the oven, so I passed Ria to Eden to safely hold. I truly expected to have to take her right back, but Ria was so incredibly content.

She was then passed to Katie, who also wanted a turn. I really think that this is one of the happiest days Ria has ever had at my house. All this attention from so many wonderful girls!

Next it was Josephine's turn, while Eden entertained her with her favorite ribbons.

Later in the afternoon, Eden, Katie, and Ryan planted their lima beans into cups.

Here Ryan is watering his beans.

Then Katie and Eden entertained the others with a puppet show.

Towards the evening, Orianna was the only one left, and she and Jo went outside to color with sidewalk chalk.

Here is Orianna planting her lima beans . . .

. . . and then watering them as well.

The Joker Clan

As usual, we started out the day with a snack . . . banana bread and raspberries . . . a very big hit!

And then we discovered something very funny. On each child's cup, I always put a little label with that child's first initial, so that they can keep the same cup for water throughout the day. With Josephine, Orianna, Katie, Eden, and Ryan, look at what the cups ended up spelling out:

I don't know who took this photo, but this was one of the dozens of photos I discovered on my camera after letting the kids take their own pictures. Here we have buddies Orianna and Josephine.

Eden took this photo of the "girls". Ryan is in the other room playing with Tinkertoys, of course.

New Faces . . . and New Friends

This morning we had a new friend join us, Diego, who is also in Josephine's kindergarten class. After getting settled, Diego set up his lima beans in a cup.

Next he watered the beans. It'll be interesting to compare the growth of his beans to the ones planted just four days ago, which are already quite far along.

In the afternoon, we had quite a full house. Eden actually started yesterday, but I forgot to take pictures the entire day. We also were joined by siblings Katie and Ryan today.

Here Eden is hard at work on a diorama. Over the weekend she returned from a trip to the Pacific Northwest, which made a big impression on her. She set up several "trees" at first, sort of a forest, and then asked how she could create a volcano. After much thought, we gave tinfoil a try, and hence we created a new popular medium (they asked to have the tinfoil out the next day as well).

Her diorama is eponymously titled Mt. Eden. Of special note here are the pieces taped down. They have been leveled by past volcanic eruptions.

Perhaps this shows it better . . .

Katie, another one of our resident artists, is hard at work.

Orianna worked very diligently on her artwork. Inspired by Katie, Orianna decided to try the new medium, tinfoil, in a more two dimensional form, as a sort of frame for her drawing. She carefully cut out all four strips to make the edges.

And, voilà!

As there was a meeting at school this evening, Josephine, Eden, and Orianna enjoyed a pleasant dinner together outdoors before heading back to school

Lima Bean Update

So, I learned two important lessons tonight. First of all, after posting the photos from Friday, just three days ago, I took a peek at our lima beans, and found that they grow much faster than my blog.

Secondly, I learned that photographing tiny lima beans, at night, with my digital camera, is beyond my capability. But I still gave it my best shot, and here is the official lima bean update (with three different lima beans):

Here you can see the little nodules on the protruding root:

Here are two photos of the same lima bean, the first showing the root across the top:

And the second one showing the actual little leaf starting to emerge:

Meeting New Friends and Growing Beanstalks

On Friday last week we played with two new friends, siblings Georgia and Jack. Georgia is in Josephine's class. Before I could even get snack on the table, Josephine and Georgia transformed themselves into princesses, and Jack became a king.

Here the kids enjoy a snack of pretzels and grapes.

After snacktime, Jack and Iain hit the blocks. Jack's castle was built on the edge of a cliff and even had a waterfall coming off the edge of the table (imaginary, of course).

Iain and Jack!

Iain, however, prefered to transfer a whole pile of lumber from one end of the room to the other using a dumptruck.

Josephine and Georgia played princesses and babies and ended up in the backyard.

Later we all got together to plant lima beans. Each child had his/her own cup and three beans.


Next they carefully watered their beans.

And here are the completed cups. Each child was given the option of writing his/her own name or having me write it. Amazingly, Iain (who can read but doesn't usually choose to write) was the only one who chose to write his name himself.

So here are the before shots. I hope we can update this on a weekly basis to see how our beans are coming along.

Josephine's beans:

Jack's beans (and it wasn't until just now that I realized how appropriate it was to have Jack grow his own beanstalk):

Iain's beans:

Georgia's beans:

And finally, just for the sake of documentation, so we can go back later and see all the changes, here is a lima bean before:

And here is a lima bean after being wet only a short while. Notice how the skin has begun to wrinkle up: