Dolls, Fairies, and Popcorn

Early in the afternoon Orianna and Josephine played with eachother and with their respective dolls. Here they are, all four, swinging together.

Later on the imaginary play of the day was that the children were all in Pixie Hollow, part of Tinkerbell's fairy world.

Here Ryan, Eden, and Marie enjoy a late afternoon snack of popcorn and apples.

Painted Pencils

Over the weekend I found a package of unpainted pencils amongst my seemingly endless supply of art materials. We took out the acrylic paints, and they all busily painted their pencils.

Once we ran out of pencils, the enthusiasm for painting things was not quite satisfied, so they they painted anything in sight.

Here are the finished pencils . . . what fun!

Guest Contributor: Eden

Katie invited all the kids to "Club Calm." Everyone enjoyed it.

Katie and I had to make some rules or they would go crazy! I was the "helper." We had a really great time.


Drawing was one of the most faivorite activities. Orianna and Ryan liked drawing.

Katie and Gabriel were playing with the Litebrites while waiting for room at the drawing table.

I had to read because they didn't want to do Litebrites while waiting for drawing, so I read them two books.

Jo got her report card for being very good in Club Calm.

The people who drew and didn't want their pictures let us hang them up on the bulletin board.

Marie, Jo, and Orianna decided to bring out the tunnel and pretend they were animals.

I made puppets from a book that my mom gave me called 365 Things to Do and Make. I had the same idea as Rachel, because she had the same thing in her idea book.

Here are my two girls that I made. The one without the bow is Mary Jane, and the other one with the bow is her sister Fancy Nancy.

Jo decided to make puppets just like I did. I don't know the names of hers.

Here are the back sides of her puppets.

Election Day

Thursday turned out to be much like Tuesday, where thanks to Katie, my planned projects were shelved for a much more interesting activity. This time it was election day. Katie, Eden, and Josephine decided to run for president. They planned the election, made posters,

created separate voting booths out of manila folders,

created ballots and a ballot box, . . .

. . . and the two older girls composed speeches.

The girls also made little trinkets to be handed out to the kids after their speeches.

Eden's speech:

Katie's speech:

Josephine's speech:

After each girl gave her speech, all the kids all rushed into the dining room to vote. In the end, there was a tie between Katie and Eden. There was then a runoff election, and Katie emerged the victor. Everyone was very pleased with the result, even Eden, who was then declared vice president.

The Garden Gets a Teepee

We had a sleepover last night with our good friend Samantha, so here are the girls in the morning, along with Emma R.

(L to R, Samantha, Emma, Jo)

And we were later joined by Dylan.

In the afternoon the kids enjoyed the swings.

Katie gives Josephine a ride . . . Josephine looks blissful.

Later Katie helped me to finally erect the bamboo teepee for our garden. Things are starting to come together for spring. We hope to eventually grow some green beans on it.

Ryan and Katie pose in the now completed teepee.

Here's the garden . . . a work in progress.

Later on Katie and Ryan helped me to freshen up the front planters with new plants.

The finished products:

First Attempt at Water Globes

Today the kids tried their hand at making water globes. They ended up with some really fun creations. I'll certainly have to find some more materials so we can do this again another time.

Here is Orianna's "fishtank" globe:

And Katie made a globe with a mysterious piece of white plastic and lots of silver glitter:

Mud, Glorious Mud!

Ah, California winter is really here now. That means rainy days, wet ground, but very moderate temperatures allowing children to enjoy the feeling of wet mud on their bare toes. This morning the kids had a great deal of fun in the backyard enjoying the light sprinkling rain on their faces and the mud on their feet. I love this photo of Georgia and Josephine. If I ever get around to putting up a photo collage as I've intended, this will definitely be up there.

When it was time to take off for school, I herded the children around through the side yard and out to the front. There lay towels to dry off their feet and all their shoes.

In the afternoon we had a new addition to the Children's Garden . . . Emma! Here Emma and Katie are creating a life-sized portrait of Emma as Orianna (or is it Snow White?) looks on.

Jultomtar

A couple weeks ago I made a little jultomte (Swedish for a sort of Christmas elf) out of pipecleaners, red yarn, a doll bead head, and felt for the hat. I showed the kids, and they really wanted to make their own. For over a week they've been asking me to show them how, so today, being that it is a nice long afternoon (Thursdays school gets out earlier), I took out the materials and showed them what to do. All of the older kids quickly decided that it was simply too much work and went off to play elsewhere. But surprisingly, the kinders all stuck around and focused hard on the task at hand. It wasn't easy wrapping all the pipecleaner limbs with yards and yards of yarn, but each one of them fastidiously worked away.

Holger:

Orianna:

Josephine:

Afterwards I set the three little jultomtar in the Christmas tree for a photo shoot, but Holger tried to steal the limelight . . .

Here are the wonderful little dolls that they worked so hard at.

Left to right: Holger's, Josephine's, Orianna's

Christmas Trees

Today we decorated felt cones to make Christmas trees. Anything involving a hot glue gun is fun, of course!

Some went for the traditional green, but we also have turquoise, white, pink, and yellow trees!

Tea Party and Paper Making

We had lunch outside today. I was going to serve them in the playhouse, but they chose to sit out in the sun instead.

Katie and Eden planned an elegant teaparty in the afternoon. They set up and decorated in the kitchen, and then helped Orianna and Josephine to dress up for the event.

Here Katie brings everyone in for the teaparty.

Each place setting was labeled, and Cheerios were served on pretty ceramic plates while tea (water) was poured into tiny little teacups.

While the older kids enjoyed their teaparty in the kitchen . . .

. . . Ria enjoyed free reign in the rest of the house. She pulled up using this chair and used it as a walker to make her way across the room.

Later on, Ryan set up the clothesline and built himself a little one-man fort.

We had our second ever paper making event today. Last time we made white paper, but this time the kids chose pink, so they ripped up all the white, red, and pink scraps we had. It turned out beautiful. Later, Eden and Katie decided to change the color and added more white and yellow, making a pretty salmon color.

Here Katie adds a finishing touch of gold glitter onto her newly formed and still wet paper.