Adventures of Evie

  Today was a bit of a slower day for us. We played and did a little art and some worksheets. Despite being on the slower paced side we had a ton of fun. Most of what we worked on today (and things we wrapped up today) were a little hard to photograph so bear with me!  I broke out the sensory bin today. We've been busy all week and haven't used it really so it was a good day to do it. This is the first time I've used rice for her and I had this brilliant idea to make it look like a night sky... So most of the rice I painted a dark blue/purple and then what was left I painted with glow in the dark paint. It was hard to take a picture of but it was seriously SO cool. Every time you mixed it up it was different and it really did look like a night sky filled with stars. She had fun playing with it in the bathroom (where it was darker) and it was an easy cleanup since the floors are tile in there! I threw in some foam planets, glitter stars,  and an astronaut Neville as well. ...

  We had a pretty busy and crafty day today and most of it was accidental. This morning when Evie got up the plan was to play a game and do some worksheets together. After lunch I had planned to do a fun art project and that was supposed to be the day in a nutshell. It started off according to plan. We did a few worksheets and played a game where we threw "meteors" (styrofoam balls wrapped in tulle) at targets. We used a spinner to determine which target to hit. It was a lot of fun and while we were playing we talked about meteors and what can happen if they hit planets or the moon. Somehow from there our day went sideways in the BEST ways. During quiet time I had this idea to surprise Evie with a spaceship we could play with outside. She keeps asking what it's like in space and how astronauts go into space and it just seemed like a fun idea. I have a TON of boxes in my garage so I pulled a few out and taped them together. I cut a hole for the door and a little window wh...

  Today we focused our learning on the sun and the moon. We talked a little about Earth's atmosphere today and I asked Evie if she had a planet she wanted to learn about and for whatever reason she chose Saturn. So we also talked about Saturn and she learned that their days are shorter (a little less than 11 hours) but their years are much longer (about 29 years on Earth is ONE year on Saturn). We made some moon phases with Oreos and then we shared them for a morning snack. We also started a glow in the dark moon lamp today. We used some air dry clay and a clear ornament to make the base and then Evie pressed a bead into the clay to make craters. Once it's dry tomorrow we'll paint it with some glow paint and put it on it's base! We made "moon" cakes for our afternoon snack. These were super easy and considerably more healthy than our morning snack! It's a chocolate rice cake, peanut butter, and some Cheerios and banana slices for the craters.  After our sn...

  Today was a busy day! It was the first day of Space Week and Evie was absolutely ecstatic when she woke up today and found a sunshine and some planets on her desk. After exclaiming "IS IT SPACE WEEK?!?!" she then flipped over the sunshine and said "A SPACE hunt?! Oh I'm so excited!" So I think it's gonna be a pretty big win of a week in general.  The sunshine was our first scavenger hunt of the day and her big treasure at the end was some fruit snacks. Then we did some activity sheets, learned about gravity and talked about why Saturn has rings (and also why some other planets like Jupiter, Neptune and Uranus have rings!), and then started a color hunt which was really successful. This was a new activity for us and it required minimal effort from me and she loved it so I think we'll weave it into future weeks. We did a few more small activities and I was really surprised that Evie knows so much about space and planets. We have talked about space loads ...

  We had an incredibly busy but really fun filled weekend this week.  On Saturday we decided to go to the Boonshoft Musuem. It's a little bit of a drive for us but she hasn't been in awhile and it's not too expensive so we headed up there for some fun. She loved dancing in this little color box.  It was a really great way to wrap up Weather Week too since there are so many weather related activities there. She also loved seeing the birds (and doing this bug themed puzzle) and climbing up all the tubes in the center. She played with the water for awhile and we talked a little about currents and waves... ...and then we got to play vet and she fixed up some animals for me. We played with LEGO's, learned about recycling, made pizza at our own pizza parlor and raced cars. It was also the perfect way to get her psyched up for next weeks theme... ...which is SPACE. Evie loves learning about space and is particularly a fan of the moon. She was fascinated to see Jupiter and Satu...

  Today was our final day of Weather Week and we wrapped it up by talking about rainforests and playing some fun games. We made this rain stick awhile back and we made some fun sounds with it before topping it with a bunch of poms and seeing who could get the most off before it toppled. We talked a lot about how weather really affects the planets and especially animals who find it harder to adapt than humans.  Fridays are typically our library days but this week was homecoming for her cousins so instead of hitting the library we headed up to their house to help them paint their nails. After I finished Katelyn's nails she did Evie's nails to match while I worked on Emily's. They came out really cute and sparkly and she loved matching! We had a really busy Friday running around finishing up some errands (like groceries!) ahead of a full weekend. It was a hectic but really fun day! 

    This week along with weather we've been talking about climates and how we are all adapted and suited for where we live. Today we switched up our sensory table for a snowy, icy, arctic one. I wasn't sure how Evie would like this one because while she loves water play she does NOT like to be sticky or slimy. The snow (which is fake snow made from powder ) isn't cold at all but it gets sort of gel like when you mix the two.  She had fun balancing the animals on the ice and digging them into the snow for awhile and then she cautiously asked if she could mix the snow and water. When I told her of course she can she was ecstatic. She found that adding snow to water caused the snow to "melt" and adding the water to the snow melted it down into gelatinous pools of blue "ice".  After lunchtime we took this one outside and she played with it for HOURS. Tossing the snow, making "food" out of the mixed snow and ice and pretending her Chelsea doll was o...

  Weather week is turning out to be a great way to do a lot of projects with Evies most favorite thing; rainbows! Even though we are talking about wind and sun and rain and snow this week I have sprinkled in lots of crafts that are bright and colorful. Today she made two little rainbow projects and we talked about why the weather changes through the seasons and why each season is important, even if we don't particularly enjoy it. 😂 As an adult a lot of the magical parts of life sort of tend to get lost so it's been fun to live a little bit through her tiny world and remember the parts of each season that are so much fun. We talked about how fall is chilly and we can't swim (which Evie was really sad about), but we also talked about how important it is for the plants and animals to have some rest through the winter and how much we love apple cider, bonfires, Halloween, and s'mores. She also did her first sewing project today! After we did our worksheets for today we mad...

  This week is a short week for us and it's also Weather Week! Evie loves learning about nature and she is especially fascinated by the weather and space. This was the only week I didn't have preplanned at the beginning of the month but it seemed like it would be pretty easy to throw together a bunch of crafts and activities and it's perfect timing now that the weather is shifting into fall. For her sensory bin this week I had to get creative. I filled it with painted shredded paper (hello recycled bills 😂) , pom poms, plush pom balls, metallic pipe cleaners in the shape of lightning bolts, and a few little plush clouds and rain drops I made up on the weekend. The bin was a big hit! She loves playing with shredded paper. We have used it for "snow storms" and various other things in the past. I got a whole bunch of worksheets printed, cut, and ready for her to glue and cut and color this week too. I'm consistently amazed at how well she does with some of these...

  Library day is here again! We wrapped up Monster Week with our PJ movie day for the month. After Evie got up, ate breakfast, and went through most of her morning routine she got to watch Monsters Inc and eat a few popcorn balls. She invited her Kumi and Poppy dolls to join in and had a ton of fun vegging out. Then we got dressed and made the short drive downtown to get some new books. In the summertime library day usually includes a walk to the local ice cream shop. They only have four flavors on any given day; vanilla, chocolate, the flavor of the week and the flavor of the day. The specials today didn't appeal to either of us so Evie went with a chocolate and marshmallow milkshake and I got a Buckeye sundae. After we finished our ice cream and reading through some of our books we headed home to play the game we got this week. It's called Sneaky, Snacky Squirrel. It's a pretty fun and very easy game but it doesn't take much time to play so we got through a few rounds...

  We're almost all the way through Monster Week already. Today was cooking day and Evie was super excited for making a treat. When she was in preschool they did the cooking either in the morning so they could eat their treat as a snack or right before snack time if it was something that would be ready right away.  So we made these around our regular snack time. This isn't Evie's first rodeo with cooking using the stove so she got to add the ingredients and stir and I helped her measure what we needed.  She may have snuck a mini marshmallow or two as we were cooking. 😂 At the end we put it all into these little glass containers to cool and put our monster sprinkles on the top. Once they had cooled down we formed them into balls and tossed them into a bag for tomorrows movie day! In the morning we did some yoga as usual and practiced cutting and making shapes with these fun Monsters Inc activity sheets I found online. And then we wrapped up our day playing outside. She's...