Adventures of Evie

  Today was such a pretty day that we couldn't help but go outside. The weather has been dreary and grey and cold for so long and even though we've made the most of it with indoor activities we were both ready for a play day!  Evie took almost all her princesses outside and we made them chalk houses and then she set up a little clinic and used her Frozen car to run around picking them up and taking them to the clinic to get doctored up. It was really nice to be able to run around outside and get some energy out and also just to enjoy the sunshine for awhile. We did some letter practice earlier in the day but in about two days we go for her kindergarten evaluation so once that's over I'm excited to go back to more fun and open themes (although we've gotten a bit off track with them anyway)! It was a nice start to our week though. :)

  Today we had some science fun! We used red cabbage juice, baking soda, and citric acid to play with bases and acids and Evie LOVED watching the colors change. I'm not sure she fully understood the difference between acid, base and neutral but it was fun to talk about and she did seem to understand how mixing them differently would affect the color which was awesome. In the afternoon we also made some root beer floats. We were supposed to make Butterbeer floats for our Hogwarts day but we ended up doing a ton of "magic" that day instead and got sidetracked so today we just made them with some root beer instead as a fun treat to start our weekend. We also made some time to go down and play at our neighborhood park and then Evie painted some pictures with some metallic paint I picked up while I made dinner. It was a super fun day and I'm so glad the weather was a little warmer today. Hopefully we're in the last days of winter!! :)

  Today was one of those days for Evie. She got up sad, and all she wanted was a warm bath and lots of snuggles. So even though I had some art planned for today we decided to use today as more of a play day. After her warm bath we broke out her forest  Sago box and set up a little enchanted forest for her magic clip princesses. She loves making up stories and it's great to see her creativity run wild. I love that this box has a lot of different options for making weird animals too! It was fun to see what she came up with. She even had a full on worm forest for them to try to get around.  After she finished playing with her forest she gave me a Taylor Swift/Disney Descendants/JoJo Siwa concert on her karaoke machine and then when I got off we snuggled up with a movie before dinnertime. It was an unplanned but really rewarding day. :)

  One thing Evie is really into lately is construction. Awhile back she saw an episode of Blippi about an excavator and she quicky added driving one to her list of future careers (also featured are: astronaut, ballerina, teacher, and performer.) So today we explored construction with a wrecking ball and a little dump truck.  We started stacking up foam blocks and knocking them over and then we added a little town from our Sago boxes and a road and some little workers.  She had dance this evening and they are starting to learn some of the dance for the rehearsal this summer so I'm really excited to see how she's going to do with that. She's really pushing me to put her back in gymnastics and spring can't come fast enough for either of us! Kindergarten enrollment starts next week so we're doing some overviews of all her letters and numbers to 25 this week and will try out some new themes after she does her eval. :)

    This week we are working on the letter "H" but it was such a beautiful day today that instead of spending it indoors doing projects we decided to go out and enjoy it while it lasts! This morning we did some practice writing and then we had a picnic lunch and played outside for awhile. Evie had a great time putting on a show for me with music, singing, and of course a lot of dancing!! There was even an epic sword fight battle at the end! We spent some time after I got off work at the park as well. I love these little peeks of spring in the middle of winter. It's a great pick me up and it makes me so excited for another summer filled with amusement parks, zoo trips, picnics, swimming, and of course bike rides to the park! :)

  Today we had a STEM day and learned about gears! Evie has played with gears before at the museum and she really loves moving them around and seeing what works to keep them moving and what doesn't. She used this little kit to move around pegs and gears and then stacked them up to make designs.  We've had a lot of free play together this week since I was under the weather for a bit last week and didn't get to play with her as much which means we did less structured activities like this one but we still had a lot of fun learning about gears and how they work and how they can make other things work. :)

  We're jumping back into themes today and we decided to ease into it with a fun day of games! We did some practice with writing the letter "G" today and then we spent the day playing board games and having fun. First we played See The Story which is a game she got originally from the library and LOVED. It's also a super easy one for me to play while I'm at work.  Then we played a few rounds of Princess Candyland... Then in the evening we made our own game! We printed and colored in some crumpets from TocaBoca and then after we cut them out we hid them around the house and took turns finding them using the "hot and cold" game!  It was a lot of fun and it's so crazy how good she's getting at playing these games and following all the rules! :)

  This week has been a bit of a vacation week but that's OK. We had our JoJo concert on Monday and then yesterday we had a relaxing day at home to recover before we went to hang out with family. Today Evie had her very first ever dentist appointment. I definitely intended to bring her before now but between other specialist appointments and COVID it just fell through the cracks. She was a little nervous today but luckily, we didn't wait long to get in. She got to wear fun sunglasses while she got her teeth cleaned (she chose bubblegum toothpaste) and then she got some X-rays. At the end when she got a clean bill of health she got to use some tokens to get prizes and she was super excited when they gave her a Poppy toothbrush to take home with her! Hopefully next time we go she'll be less anxious about it but she did amazing! :)

  We had the day off today since we were out late last night at the concert. So instead of learning today or doing anything pre-planned we took the time to play games together, relax, and catch up on some house work. Evie loves this Sago Mini app and it's constantly updating new games and seasonal activities. I love finding these little photos she makes and snaps in my phone albums. Another great thing about Sago Mini app is that you can always see exactly what your child is up to in there (even though it's all educational and totally safe!) and you can also play with them!  Later in the day Evie also got to go to the park and play for a bit. She LOVES to swing and was so excited that the weather was nice enough for her to get out and enjoy the park again. In the spring and summer we almost exclusively stay outside so the winter months get really depressing for us when we can't be out there in nature. It was a really fun day even if it was a little lazy! ;)

  Today we got to take a break from learning and go to Evie's very first EVER concert. When COVID picked up and lockdowns started we had to adjust a lot of our plans and routines because we couldn't travel as much and the restrictions and the fact that Evie can't be vaccinated yet made it difficult to feel safe going places with large crowds.  I'm grateful that we're at a point now where I can start to feel a little better about taking her out places and getting back into traveling more (although I'll definitely still feel better when she is able to get her vaccine)! So with that being said her fandom of JoJo Siwa is in full swing and when I saw that she was on tour near us it seemed like a perfect opportunity to take her to her first concert.  She had a little trouble at first since our seats were a bit higher than I anticipated. I assumed they'd be theatre or stadium type seating but they were benches and the view with not many people in the venue was a li...

  Today we are having a bit of a repeat theme but when we last made this box of fake snow and ice water it was a HUGE hit. The snow is super easy to make and it melts into the water so it's easy to dispose of too. I threw some of her arctic animals in there but she decided to improvise a bit. She threw some barbies in there and made up stories about how they were at the beach and dolphin watching and had a lot of fun just letting her imagination run wild. I dyed one third of the snow blue this time to make it a little more interesting but it ended up being a lot more blue than I intended so Evie said it looked like it was really icy. We can't get outside right now because of the weather so it wasn't total destruction like the last time but since the snow will hold up for a week or so we will get a lot of use out of this bin! :)

  I had some different things planned for today but Evie got some costumes this weekend at the Disney store and all she wanted to do today was play with them! So we threw our plans away and played make believe for the day. Evie's favorite movie's right now are the Descendants movies and she was really excited about this Mal costume but in a funny twist the one she was most excited about was... ...Audrey! It's definitely got more flair than the other one and she has so much fun pretending to turn "evil" and then back to good! We had tons of fun singing songs, running around, and making up wild stories about Auradon and the characters who live there. Outside of Hide and Seek this is her most favorite game to play right now and it's so much fun to watch her imagination create stories and adventures. :)

  This week we are talking about the letter "F". We are only about three weeks out from kindergarten sign-ups which is crazy! She's doing really well with writing and recognizing all her letters and numbers so we may switch things up after this month but these themes have been fun and I can't wait to see how her handprint letter animal book turns out. We learned a little about flamingos while we did this print and we also did some letter F practice writing. It's been a little nicer this week too although the ice and snow still haven't melted so we took some time this afternoon to play outside and enjoy being out of the house for a bit. It wasn't a busy day but it was a very fun one! :)

  Today we had a ton of snow and ice. Parts of our neighborhood were out of power and a lot of businesses were closed. Luckily, we did not lose power and we had nowhere to go! I printed up some activities about snow today for Evie to do. She had a lot of fun dressing up this Harvey for the warm (and cold) weather.   Then she did differences search and matched up some patterns and snowflakes. She did really well with these! It didn't take her long at all to find most of the things that were different about each picture. Earlier in the week we also made some snow cream but today the snow was really compacted with ice which made it hard to try to gather any. It was an experience she definitely was excited to repeat though! ;)

  Today was a hectic day so we did something a little different. We had an E is for Evie day! First I had her practice writing her name. We have done a handful of writing sheets this week but her E's are one of the things she's practiced most so I wasn't super concerned with her getting it down. So then I let her choose what we would do with the rest of our day.  It's pretty cold outside right now and the weather is not great so it mostly amounted to pajama snuggles, barbies, LOL's and lots of rounds of princess Guess Who! It was a fun change up from doing lessons and it made for a nice bonding day. :)

  Today is E is for electricity day! We spent the day using a balloon to learn about static electricity. First we tried to see if we could get it to stick to our hair (Evie loved that)! Then I challenged Evie to use the balloon to separate pepper from salt on a plate. She did really well with this activity and she was really impressed that it could pick the pepper up!  After we finished that we used the balloon to pick up some "popcorn" (little packing peanuts) and move them into a cup. Then we made some REAL popcorn and settled in to watch some cartoons before dance. :) It was a pretty good day overall and it's always a good week when we can squeeze in multiple STEM projects. ;)

  Today was a surprisingly nice day for weather. I love these little pop up warm days because while the winter weather has it's fun spots it does get to be incredibly gloomy when the skies stay overcast and cold for days on end. I had this activity planned out for indoors but I was also more than happy to take it outside. Sidewalk science days are the BEST. I made this little volcano from a mold last fall and painted it in anticipation of a volcano day but we ended up shifting gears and it has sat on our activity shelf for awhile unused. With today being an "e" day we decided to break it out and make it ERUPT! It has a plastic chamber inside which I filled with baking soda and Evie got to squirt it with vinegar until we ran out. Baking soda/vinegar activities are always a huge win with her and it's so easy to set up and clean up that so makes a great STEM activity. After we finished with that we played in some of the remnants of snow from last week and rode our bikes ...