Adventures of Evie

  This past weekend Evie and I visited the Boonshoft Museum. She wanted to take Kumi with her and even though I was worried she would get lost, I ended up letting her. I thought we put her in the backpack for safe keeping when we headed up the climber in the middle but when we went to leave we realized she was gone. Evie was very sad about it and cried a lot. We checked lost and found but unfortunately no one had turned her in. So I went home with a very sad little girl. However, on Sunday when I called they said they had her! So today she came home with another postcard about her adventures at Boonshoft and a cool space necklace with hand painted (super fun let me tell ya!) beads.    We also had cooking day today! Evie got to make orange creamsicles. Although she didn't end up liking the final result she did a great job whipping them up! She has lots of little cooking tools and I want to start really teaching her how to use them and cook for herself. Obviously it will be...

  We're still a little behind today but I think I've got most of our week caught up so we should be back on track tomorrow with activities. Today we did some work sheets once I got my printer connected and running and then we had cooking day! Evie was so excited about these donuts. My mom used to make them for us when we were kids and this is Evie's first time making or eating them. It's super easy too! You just cut a can of biscuits into halves or quarters, fry them in oil or your air fryer and then shake them in sugar, cinnamon sugar, powdered sugar, or whatever you fancy. I would typically use a paper bag because the plastic one CAN melt but it worked out pretty well. They were a yummy end to our day! 

  It's our last day of woodland creatures week since tomorrow I am off work. We continued practicing letters today and we had another "cooking" activity. It wasn't so much cooking as putting together food but it keeps her engaged and it's fun to eat! Today we talked about hibernation, and we made pretzel and cheese trees (and squirrels!) and made a forest for some graham bears. Evie loved getting to make shapes in the cheese and putting the plate together. She also had fun making up stories about why the bears were disappearing as she ate them! 😂 After we finished up snack time and working on our letters we decided to get some fresh air since it's been a REALLY nice day. We sang and danced and played outside until the sun set. She was so happy to play outside in the warm air that she actually asked me if it were summer. Unfortunately, it isnt' but hopefully as the days get shorter and colder, we'll be able to do like the bears do and make the most of ...

  Today we continued our woodland creature week by talking about some animals that live in the trees. We talked about owls, and about squirrels, and about racoons and how they each prepare and handle winter. Evie has seen a lot of geese migrating recently and it's been fun this week talking about how different animals deal with the colder weather. We made some yummy owl "toasts" for our snack time using chocolate rice cakes, peanut butter and various fruits. We also continued working on Evie's letters and her name (even though she is an absolute pro at writing and spelling it!) by making a little tree with her name on it. She had fun putting the letters in order and gluing them onto the tree trunks. It turned out pretty cute! We had family night tonight, so we headed to Nana's house after our snack time and enjoyed dinner and talking with family. :)

  Today we are talking about the Pacific Ocean. Evie's very first experience with large bodies of water was the Caribbean Sea but her first official ocean was the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Maui. She has always loved water from the time she was just a tiny baby and she got to have her first snorkeling experience at just 18 months old. We talked a lot about jellyfish today and also about coral and reefs and turtles. But even though we did a few jelly activities we've actually never seen a jellyfish in the Pacific Ocean. We made these cute coffee filter jellies and also a paper plate and tissue paper one. We talked about reefs and how they are important to the ocean's ecosystem and we also talked about how the things we do can affect animals like turtles and dolphins and other fish and whales. Evie's favorite dolphins are Orcas which are my favorite too!  Later in the day we made these cute little ocean cups with blue raspberry jello, graham cracker crumbs, candy fish...