Adventures of Evie

  This week has been an emotional one for Evie. I'm not really sure why, it seems like a lot of the kids at her school had a really hard time adjusting this week. She had a hard time getting on the bus and then she was out for a doctors appointment which didn't help. I am hoping the upcoming week will go better but in the mean time today we decided to take it easy and do some coloring and some sensory play. I needed to clean out the snow bin from a few weeks ago so I gave Evie a bin of water and the bin of snow and "ice" and let her mix it together.  We briefly discussed why the water turns into a thick slime if you add too much snow and then Evie set about mixing the beads in to fresh water until they got slimy and then getting fresh water and repeating the process. They ended up pretty clean in the end and it was a fun activity that took absolutely no effort on my part. We have also resumed our after dinner park trips. Over the end of the last week Evie finally deci...

  Today was a busy day! This afternoon Evie had an appointment at Childrens that we've been waiting six months for. Usually these are pretty painless and go rather quickly but today everything seemed to be going sideways. We got there early as we typically do but ended up having to wait an hour to see a nurse. Evie's nurse told her he was going to make her into a pirate for a bit with an eye patch which prompted Evie to tell him a pirate joke which was pretty funny. After that they moved us back to the waiting room where we sat for another two hours or so before we finally got to see the doctor. That part went quickly though and then Evie got her stickers and we headed out. Because we were both restless from so much sitting we headed out to Liberty Center for some fun. We got some fancy chocolate truffles, some violet lemonades, and Evie got a new dress and then we headed down to the splash pad so she could play while we ate our treats. This center is Evie's FAVORITE place ...

  Last week Evie was pretty frustrated with kindergarten and this week that hasn't improved. She says she thought it would be more fun and she is tired of coloring, worksheets, and sitting still all day. I feel for her because when I started my desk job I was also really frustrated about having to sit in a chair all day and not be able to move around much. Evie is a very active kid. She loves to dance, run, jump, and play. I am hoping the restart of dance will help her out a bit but so far it's been a rough week with a lot of tears about going to school. So today we took a little break from our at home studies. One thing I've loved about our at home preschool journey is that if she or I need a little mental health break it is so easy to step back for a day and then just jump back in when we are ready. I'm fortunate to have a job that understands that as well and allows me to have breaks when I need them. But schools carry on. So we set up a picnic today and played lots ...

  Today we learned about the climate of the Philippines and we also learned a few Filipino words which was a lot of fun. Evie was very interested in how they manage to speak so many languages there. I asked her, knowing that it's an archipelago, and knowing the climate of another archipelago (Hawaii) what she thought the weather might be like there. She quickly said "HOT! Tropical!" So then we got into what kind of natural disasters a tropical climate might bring. She guessed it would be hurricanes and while she is correct, when hurricanes occur in the Eastern Hemisphere we refer to them as typhoons. So we did some learning about typhoons today and how they could affect Filipino people. While we talked we made some shaving cream typhoons. This was really fun because Evie got to play in the cream and the paint, there was a surprise reveal and then she got to just play with what was leftover which made her very happy. First we dropped paint into a bin of shaving cream... .....

  This week we are having culture week. We got a pack of flash cards of the world for a dollar at Target and each month Evie gets to randomly pick one out and we will spend time learning about that place. This week for our first culture week she chose The Philippines. This actually worked out pretty well since we learned about climates last week and we talked about Hawaii being an archipelago. So this week when I showed her a map of the country she eagerly exclaimed "It's an archipelago!". Today we talked a little bit about the holidays and festivals they have in The Philippines and we made some masks for Ati Atihan which is a week long festival that includes food, costumes, and dancing and music. We looked at some of the costumes that they wear during the festival and Evie was really in love with all the colors and patterns. She really wants to go to the festival one day and maybe she will! I love how much she likes learning about and seeing new places. Her mask turned o...