Wordless Wednesday- Old School Kiddo

Irene

We have a hurricane coming our way. I hope everyone on the east coast of the US stays safe. They are predicting widespread power outages in my area. According to the recording that called me last night these outages may last a couple of days to a few weeks. Just wanted to give you guys a heads up just in case you notice me not posting for a bit. xoxo Justine

Butterfly release

For our butterfly unit, Logan and I raised caterpillars until they turned into butterflies. Once it was time to release them, my sweet little love bug was not too keen on the idea of letting them go. He'd look at me, his big brown eyes wide, and ask, "How about we keep them? They can be my pets." And as keen as I was on the idea of having bugs in my house, I knew that we couldn't possibly keep them for much longer. So, once I explained that they needed to go back home to their mommy, he seemed happy to lend a hand to his winged friends. 

Wordless Wednesday- Kite Flying

Leaf Prints

Guess what we found while playing outside Sunday? Fall colored leaves! It is clearly too early for this, right? Didn't summer just begin? I still have summer stuff to do! But while outside watering my roses, the little guy scooped up some yellow and beginning to turn red leaves. "I have a collection, Mama!" he exclaimed with delight. Of course when it was time to go in, he did not want to part with his colorful collection, so I let him tote them inside.

I knew this type of collection wouldn't last. It had happened all summer with his bouquets of flowers. He'd wake up one morning and they would be wilted and his little face would crumple with sadness. I figured we better have some fun with them while they lasted. I asked Logan if he wanted to paint them and of course he was completely enthusiastic about it. This kid loves paint. BIG TIME.

This is before I busted out our handy dandy cheapo table cloth to cover our dining room table.

But he reminded me that this was going to get messy.

He had a choice of a couple of colors. Of course pink was one of his choices,but it was really too light to yield any results. Logan painted the underside of the leaves that were all vein-y and had lots of texture.

Then he pressed them down onto paper.

Gently, he pulled them up to reveal what was underneath.

We did this a couple of times, and it seemed the ones with less paint were more easily visible. 

So I just had him press it down a couple of times, before covering them with more paint.

Do any of you have leaves changing color yet? What fun projects have you tried with leaves? In a couple of weeks, our yard will be covered with them, so I better start collecting ideas now!

Window stickers

I'm always looking for new ways to get the little guy creating and playing. The other day at the dollar store, I came across a package of foam in a variety of colors. Best of all, you guessed it, it was only a dollar. The price was right, so I brought it home with us. When one of my sisters came to visit later on that week, we both sat down and cut out all different shapes while gossiping about reality television. The little guy would put in request for different shapes, like a butterfly and a car, and we would attempt to do our best. Mostly, we stuck to the most basic shapes, though.

Once we were finished, I packed them away. I waited for a while, and one rainy morning, I showed Logan the shapes.

I supplied him with a paintbrush and a cup of water, and he went to town. He brushed the water onto the shape, and then would stick it onto the window.

Here is his version of a flower.

He loved this activity so much, that I set up a small center at a window in my house. I put down a bunch of towels (but he was careful not to spill) and he decided to decorate the window in our dining room.

He went back to this activity throughout the day.

These would be great to take into the bath tub too! I think that these will definitely be getting a lot of use at our house!

Visit a sunflower field Part #2

The second part of our trip to the sunflower field was the yummy part! (See part 1, here). This particular farm also makes homemade ice cream in a load of flavors. They even had sunflower flavored ice cream to commemorate the occasion. Logan decided on raspberry ice cream.....

with rainbow sprinkles.

After a couple of bites, he decided he needed a break.

And he decided to swipe my ice cream cone.

Once we were done with our decadent treat, we stopped to purchase some sunflowers to bring home with us.

Logan insisted on carrying them to the car.

But he struggled a bit, since they were almost as big as him!

Wordless Wednesday- Harvest

Visit a sunflower field Part #1

One of the things I was most looking forward to for our summer bucket list was visiting a sunflower field. There is a farm around here that plants a gigantic sunflower field and donates all the money they make to a children's charity.

Logan was pretty excited too.

We had to wait a while for the tractor ride to begin.

Logan was a bit hesitant at first to ride on the tractor. But once the ride began, he sat on my lap, and realized there was no reason to be afraid.

Once we were in the middle of the woods, we stopped. The driver had given us grass to feed the cows. This was Logan's favorite part! 

Finally we arrived at the sunflower field and were able to stop for some pictures. We have taken pictures for the past two years here, so it is starting to turn into a tradition.

Plus, they are really gorgeous to look at.

Stuff my kid says #13

While driving, I see Logan messing with his bug bite on his leg.

Me: What's wrong, Logan?
L: My bee scratch is itchy.

Making our own bouncy ball

All the positive comments in regards to my excitement about my laminator made me feel less alone in the world! I'm glad to know that somewhere out there people get it! The love affair is still continuing! But that's something for another day. Tonight, I'm here to tell you about something on our summer bucket list. I've been waiting and waiting (because I ran out of glue, and kept forgetting to buy more) to make our very own bouncy balls. One of my favorite blogs, Come Together Kids, posted all about making them. It requires just a handful of ingredients: Elmer's glue, borax, cornstarch, and warm water. I do have a word of advice for this particular project. Do it outside. Preferably  in a swim suit or play clothes. At the very least, learn from my mistake, and put something down to cover your floor. There's nothing quite as fun as having to scrub your whole floor right after having some messy good times. But, just one look at the kiddo's face and it was all worth it. 

Okay, that's not the face I was just talking about. He's doing his pretend smile here. I do still love it though, so maybe that face. I had him dump one tablespoon of glue into each bowl and pick out his colors. His first request was for pink, but we were out of red food coloring. (I really have to go shopping...... and start making a list)! So, with a sigh, he settled on green and blue. 

We added a couple of drops to the glue, and then Logan stirred. He loved the way the color seemed spread out in the glue.

Then we combined a 1/2 teaspoon of Borax, 3 tablespoons of cornstarch, and 4 tablespoons of warm water into a separate bowl. Once he stirred until there were no more lumps (with some help from his Mama), my little peanut dumped that bowl into the glue.

Then there was some more stirring. It was a great work out for those toddler arms! A clump was formed, and then I had him try to roll it into a ball.

He rolled some, would wipe his hands, and then roll some more.

He worked on the green, but for some reason that one refused to stay together. We abandoned it, and started working on the blue. Blue was much more successful.

Ta-da! Here is our (almost) finished product in one incredibly adorable little hand:

After putting it in a container, it did lose it's shape. I was able to get it back to it's formerly round self pretty easily. This is something that we'll definitely do again. I promised him we would make pink next time. 

Hey? Want the recipe broken down for you? Go over here. Laura does a fantastic job of explaining it step by step. 

Wordless Wednesday- My house is a miniature zoo