Birthday Boys

This past Saturday we celebrated Ethan (4th) and Ben's (2nd) birthdays.  We had their shared party at an indoor beach volleyball place.  It was a very fun birthday and Ethan told me several times that it was his best party ever and I had to agree.  Here are some of the pictures from the party:

Birthday Cousins.  I love these two boys.

There were lots of trucks and cars to dig in the sand.  

We brought beach balls.  

Mom and Damian 

Lots of playing

Andrew digging a hole probably to bury a child in. :D

Nathanael was pretty chill and seem to love his feet in the sand.

Lots of food.

The birthday cake.  2 candles on one side and 4 on the other.

Blowing out the candles.  

I think Ben was too focused on the trucks on top of the cake to blow out his own candles.

My sweet beautiful nephew.

Good times had by all.  Looks like Andrew is digging another hole.

Hannah and the girls playing in the sand. 

Did I mention how relaxing this party was for me?

Damian and Ethan.

Hannah and Sanne-Lise and Adrianna dancing.

I think my favorite part of this party other than the celebrating of two very wonderful boys was the that there was so much for the kids to do and space for them to run around.

Wordless Wednesday

Preschool Week 30

Preschool Week 30

This is a little longer than normal because it was a little over week worth of activities.  We did not cram all of this into one week but I thought it would be easier to post about it all at once. 

Bible: We read the story "Get Ready" from our storybook bible.  It's the last story in the Old Testament portion the the Storybook bible.  It tells the telling the story of the Israelites returning from captivity, as told in Nehemiah, Malachi, and Ezra. We didn't do a craft since I could come up with anything that I liked.
(Jesus Storybook Bible )

Reading:  Hannah reading to Ben.

We read through quite a few stories in both of the treasury volumes (20th Century Children's Book Treasury and the Harper Collins Treasury of Picture Book Classics).
(Sonlight P3/4)   

Language Arts and Handwriting:  We are finishing up out letter this week with the letter Z.

Hannah made a "fancy" Z while Ethan was getting the hang of forming the letter.

Hannah and Ethan figuring out the "z" sounding pictures.  Ben is doing an insect puzzle and Nathanael watched all three intently.

Z is for zipper coloring page.  Ironically they glued on buttons. :D

We played a roll and read game.  (You can find it here).

 (AAR pre-1)

 (HWT)

Math:  We did lesson 40 in our Compare Bears math book.

They sorted the bears by color and size.

Then Hannah and Ethan had to follow my instruction so that all their bears could go on a picnic.  This was a lot of fun. You can see in the picture above that they placed their bears around the picnic blanket.

We learned about money.  We talked about the names of all the coins and the pictures on both sides.  The sorted the coin onto the money sheet.

Sorting money.

Counting money.

Stacking money (this was totally their idea).

Then they made their own paper money and played store.

(Compare Bears Maths)

Art:  

We played around with watercolors. First they colored their paper with water and then added some blue and green watercolors.

Next, they dripped rubbing alcohol and sprinkled salt onto their pictures while they were still wet.

Hannah's picture.

Ethan's picture.

This was a lot of fun.  I made my own picture and it is quite captivating to do.  As you drip the rubbing alcohol the color jumps away and little circles form.  The salt makes the picture all glittery.  Lots of fun.  I came across this activity here).

Making paper bag jellyfish.

I think cutting the tentacles was their FAVORITE part.

Science: Nature walk with Andrew

Just For Fun:
Coin dropping.

They tried dropping coins into the cups on the floor.  This was HARD.

Ben had the right idea leaning way over and got lots of coins in the cups.

Drawing out in the sunshine.

They made a magnetic fishing game with paper fish.

Catching lots of fish.