Pete the Cat!

Pete the Cat is a new favorite character and book series that Avery has fallen in love with. We spent all of last week reading Pete the Cat books and doing Pete the Cat related learning activities! The girls all LOVE Pete, so it was fun to introduce some new Pete books and watch their faces light up when I would show them a new story! 

We started out with the familiar books, the ones they can "read" on their own word for word! 

Activities we did  to go along with this book were:

Sensory table: buttons and plastic needles with yarn attached for sewing.

Math: sorting buttons by color and patterning buttons by color and shape.

Art: finger paint Pete's yellow shirt and glue on his buttons

Life Skills: baked button sugar cookies 

Next we read: 

The learning activities we did with this book were limited because we got a ton of snow the night before and, of course, we spent most of our day playing outside in the new white blanket of snow!! The first snow of the year is always so memorizing and exciting for the kiddos! 

Reading the book:

I gave each of the girls a sheet of paper with four white shoes drawn on them, they had to listen during the story and each time Pete's shoe changed a color they had to find the matching color crayon and color one shoe! After the story was finished they cut out all four shoes and set them aside. Then they colored a picture of Pete the Cat and lastly, glued his shoes on! They had so much fun and this kept them very engaged during the whole story as they intently listened for which crayon to pick up next! 

We discovered this new Pete the Cat book at the library... It's really cute! I need  to find a copy if my own! 

This book has a great message about how everyone can do great things, but not everyone can do the same things great.

We read this book with our own "magic sunglasses" on and at the end of the story we talked about the things we were each good at and did them! Emma said she was good at coloring, Avery was good at blocks, and Kinsley was good at sledding! 

Lastly, we read:

We thought this book was SO funny! The girls couldn't believe what kinds of things Pete put on his sandwich (espicially the whole fish a ice cream). After reading this book, we went downstairs and played at the kitchen set making our own Pete the Cat sandwiches! 

We put beans in the sensory table with cups and scoops (Pete also put beans on his sandwich)!

Then for lunch, the girls each got to make their own sandwich for lunch! They sure gobbled their lunch up quickly because, of course, it was the best sandwiches they have ever had! 

Friendship

Friendship- what is it? 

Well, it depends on who you ask. A friendship can be so many different things to so many different people. I am thankful to have a lot of people in my life whom I call my friends - and no two friendships are the same! I have my friends who are an extension of my family, they are my family really. I have friends who I don't talk to often, but we can call each other at any given moment, for any reason, and it's like we just talked yesterday! There are friends who like to have fun, but don't want to be the one I call when I need a favor. There are the friends who I don't ever have I ask a favor of, because they already know what I need and have already offered to do it or have already done it. The friends I wish I had more time for and the friends I have drifted apart from over the years. There are SO many types of friendship! They all grow and change over time based on the experiences you have (or don't have) with them. 

So, as I try to teach these young girls about friendship this week, I find myself thinking, "how do I teach about something that is so individual, so full of change and so complicated"?  I think this week is the start, but really we will continue working on learning what "friendship" is for the next, well... forever.

I model what it is to be a friend day in and day out, I help them find the language to use while communicating to each other and help them discover what type of qualities to look for in a friend. I will guide them to have self respect and respect of others, to listen, to care, to be honest and loving. I guess I could go on and on about this... but instead, I will just post some pictures of what we actually did last week!

I started out on Monday morning asking the girls these questions:

Then we brainstormed things we can do to be a good friend, Kinsley had a lot  of good ideas... Emma and Avery contributed "no hitting"!

We made a Friendship Chain! 

Each strip of paper has their name on one side and one thing they can do to be a good friend on the other side. We linked the strips all together and hung it up as a reminder to ourselves of what it means to be a good friend! 

We read some books about friends, about sharing, and about being good listeners the next day. We sang "The More We Get Together" and we practiced  our new friendship skills all day! We also made Friendship Bracelets! 

Friends like to keep each other company too, espicially over "coffee"! 

Friendship is drinking hot cocoa together and telling stories! 

We spent one day talking about how each if us is different and how it's a good thing to be unique. We read the book Chrysanthemum, which has a ton of examples of how not to treat our friends, but also how to help a friend who might have hurt feelings. 

After the story, we had Chrysanthemum's heart in our hands and reviewed some of the mean things that were said to her. Each time, crumpling her heart a little more. Then we practiced being a good friend and her heart unfolded little by little. We put band-aides on her heart to help heal her too (good fine motor skills to open and stick those band-aides)! 

The girls really connected with this story and the heart activity following the book helped to put a visual to the name calling and was a great way to discuss some of the behaviors we saw in the book. 

Cullen didn't have school on Friday so he was able to get in on our Rainbow Fish day! We started by singing the song "A Hole in the Bottom of the Sea" and then read our book! After the book, each of the kids made their own "rainbow fish". I didn't expect them to take so much time working on their project, but it took them a LONG time! It was the only project we did that day! I made sure not to rush them, as they were doing their very best work! :)

As the days go on, I will continue to help the kiddos remember what it means to be a good friend. I will be able to reference back to some of these activities and books as reminders of what it means to be kind and to be a good friend. I know they will remember about the little mouse Chrysanthemum and The Rainbow Fish!  

Our Trip to California: Day Three

On Sunday, we pack up our things, had breakfast and hit the road by 8! We headed over to the coast to take the scenic route back to LA. We stopped at Morrow Bay to walk around and have lunch. It was beautiful!! The sun was shining, the salty air was refreshing and the town was adorable! We took a tiki boat tour of the bay and learned a lot about the history of the bay and estuary, the volcanic plugs and the sialboats. It was fun to see the otters and sea lions swimming beside us and the sail boats coming and going. We even saw one boat sinking that had to be saved by the coast guard! We also got to see a sailing lesson being taught to a bunch of kids learning to sail. Apparently, at age 7 you can begin sailing lessons! Each child had their own little sail boat and the instructor had a motor boat and went back and forth between the kids! There were about 10 kiddos all in their own boats learning to navigate the water! 

We had a yummy lunch and hopped back into the car to finish our drive back to LA. We stayed at Sarah's Dads house in the mountains just outside if LA last night, so we only had a 1.5 hour drive to the airport this mornig. It worked out great! We showed up at just about sunset, visited, and had Thai for dinner. We stayed in their guest house and Dirk and Sarah stayed in their guest room in the main house. This house house is literally in the middle if no where in the mountains of the Angeles National Park. It took he and Cindi, 4 years to build because it takes so much time to get materials up the mountain etc. and 2 months after they moved in, the forest fires came and they had to be evacuated for 9 months! I couldn't even imagine! You can still see the burnt trees around their house! Luckily, their house was spared and only one window blew out due to the heat! The fire fighters used their house as a base since it was at the tallest point on that side of the mountain! 

Here are some photos of where we stayed: 

(This is where we stayed - the guest house)

*Our flight home was wonderful - we arrived 20 minutes ahead of schedule and we had a plane full of "normal" people on board with us! When we got home we dropped our things off, started a load of laundry and went to go get Avery and Holley! We couldn't wait! Holley was exceptionally excited to see us and Avery was too busy reading to come visit! It's a good sign :)  We got a lot of extra snuggles tonight and she loved looking at all of the pictures we took on our trip. 

Avery has been doing great on the potty while we've been gone, she collected 22 quarters from Grandma for going on the potty in 3 1/2 days! Whoo hoo! We took her out for dinner and to the grocery store in underwear tonight and she stayed dry the whole time!!! We are pretty proud of her! 

Here she is putting her quarters in her piggy bank and also showing off her In-n-Out Burger paper hat that Brandon brought home for her! We had a great vacation - but it's SO good to be home again!

Our Trip to California: Day Two

Saturday Morning:

We woke up bright and early (6:00), being on Minnesota time it was hard to sleep in! We had breakfast at the hotel, which was actually pretty good for a free hotel breakfast. We had pancakes, sausage, biscuits and gravy etc. etc. 

Then we headed out for a drive up the mountains to see the Sequoia Trees! It was about an hour drive to get to the park enterance and once we arrived they told us we couldn't go up unless we had snow chains on our tires! Apparently they just passed a law that we needed to have them and no one knew. We were all a little bummed out, but made the most of our beautiful drive! Although it was pouring rain, it was beautiful! The locals were all so happy for rain, we couldn't help but be happy too! 

We came across a cute candy shop tucked away in the foothills. They had a ton of treats and the best homemade ice cream I have ever had! By the time we had lunch (In-n-Out Burger again) we had  about 30 minutes to shower and get ready for the wedding! It was still raining at this point and was quite chilly, it was kind of a bummer for an outdoor wedding, what what can ya do?!

The Wedding: 

We showed up for the wedding (without umbrellas like everyone else) and stood around a huge walnut tree, which we later found out was a tree that Luke's Great Grandfather planted over 100 years ago! The wedding ceremony was quick due to the rain and everyone from California was completely thankful for their wet hair and muddy shoes! The ceremony started out "the rain today is a blessing and a sign of good luck for Luke and Suzi..." 

As soon as they said their "I do's" the clouds broke up, the sun came out, and we were able to enjoy the evening outside watching the sunset behind the mountains looking over the ranch. 

Luke and Suzi planned their perfect wedding and they wouldn't have changed a thing! They had family and friends fly in from all over the country to help them celebrate and were humbled by all of their love and support. I don't know how many hugs and thank yous we got from Luke and Suzi, at least a dozen!! It makes me feel like we definitely made the right choice to fly out there, even though it wasn't exactly in our budget.