Our Life for Three Days Has Been...

Skiing!!!
Hudson and Meadow have taken ski lessons for the past three days... and they are amazing!
Hudson can go 1/2 way on the t-bar by himself and ski back down to line up and go again... the kiddo is faster (and braver) than me.


Meadow in just 3 lessons has greatly improved her balance and steering... she can go about a 1/4 of the way up the bunny hill... and then navigate her way to the bottom by herself... she can ski down from the top of the bunny hill on a tether.

 

... Because It's Not Just a Snowman.

This is a work of art... painstakingly sculpted... even delaying lunch just to get it finished...

This is a science experiment... riddled with trial and error...  remaking snowballs crushed under the weight of the one above stronger...

This is physical education... rolling the the ever growing snowballs... walking on his knees in winter gear... stomping through the deep snow to find arm branches.

This is math... sequencing size... comparing the bottom to the top...

This is a morning well spent.
 

Moments To Remember- Why I'm Glad I Married a Primate

Has your child ever accomplished something that you were NEVER able to do as a kid? When I was young I was NEVER able to go across the monkey bars... I'm pretty sure I have T-Rex arms.

It's a good thing Hudson inherited Daddy's orangatang arms because he can now move all the way across the monkey bars... like he was born to do it.

 

Moments To Remember: Super Soother Spy

What a wonderful adventure one can have in a sunny backyard... Hudson turned into a super spy with a mission of rescuing his baby sister Delaney's soother for her.

Mission accomplished. :)
 

Homeschool P.E.: Lily Pad Leaping

Alright so starting a new blog series a day late is probably a big faux pas in the blogsphere... but I look at it and see that my blog is not taking over my life and I am taking care of real life things that are important.

So on with the show!  Lily Pad Leaping!
Materials:

• Green Paper (Construction, cardstock...) about 5-7 sheets
• Scissors
• A long space like a hallway.

Prep work:

• Cut the green paper into lily pad shapes
• scatter them randomly in  your space. (close enough together so that your child can leap from one to another).

Let the fun begin!

(Gingerbread) House Decor

Grandpa John and Grandma Shar came to visit on the weekend and oh what fun we had.
There was plenty of wrestling and tickling.  Grandpa thought up a very popular skiing game where the kiddos stood on his legs and he maneuvered them over imaginary jumps and moguls.

Here is Grandpa doing some sort of crazy dance with Meadow.

There were lots of treats inclusing some very big candy snakes, a Costco size container of Winnie the Pooh cookies and this gingerbread house kit.
With Grandpa in charge of the icing and Grandma in charge of handing out candy they created quite the festive Christmas cookie dwelling.
We miss them already!

Indoor P.E.- Twister

This was actually my homeschool partner in crime's idea but it's brilliant, so I stole borrowed it.

Twister!!!

Hudson is quite the flexible guy... and he knows left from right better than I do :)

Indoor P.E.- Big Ball

Well the weather outside is starting to become frightful... so I have been searching for creative indoor P.E. ideas. Today I brought out the big ball.

He-man!  How long can you hold the ball up on your head?

Front crawl isn't just for swimming.

We'll probably do some more practice with balancing. :)

What P.E. activities are you doing indoors?

What can you do for a minute?

Our Kindergarten unit study this week is based on the book Hurry Up Franklin! By Paulette Bourgeois.
One of the activities for this is to experience a minute with a sand timer.  How long is a minute???
So I asked Hudson can you stand on one foot for a minute?

This was a struggle, as was holding his arms out to the sides for 1 minute.

Keeping one finger on his nose was much easier.

The highlight for sure though was being able to say AHHHHH! for one whole minute.

Such a fun experiment :)

Obstacle Course

Exercise is tough to do indoors when you are 4. (Well and when you are 27 but for totally different reasons). Hudson longs for space to explore and move. So I made him a short obstacle course in the living room.

First he had to scurry across the love seat.

Then quickly walk across the couch.

Once off the furniture he jumped on the red mat (for as long as he wanted to as it wasn't really a race).

Next crawl through one fabric tube.

Then turn around and go through the other.

That was it.  I will probably make it a bit longer next time.  This was a good length for Hudson to get the gist of what to do though.

Is it P.E. or Math?

Carissa at 1+1+1=1 had a great idea for teaching number identification. I snagged the idea and used it with Hudson.
I scattered number flash cards 1-10 on the living room floor.  Then I gave Hudson a starting line to run from.  When I called out a number Hudson ran to find it and then deliver it to me.

He did really well recognizing most numbers but this is something we will be practicing more. 
Also I was featured today at

Through The Tunnel!

We are working hard at strengthening Meadow's leg muscles as well as her core muscles. One way to do this is to get her to crawl. (She chooses to be a bum scooter).
I set up the fabric tunnel we have and put an irresistible toy at the end of it. (Her brother's cardboard Lightning McQueen).

She totally took the bait:)

We did this quite a few times before Meadow figured out that she can just bum scoot around the tunnel and get the car.  Smart cookie that one :)