Kindergarten art

At Emily's school, they don't have art class in Kindergarten (boo!), so the teachers have to incorporate art projects in their lesson plans.  Here are some of the projects from the first couple months of school:

During September, Emily's class reviewed one letter per day and made an art project with each one.  These are hanging up on the art wall in the basement.  You might notice that "M" with glued-on macaroni and "S"  covered in star stickers are missing.  They were the first two letters and went missing before I decided to keep and display all of them. ;o)

Emily had to make an "All About Me" poster at home.

Another homework project was to go on a nature walk and make a collage of the things you collected.

These two went along with books.  The first is Chicka-Chicka-Boom-Boom.  I'm not sure about the green monster one. :o)

October 2012 Videos

Trick-or-treat

The kids' costumes were very simple.  They were put together using things we already had or borrowed or Emily made.  At first, Lincoln wanted to be Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle.  Then he REALLY wanted to be a "butter-thy" like Emily.  I finally convinced him to be a cowboy like Curious George in Curious George Goes to a Costume Party.  He had to bring a costume to preschool on Tuesday.

Emily had to bring her butterfly costume to school twice, but I never saw the full outfit complete with butterfly flip-flops, thus no picture.  Austin usually takes the kids trick-or-treating while I stay home and answer the door, but he was traveling for work.  Thankfully, our international host student eagerly volunteered to take the kids even though she had never been trick-or-treating before.  The kids had fun going out around the neighborhood for about 45 min. until Emily's basket was full and Andjelka had to get back to campus for a meeting.  We had very few trick-or-treaters even though the weather was decent.  There's a reason I buy Mounds and KitKats to hand out! ;o)

Carving pumpkins

I don't think it's a secret that I'm not a fan of Halloween.  The only part I really enjoy is carving pumpkins.  By default, this has become a tradition on Emily's birthday.  I didn't even attempt to get fancy this year because I didn't have the time or the tools (our pumpkins were huge and thick-skinned).  Both kids were excited to design their own faces anyway.  I ended up doing 95% of the work because both kids were also grossed out by the insides and didn't want to touch anything except with a spoon.  I did use a good tip pinned by my sister about cutting a wide slot down the back as part of the lid for ease in cleaning out and lighting the pumpkin.

I seem to always find myself scrambling around looking for votive candles at the last minute, so this year I splurged and bought some special battery-operated pumpkin lights I recently saw featured on The Today Show in a waiting room.  Unfortunately, I was in a hurry, so I didn't read the package label closely and ended up with strobe lights instead of the color-changing LED lights I was looking for.  I guess it might be scarier, but it's definitely more annoying!  The kids had a lot of fun with them, though.  I must admit it was pretty tricky trying to get a  picture of both pumpkins lit since they were only briefly in sync every minute or so.  The kids tried to make scary faces, too. :o)

6 years old

Well, we now officially have a six-year-old!  Emily continues to learn and grow up before our eyes.  Her official birthday measurements are 46.5" tall and 50 lbs.

In addition to outer space, Emily has been absolutely fascinated by the Titanic this month.  She has checked out books from both the school and public library, as well as a National Geographic DVD about the discovery of the ruins.  However, she started to have nightmares at night, so we have decided to take a break from that topic.

School continues to go well.  Emily had a lot of fun this month playing a made up game on the playground at recess called "Flush the Toilet" that involved going down the slides.  They had quite the group going for a while.  She has made up other fun games at home.

Emily also enjoys playing school at home (no surprise there).  She has 35 "students" that are usually set up in her room for carpet time.  Each one has a unique name and personality.  Emily even has a rotating job chart on her closet door.

We haven't had nearly as many mealtime battles this month.  I've been making more things that I know the kids like and less new recipes.  Emily also brings cold lunch to school about two-thirds of the time.  One negative development is that she suddenly decided she was tired of Frosted Mini-Wheats Chocolate Little Bites cereal, which has been the staple of her diet for a couple years now.  She is now into Quaker Oatmeal Squares and Froot Loops instead.  Unfortunately, she made this decision AFTER I had just stocked up with Kelloggs/Scholastic rewards boxes.  What am I going to do with eight boxes of "chocolate cereal"?!?

We have also ventured into the world of Legos this month.  Emily took great pride in building "the great wall of China" with a random collection of Legos picked up at a garage sale years ago.  It's actually a blueprint of a large building that has classrooms, bedrooms, bathrooms, etc.  Now Emily received a bunch of Lego Friends (i.e. the new girl Legos collection) for her birthday.  I'll post more on that sometime.

Emily's birthday

After a really fun party on Sunday, Emily had a great birthday on Tuesday.  She wore her new outfit to school.  Her chosen birthday treats were frosted butterfly cookies with rainbow butterfly sprinkles.  She helped bake them last week.  She picked out the colors and frosted about half a dozen cookies before getting distracted by her new toys, so I ended up frosting the rest.  They were a hit at school.

Emily's birthday party

We celebrated Emily's 6th birthday with family on Sunday afternoon.  Emily was thrilled with her gifts, which included Lego Friends, Hello Kitty purse, personalized piano bag, books, crafts, a cash register and a cute new outfit.

We purchased space-themed plates/napkins/cups (not pictured), and Emily made all the wall decorations.

Emily found a Lego buddy in our international host student, Andjelka.

Frosting the cake

Emily has changed her mind so many times since she started "planning" her birthday party during Lincoln's party last May.  She talked about everything from rock star to Emily the engine to butterflies again.  However, she has had an intense interest in outer space for the last month or so.  I swear she has read every space book in the easy reader non-fiction section of the public library.  So, Emily finally settled on an outer space theme.  We checked out the star cake pans from the library again.  Emily made a miniature solar system that we covered in contact paper.  We even got special star & moon sprinkles.  I would not recommend black frosting to anyone, but it was the best choice for this one.  Emily helped me decorate.  Lincoln & Cousin Ryan helped with frosting clean-up.  Emily was thrilled with the outcome.  However, she ended up not even eating one bite of cake because she was afraid her teeth would turn black. :o)

Afterwards, Grandpa Boote gave horsie rides. :o)

 The boys also enjoyed racing plasma cars.

Emotions

Our homework assignment for Spanish class this week was to take pictures of different emotions to compile in a book.  The photos were too funny not to share.  Can you match the following emotions?

• feliz--happy
• triste--sad
• emocionado/a--excited
• enojado/a--mad
• cansado/a--tired
• nervioso/a--nervous

 

Lincoln's perspective

Lincoln still loves taking pictures with the camera.  Today it entertained him for 20 minutes while I practiced piano with Emily.  After paring down the 110 pictures he took (most of which were very blurry or repetitive), I put together a slide show of some of my favorites.  I think it's an interesting glimpse into his current perspective in life...