R-O-B-O-T

After watching an episode of Curious George called "Robot Monkey," Emma asked us, "Can I make a robot, pleeeeease?" She talked about it so much for several days. So one Saturday morning, I went to the recycling drawer and pulled out a variety of objects (water bottles, tissue box, packing box, plastic lids, toilet paper tubes, and fruit cup containers) and gathered some art supplies (scissors, glue, pipe cleaners, wiggly eyes, feathers, crepe paper, foil, and tape). Emma and her Daddio had the best time building their very own creation. It was a fun project for a cold weekend. Emma named him Sketty. It was our first attempt at constructing a robot, so he was a little unstable and kept falling over. Each time Emma shouted, "Oh, no! He fell over!" I guess she wasn't all that pleased with the final product, because she wanted to take him apart. We tried to convince her to leave the pieces in tact, but she disassembled him bit by bit.

Valentine Learning Fun

After reading the blogs of a few friends, I was inspired to attempt "Tot School" with Emma. Scott is at ISU one evening a week for class, so I thought it would be the perfect time for structured learning activities. Emma would have school when Daddio went to school. I had prepared an array of projects and games for Emma with a Valentine's Day theme from a variety of sources. I hoped to spend 30-45 minutes working on skills such as coloring, patterning, counting, sequencing, and sorting. While it didn't exactly go as planned, the pictures show that she did have some fun.

Valentine's Day activities can be found at these links.

Confessions of a Homeschooler

Pre-Kinders

1 + 1 + 1 = 1

Lawteedah

Frogs, Bees, and Under the Seas

Making Learning Fun

Puppy Love

Rex is Emma's best buddy! (No, we did not get a dog.) Papa Ross and Grandma Connie brought Rex with during a day trip to visit us. When Emma was younger, she was quite afraid of dogs and cats. It took over two years, but now she can't get enough of them. She's always asking, "Where's Rex?" or "Let's go see if Bailey the cat is sleeping" when we travel to see Papa Mike and Grammy Jill. We think she overcame her fear after spending quality time with Chloe, her babysitter's black lab, day after day. Dee has shown us pictures of Chloe laying lovingly on Emma as they sit together on the couch. Imagine that . . . a huge black lab snuggling up with Emma!

Snow Days

When the blizzard of 2011 hit central Illinois, we were shut in for 3 days. A neighbor hired a local farmer to plow most of our street with his tractor. (Because the cul-du-sac appeared to be plowed, the city felt it was good enough, and the area in front of our house was never cleared. It took Scott several days to carve a path for us to leave.) The huge pile created by the tractor became a sledding and snowboarding hill for the kids. But we were too overprotective to let Emma get in the mix. She was able to watch them from the playroom window on quite a few occasions. We ventured to the backyard for some of our own playtime in the snow. A drift provided Emma a nice climbing challenge.