Chalk Painting, British Apple Crumble & Battleship

We managed to squeeze in a little "J" work this week, like gluing jewels on a jacket.

Our creative projects were completely weather dependent; the weather was so rainy throughout the day, that we got outside any chance we could.

This project was supposed to have each kid coloring in different areas of the door to make "stained glass". But fighting broke out early on. So we took a moment to reset ourselves, and then each kid was given their own door to color. Colleen took the front storm door while the big kids had the patio doors. Austin made this really complicated tree with roots and ant hill underground.

 

Amelia invited Colleen to join her in doing her art assignment for the week. The girls worked on it for about an hour; I was very impressed with how Amelia diligently brought the assignment down to Colleen's level. 

Making an apple crumble with cream for his England passport recipe. We enjoyed it with cups of tea for afternoon snack.

 

Watering her seedlings 

It was cold outside, but not rainy. So we mixed up some chalk paint and the kids were free to paint however they wanted. We actually stretched this activity out over two sunny days before more rain came.

 

 

Bean intervention 

Amelia started flinging paint around and called it "Amelia-ism". Then we introduced Jackson Pollock.

 

Austin was so proud of his "Northern lights" over his underground gnome house. 

Sister Snuggles 

Water Wheel project from Amelia's passport was perfect for a rainy day. 

 

 

Midday walk in the rain

She adores the ride to and from the parking lot, but once we get there, she prefers to pick dandelions and lay in the 'sun'.

 

Both kids had zoom dates with friends to play Battleship. 

 

We had a glorious Saturday morning; we found the only community bike trail open and spent the morning riding. 

I had been teaching the children the Lord's Prayer during our morning devotions this week. I was very surprised how quickly Colleen picked it up after just 4 days of practicing.

Chiseling Styrofoam

Colleen continues to work on her preschool skills.

But sometimes we have crazy ideas of how to have fun. We took a styrofoam crate and wrote the letter of the week on it. Then Colleen used her tool kits to hammer/poke/chisel into the markings to form the letters. It gave us a few days of entertainment during school time.

At the end of the week, the big kids were allowed their turn with the box. After an hour, it was in styrofoam shreds all over the floor, but they had a blast demolishing it.

This kid lost his second tooth while eating a pork chop bone.

For his England passport box, we mixed up salt dough to create a model of Stonehenge.

 

 

Amelia made raisin bars from Nebraska.

 

For our creative time this week, we also tried paper weaving into baskets (Amelia's Florida passport).

 

 

Finished some puzzles we had borrowed.

 

And made origami boats and whales

The kids really are in a good school routine. Whenever they have read-aloud stories to watch or interesting videos, they call Colleen from her task and invite her to watch with them. Who knows what she's absorbing, but she loves to watch videos with them.

Unfortunately, Mom had an accident with a bread knife; we decided not to go to the doctor, but it definitely moved a lot of house chores over to Dad's burden.

When Daddy says "can we make microwave chocolate cakes in mugs for afternoon snack?" no one complains.

The kids were able to squeeze in some outside time in the middle of the rainy week. Climbing the front tree to get blossoms was attempted.

Rachel & Camila invited Amelia to come sit in their yard and try twig weaving.

The moment was hysterical, and this video does not do it justice.

The kids and I were playing Wii bowling; Colleen started belting out "Let it go" from Frozen every time it was her turn.

We took our bikes to the 4H parking lot for more riding time. 

 

It looks like there is going to be an intervention with the bean plants since they are reaching for the blinds.