Latest Trip to NY - Thanksgiving

Yes, another trip to NY, but this time to celebrate Thanksgiving with my entire family. Awesome, right? Right?!

So here's a little bit of what we did there:

For breakfast we ate kasha (because you know, it's just so Russian) and toast because on the way to NY we all listened to an audio book about Mercy Watson, the pig. So here's a real world math problem for you - if a story lasts 15 minutes and the NC to NY drive lasts 10 hours, how many times did we get to listen about how much Mercy Watson loves a well-buttered toast? The correct answer is TOO MANY!

We went on walks and looked at all the trees and cool bark and ducks and swans. Then we wanted to go home because it was just way too cold outside.

So then we would get home, collect the sticks for a little fire and roast bread, pineapples and bananas.

We also went to the Rockland Bakery to buy bread.
And then it was time to go to the Thanksgiving dinner with my family. Lots of family. Lots of little kids. Lots of food, of course. Mostly Russian appetizers. All delicious 'cause my aunt who hosted the party is an awesome cook.

Our Fall Crafts

With Space being the theme of choice these days we don't get to do much of unrelated activities. The play stove in the play kitchen has been cold for days. The Candy Land game sits lonely on the shelf. The drum is collecting dust up in the attic (I actually don't mind this last one).

Surprisingly though, M makes an exception for holiday crafts and activities. But he definitely keeps these two types of activities separate. The family room and the hallway leading to it is where his space stuff is - rockets, shuttles, puzzles and games, and craft displays. The kitchen and the living room is where we decorate for the holidays.

Anyway, back to the fall crafts. Here's a couple we've made this far:

1. Leaf garland - I got the idea from The Artful Parent blog. The good news was that I found the silver oil pens on sale at the craft store. The bad news was that they were on sale for a good reason - they weren't writing too well, especially the thinner ones. But I gave M the thicker of the two pens and he enjoyed drawing with them on the leaves.

2. Contact paper collage - first, we went on a walk to collect all the different leaves and flowers. That was a lot of fun on its own, kind of like a scavenger hunt. Then we dried them (all those volumes of Encyclopedia Britannica do come handy after all). Then M decided that he needed to snip all the stems with his little scissors (hard work, but he did well). But the most exciting thing for me was that M started and finished this entire collage BY HIMSELF! Usually he asks for my help just a few minutes into the project or loses interest altogether.

I think, given that it's the end of November, we'll wrap up our fall crafts for this year. Time to work on winter crafts :)

Our First Treehouse!

Yay, after almost three months the first tree house is ready. No, not the A-frame one, but the other one. Of course, the platform itself and the railing around it were ready back in September. Then we took a little break trying to figure out how to build the stairs or a ladder.

You see, this perch sits really high on the tree, more than 7ft above the ground. A vertical ladder of some sort wouldn't be safe enough for the little ones. Even dumping a truck-full of sand there wouldn't make it much safer as there are lots of tree roots sticking out here and there.

Then my dad visited (in October, around the NC State Fair time) and came up with an idea of a proper staircase with landings and all. So he and Chris got to work and got it mostly done. Then we took another break because of the weather and not having enough hours in the day.

Finally, the railing was done and Chris primed the super-structure. Now, priming and painting this monster is really the most tedious and time-consuming job we've done so far. And by "we" I mean Chris. I did help him just a bit, but mostly I ended up entertaining M and chasing him away from the paint can and the brushes (we'll do some awesome painting project with the leftover paint though). So here it is, the super-duper tree house! Ta-da!

More Space Stuff

Are you tired yet? Well, M's fascination with space is nowhere near over, just the opposite. We read The Magic School Bus Takes a Moonwalk daily and The Magic School Bus Lost in the Solar System - almost daily. That's in addition to lots and lots of other awesome books about planets and galaxies and astronauts that we go through several times a day.

We also finished the space helmet. It's giant! I clearly over-estimated my child's head size, but at least he won't get stuck in it. Plus now even adults can try it on (and believe me, we have no shortage of the takers).

Now when M goes anywhere where there might be other children (or adults) he wants to dress up in not only the space suit, but also wear the helmet and the "oxygen tanks". And when he's not in this uniform, he likes to approach people and announce to them "I'm going to be an astronaut when I grow up". He then proceeds to introduce me as Ms. Frizzle (the awesome, but strangely-dressed teacher from The Magic School Bus series).

He addresses me as Ms. Frizzle throughout the day as in "Ms. Frizzle, we have a problem" or "Ms. Frizzle, you are the strangest teacher in school" or "Ms. Frizzle, I have a question for you" or "Ms. Frizzle, take us to the magic school bus". And yes, he addresses himself in plural sometimes because while I'm Ms. Frizzle, he is her entire class. Oh, and our cat, Xander, is renamed "Liz, the lizard" on these occasions.

Being Ms. Frizzle is really not so bad at all. Especially compared to all my previous gigs as Winni the Pooh, the ghost, Lolochka the puppy, Zamatayu the dog, Luna 3 the lunar module, the witch, etc, etc. At least I no longer have to speak in alarmingly low, startlingly high or unnaturally constipated voices. And I get to hear things such as "That was a great field trip, Ms. Frizzle" pretty much after every playdate and outing.

But I started running out of ideas for space-related games and craft activities. Thankfully, our local teacher's store had this awesome book - Solar System - Curriculum Based Hands-on Activities. It's for Grades 1-3, but I looked through it quickly and it seemed that many of the activities could be easily adapted to a younger child.

M was very excited when I told him we'll be doing more space experiments. So far we've done the experiment to see how impact craters are formed and why a space ship can't land on a gas giant. This sounds fancy, but all it took was some sand and potatoes for the former and an egg and a coin for the latter.

We also made a couple of catapults. One was large, simple and not very spectacular. The other one, slightly more complicated and much smaller was awesome. It shot little foil projectiles clear across the room!

Then we took a little break to look at some pictures of space stuff. And that's how we accidentally stumbled upon a new game. We lined up the cards, set the catapult some distance away and tried landing foil meteors on different space objects. Then M tried to launch the little astronaut into a black hole to see him get spaghettified.

eye-cose-a-HEE-dron

A quick and simple math craft that I saw in the last Family Fun issue and that M and I did a few days ago. I couldn't think of what else to do that day after a successful crayon-melting experiment (trying to see what would happen when a spaceship (crayon) flies too close to the Sun (our oven)).

Fortunately, I had 20 small paper plates that were taking up valuable shelf space in my kitchen for the last couple of years. M got to use the stapler, so he loved it. He also made an observation ('cause you know, astronauts observe and experiment) that the resulting polyhedron looked somewhat like a ball. Except it had lots of surfaces and edges (new words!) and wouldn't bounce.