Preschool Week Three

As you can tell, I've been slacking off with the preschool posting. And the truth is, I had a couple of weeks where I did some preschool slacking altogether. Before I did that slacking, I was still in full positive mode and letting Audrey's massive sense of independence roll off my back. If she didn't want to do her little coloring pages, I wasn't going to make her.

For week three, we started things off with Hat Day. I made a hat just the right size for little A's head. I used newspaper and molded it right on her head. It's not much to look at, but Audrey loves it! She wore it while watching Kai-lan's Hat Parade.

The brim was a little wonky, but I think it's rather charming.

This angle gives it a sombrero feel.

Here's Kai-lan with her lily pad hat. Makes me wish I could make a hat out of a lily pad!

Hat Parade!

Cake hats! I WANT A CAKE HAT!!

Kai-lan and her YeYe

On Tuesday that week, we talked about musical instruments. While Audrey watched a few educational cartoons that talked about music and instruments, I put together a rainstick. I made it out of a wrapping paper tube, some short nails... correction: a LOT of short nails and dry beans. I wrapped it all with colored duct tape and put on a layer of packing tape just for safety.

Henry working it out!

It took a few tries to teach the little man how to make the rainstick "rain."

He got it eventually.

Little Miss A had it down pat!

On Wednesday we looked at lots of different dinosaurs, had dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets for lunch and watched Dinosaur Train. Audrey loves dinosaurs almost as much as princesses and fairies. Audrey pretty much loves everything she loves with all her heart... unless she doesn't like it at all. ;)

The next day was St. Patrick's Day. The leprechauns were up to their usual tricks this morning and turned the milk in her cereal green. She was a little disturbed. 

My plans for an all green lunch were foiled by Audrey's squeamishness. The leprechauns let her off the hook. I'm sure they figured it was better to let it go than have a little girl put off her food!

We had a baked potato bar for dinner, green jello, green grapes and Irish Soda Bread (that I made by hand). Audrey was still wigged about everything being green and wouldn't eat the jello.

I topped off the day with a pistachio pudding pie and whipped topping. YUM!

We talked about the jungle on Friday. Audrey loves looking at pictures of animals and she got to look at many animals she had never seen before. After we were done with that, I simply stapled two TP tubes together and called them binoculars for her to look through. I'm so glad she's young. The simple things still work! She watched Go Diego, Go! and I shut my ears for the duration!

We took a little field trip on Saturday and went to Kangaroo Zoo. It's a big play area that is filled with inflatables. Castles, dragons, sea creatures, slides. It was very loud with all the air pumps going at the same time and it took the kids to get over the noise and the sheer busyness of the place. After a while, though, they both got into it and even Henry was climbing the three story ladders to go down the huge slides.

Ben has more pictures on his camera. They're all bad quality because we forgot to bring the camera with us. Though, with how fast the kids were moving, they probably would have been blurry even if we HAD brought the good camera. Everyone went home tired and slightly deaf. Good times!

That afternoon, I had Audrey listen to Didgeridoo music. I think it's one of the neatest noises on the planet. I'd love to see someone play one in person some day.

U of U Dinosaur Museum

Audrey likes to watch Dinosaur Train on PBS

The little dinosaurs in the center are the stars: Tiny, Shiny, Don and Buddy.

After each episode of dinosaur antics, Dr. Scott usually has some words of wisdom to impart about the dinosaurs learned about that day, thereby making sure the program remains in the educational category.

I happened to find out that Dr. Scott was coming to the U of U Dinosaur Museum through a series of fluky web searches. I also found out that he is Utah's State Paleontologist. He was coming to unveil the newest dinosaur discovery. I couldn't resist and we galavanted up to Salt Lake on the appointed day.

This is the skull of the new dinosaur species. You can't tell in the picture, but this skull is HUGE! I think I had a hard time imagining the sheer size of a dinosaur until I saw this in person.

Audrey working on a dinosaur puzzle.

I don't know why my kids always look worried. I think they were both overwhelmed with all the people there.

Dr. Scott talking about the newest dinosaur species: Utahceratops gettyi

Its somewhat like a triceratops but with a LOT more horns.

This was a "live" version of the new dinosaur. Audrey was terrified of it. She didn't want to go anywhere near it.

Henry, on the other hand, was fascinated.

I think this was just about the only time he really looked like he was having a good time while we were up there.

Audrey getting Dr. Scott's autograph.

Dr. Scott & Audrey

She wasn't super excited about meeting him at the time. However, she talked about it for WEEKS after words as well as every time Dinosaur Train came on.

She was afraid of the furry puppet, but not of the angry, plastic, nasty toothed raptor dinosaur.

I'm sure, in the kids' opinions, the best part of the day was running around the park after we left the museum.

My kids have the best dad in the world...

Just as we have the best kids in the world... of course!

I'm sick and twisted.

I have taken to watching Spongebob Squarepants with Audrey.. well, I watch it and Audrey sortof watches it. She likes the themesong. Then she loses interest and I spend the next half hour laughing my head off.

I caught the pilot episode a few weeks ago. There is a scene near the end with Spongebob making Crabby Patties and he is so blissful he is dancing all over the kitchen. The music was hillarious and I just had to find it and download it. As it turns out, the song was Tiny Tim singing "Living in the Sunlight, Loving in the Moonlight". The song makes me laugh so hard and I have to listen to it at least 3 or 4 times a week.

I shared it with Dara and she made me send it to her. I shared it with Jennifer and she said I was wacked. I shared it with Ben and he wants to put it on his phone as the ring tone.. I shared it with Rebecca and her responce was ... "uhh.. okay." There's no accounting for taste, I suppose (mine or anyone elses).

I'm not saying that it's cool for me to like this song, but it does make me feel silly and I think I need to feel silly once in a while.

(I also took the liberty of adding it to my playlist.. it's on the top, so if you want to listen to this little piece of rediculous artistic expression, it's here for your pleasure.. or disgust.)