Hairy Potato, Stunts, & Swings

Today we started our Plant Theme... Hairy the Potato, was our project today. The kids were so excited to complete this activity. We started out with a baking potato, cut the top (or bottom, whichever way you look at it) off, then dug out a hole (adult help needed here!!!). We then glued on eye, nose and a mouth (I used a hot glue gun for this, they told me where and they placed their pieces on the potato). We talked about what Hairy might be missing... hum... "Hair!!" someone yelled out. So we brainstormed on how we could get hair to grow in the hole... "Yarn," "Crazy Paper," (the paper we used on our kites) and " Spaghetti" were all great ideas :) Then I offered to let them take some of the grass seed that we used on the lawn this weekend to see if we could grow some hair. "Like our own hair!!" Princess Girl said, "My hair grew after I cut it with the scissors, see."

(Don't you just love the stage when they forget how to smile)

We thought they came out pretty neat... I thought Hairy was a good name, but each of the kids came up with their own name... like, Grassy, Tater, & Henry (ok, who knows where that came from???)

It is supposed to rain tomorrow, so we decided to spend our morning outside enjoying the beautiful weather. The kids loved the new sand pit... they spent a lot of time transferring sand from the box to the pit. Then they decided that the pit was high enough to use as a Stunt Pad. So, Stunts were being performed for a very long time. I always find it amazing that jumping, off anything, can be so satisfying to children. They jumped, got back in line, waited their turn, jumped again, over and over, for the better part of a hour. Amazing...

Little Miss M showed us how she could "swing" on the big kids swing today. I am not sure if this is something she learned over the weekend or she just "got" it today. She has been experimenting, practicing and playing on the big swings for awhile now. She has wanted to move the swing, while on her belly, since she can't actually get herself on the swing yet. The kids have been showing her how to do it, going as far as manipulating her feet to push off with. But, she just hadn't made the connection until today. I will have to ask Mom & Dad if they practiced over the weekend.

Despite how this photo looks, she was very proud of herself!!! I just caught her as she looked up from her work, so I think she was a little perturbed with me for bothering her.

The big girls were cheering her on!!!

We will be making our Greenhouses tomorrow, another activity the kids are excited about. I decided not to tell them what the seeds were... we are going to plant some in a cup and some in the "Greenhouses" and see what happens. It should be a lot of fun around here for the next couple of weeks... watching everything at their different stages of growth.