Wow... Another Field Trip!!

We have a great old garden center right around the corner. It is housed in an old brick building that smells of years worth of fertilizer, lime, peat moss, soil and flowers. It is an exciting experience visiting as an adult, I knew the kids would just love it!!



You never know what you'll find and trying to guess what it is used for is part of the fun. Talking about Fall and what happens to trees and flowers this week helped to prepare us for the different things we saw. But this huge wheel barrel full of soil was a lot of fun to look into. We guessed that maybe a dinosaur was buried under all that soil, or maybe flowers, worms and leaves.

Mmmmm... that smells good.

Whoa... what is that???

That's silly!!!

Experiencing the sights and smells too!!!

Getting a picture of this crew isn't hard, it's just getting a good picture, with everyone at least looking my way, is impossible!!!

Ok guys... follow me!!!

Taking our treasures home.



After visiting Brawley Garden Center we went to the local park.

What fun!!!

Look at Little Man trying his hand at climbing the climbing wall... he did pretty good for his first time. He didn't get all the way up, but he used muscles I don't think even he knew he had :)

Sprout really wanted to figure out this climbing wall and she worked at it until she finally made it to the top. After she succeeded in getting up it, she must have climbed it another 10 times to master it. We were all very proud of her!!!

Lil Bit here found those turny things with pictures on them. There isn't really a use for them except to turn them and look at the pictures. I never really liked them before, but today Scamp and Lil Bit spent a lot of time turning them and looking at the pictures.

Look how big this Scamp is getting!!!

We tried again for a group photo during our water break... only 1 looking at me, but Sprout looks so cute I had to use this one!!!

Another successful Field Trip!! What fun we had... next week it is off to a nature trail to look at Fresh Fall Leaves. I hope they will be turning colors by then, if not, we may just have to go again the following week :)

Apple Buying

We took a little field trip to the local grocery store today. It was a lot of fun!!! I never really thought about making a trip to the grocery store a field trip. I always thought field trips had to be exotic, interesting, or museumy (if that is even a word), but after taking a workshop with Patricia Dischler at the NAFCC Conference in Las Vegas this past summer, I realize that anything can be made into something interesting, exotic or museumy :) if you just put a little thought into it. We live in an area that isn't all that close to many apple orchards, so I read the book Apple Farmer Annie, by Monica Wellington. It gives a description, both with pictures and text, about how apples are grown and harvested and then brought to market. We didn't read the text totally, but talked about what we saw in the pictures and how we thought apples got to our market. Then we took our trip to see if we could find some yummy, juicy apples in many colors.

Friends!!!

Look at all those colors

Sharing our observations with our friends

So many to choose from, yet we must have the same one :)

Little Man likes this one!!

Helping to bag the apples up to take home

Lil Bit wants to pick one out too!!!

What do you think Scamp??

We had to convince her that the apple needed to go in the bag, she didn't want to let it go :)

Look at all these colors Shell

There we go

Look Scamp, they come in different colors

We also found out that they sell more than just food at the grocery store.

Even the checkout line was a lot of fun!!!

Say Cheese Scamp!!!

I think our trip to the grocery store to buy our special apples had to be almost as much fun as a trip to the park would have been. There was so many people to see and wave to, there were lots of different kinds of food, we even saw boxes with a different language written on it. We enjoyed having all the workers think we were the cutest, most well behaved children they have ever seen, of course :) What a good morning!!!

A Field Trip, A Birthday and Cupcakes!!!!

Happy Birthday Miss Roo!!!

3 is a wonderful year!!

We went to the Post Office today to end our Community Helper theme. We were met with lots of rain!! That didn't damper our spirits though. We had some special envelopes to get stamped and sent out to our loved ones and a Special Happy 3rd Birthday to celebrate, so off we went in the rain!!!

At the post office we were met by a great worker who helped us get all our envelopes stamped, and we were even able to put them in the mail slot all by ourselves. The workers even let Miss Michelle take as many photos as she liked!!!

Some of us needed a little help though.

Miss Beth had a great idea with her umbrella!!! She kept her crew nice and dry!!

We then made our way to a great new bakery in our town called The Black Velvet Bakery... they didn't know we were coming, but they welcomed our little group with lots of smiles and yummy cupcakes!!

Here we are picking out our cupcakes... Sprout isn't to sure which one she wants.

Then we got to sing Happy Birthday to Roo... who of all people I wouldn't think of as shy, but shy she was :)

Little Man really enjoyed himself!! He was like a great big boy sitting in his chair, eating his chocolate cupcake. He did a lot of giggling and laughing.

Unfortunately the rain never let up while we were out, but we had a great time anyway!!!

First Field Trip of the Year!!!

I was a little apprehensive to go on a field trip so early in the year, but I really want to get out and do more with the kids this year. Being in the same environment day in and day out can get on anyones nerves, but when you have 5 children under 3, well.... enough said, right :) I am hoping to get out at least once a month. We have lots on our list to do.

Well, they did GREAT!!! Getting out the door took longer than expected, but anyone who knows me, knows I always take longer than expected, so no surprise there. Our car ride was fun, lots of singing 10 Little Fishy's, and If Your Happy and You Know It... riding in someone else's car is always an adventure for little ones.

We didn't make plans with the pet store we went to, but we didn't really think it would matter since we were there to purchase a fish for child care. Everyone was very excited!!

Anxious to go inside!!

The reptiles were the first thing we saw, and the Bearded Dragon didn't disappoint... he came right up to the window and eyed the kids. I actually thought about taking him home. But, I just couldn't see myself looking for a Bearded Dragon Lizard that got loose in my house :)

The reptiles were very interesting and we spent a lot of time watching them.

The Birds were a lot of fun. They moved constantly and made lots of noise. My little Scamp here actually is smiling behind that pacy. She thought the birds were very cool.

Lil Bit couldn't stop hopping up and down in her seat... she thought everything was very exciting and talked a lot to each and everything she saw.

Although the kids loved everything, I think the cats and kittens were everyones favorite. How can you not love seeing these balls of fun swat at the toys and the glass. There was a lot of giggling and laughter.

We finally got down to the very real business of making a very important purchase. First, will it be a goldfish or a beta fish... we choose the beta fish. Then which one, a male or female, blue or red?? We choose a male, who was blue and red :) It was a hard decision. But I think we made the right choice.

We made our way to the checkout (we were told by this time that there was no taking photos of the animals in the store... I was a little taken by surprise, but not wanting to make a scene, I complied with the young women's instructions :) ) We choose a nice little tank to house our fish and homeward we went.

At home we rinsed everything, added the water and are now waiting to set our new friend free in his new home. We think he is really going to like it here.

Now if we could only agree upon a name we would be all set. We will save that for next week :)

Z is for Zebra

Wow... I can't believe we finished all of our letters!! I think that every year I have left out a W, Y, or X. This year we did them all!!! What fun we had too!!! I usually will usually not go through the alphabet in order (that is the way they teach in the local elementary school) but this year we went from Aa to Zz. I am glad we did too, because it was a great time of year to visit our local "Zoo." We have a zoo like park in the town over from us called Zootastic. It is a really great animal park, and we didn't have to travel across state lines to get to the closest large zoo near us.

We had talked about the letter Zz all week, learned about Zebra's and then we got to see this guy!! It was great, all the kids exclaimed, "ZEBRA!!!" when we saw him. To cute!!

We also got to feed lots of animals. The baby animals were the cutest things we saw all day!!

The Reptile Room actually was another favorite. The kids enjoyed hearing about the different lizards and even getting to pet one. Then the tour guide took out this interesting orange snake, of course I cannot remember the name of it, but it didn't stop the kids from talking about him all day. They got to pet him and found his skin to be quite interesting, not wet or slimy like they thought.

The kangaroo was so soft... we didn't think he would be. We actually had talked about seeing him at the "zoo" (I had found out earlier that they had a kangaroo from a parent) and we guessed his fur would be course, rough, or pokey. We were surprised to feel how soft and friendly the little guy was. Of course the guide had a great grip on his tail to keep him from jumping, thankfully :)

They also had a baby tiger, baby bear, some beautiful birds (that talked no less), a tortoise, camel, buffalo, and many more to see and learn about. We got to eat our lunch at some nice picnic table in the shade, right near a wonderful playground. We had a great day, it was a wonderful way to end our alphabet curriculum.

Now it is on to Spring/Summer activities. Like... mud, water, bugs, and lots of outdoor time!!!