Trip to the Lake!!

Well, Wednesday started off beautiful and all the kids came on time. We were changed, lathered up, and out the door by 9:30am. We were all excited and couldn't wait to get to the Lake. We talked about sand castles we'd make, mud we would sling, and who could swim the fastest... Ha, Ha, the 2 yr old said it was her :)

So here it is... Lake Norman State Park (well, this is just a little section of it)

We were met by a beautiful butterfly... all the kids wanted to take him home, but I talked them out of it, since we didn't have our bug house.

Here we are getting into the good 'ol NC red clay... I told the kids there would be "real" clay there and they didn't believe me. At least until we got there.

They also heard some where that clay was great for the skin... that brought us to body painting again... They sure went hey wire here, maybe it was because they had the lake to wash off in after they were done??

Here is my hand, a mess from helping the kids dig up the clay. That stuff is hard in some places.

Here is our "clay" that we took home with us to play outside with. Hopefully I can get some pictures of that.

Digging up the clay.

This is the murky/clayie water we swim in.... I made sure the kids didn't wear their best bathing suits.. anything white turns that yucky reddish color...

Beach

Here are our towels all spread out... it is great when you watch the little ones just walk all over their friends towels with their dirty, sandy feet... To cute!

Digging in the beach dirt...

Making a dirt pool...

So we had a great day and loved our time at the beach... we ate on our towels, did all the things we talked about and then as it started to rain we were packing it in. The kids loved the sprinkles and we got home in time, before anyone got to wet.

On Thursday we did some more of our Under Water Theme...

We got some of those little pill looking things that grow as the water melts the outside. We found some sea animals and the kids loved the warm water and helping the animals hatch.

You have to love those little fingers in the water :)

We also set up a little water table for the little ones... look at that chubby little hand... she loved it!!


We had the little fishy and the big ones... but those big animals take FOREVER to get bigger. They finally started to get bigger, but the kids loved them.

Well, we are off tomorrow for vacation to the Mountains in NY. My boys and I can't wait... we need a little time for fishing, hiking, and some time as a family to regroup and get ready for the second half of the summer. We will miss our friends, and will be ready to get home and see them all!! Not sure if I will blog while I am away... but if not I will be back after vacation!!

Take Care!!!

Outside Fun

We started out Water/Ocean/Lake Theme this week. We wanted to learn about Ocean Animals, fish, and frogs... we don't have access to the ocean here, but we live near the beautiful Lake Norman. So, we decided to kinda mix it all together and then take our 3rd Summer Field Trip to Lake Norman State Park... We can't wait. Our beach is like a huge clay pit... we want to take some home with us and see if we can make something out of it. The kids can't wait.

Any way, we read Rainbow Fish, talked about friendship, fantasy -vs- reality... do fish really talk and exchange scales??? :) We loved that one! We then made our own Rainbow Fish...

We also brought the sand in to the sensory table and made a "beach" We bought some really cute boats and such from the store, but they didn't FLOAT!! Can you believe it... we at first we disappointed, but then we laughed and laughed!!! We pretended they were subs :)

We then decided to try the Chalk/Body paint I found at preschool daze that I have been dying to make. We were going to make it for the 4th of July... we even made a shower to help wash it off, but I didn't have any cornstarch and we couldn't. I picked some up last night and we got to make it this morning and what a time we had... loved it!!

We tried painting our bodies... some loved it!!

I think mostly we just liked the mess and the way it dried on the ground.

We wrote our names, the name of our daycare, and drew funny pictures!!

FUNNY FACE!!

Chipping the "Chalk" off the table




Loved playing in the sand and mud... Soup anyone??

Tea??

What's this??

Whoa!! How Cool!!!

Outside Painting... the bubble wrap added a lot of texture and popping it was a lot of fun too!!

This guy thought he was quite cool with his "cut" on his head!! What a Jokester!!


Lastly, I found this on the inside table... Montessori at work and what fun it is to be able to paint whenever they want... just take out their tray, paper, get their water and paint... When they are done they put it away... This little girl wasn't finished and came back to it after we did our outside chalk/body painting... She told me her watercolor picture was of all the kids outside doing the body painting... I love my job!!!

Lazy 5 Ranch

We have a great attraction right in our own backyard. It is The Lazy 5 Ranch in Mooresville, NC. We decided to pick that as our 2nd Summer Field Trip. I took so many great photo's, I wish I could put them all up. But I didn't want to take up all the space. Someday I will figure out how to do a collage or something... or maybe a slide show... but for now I only know how to add photo's into the post.

This guy was unbelievable... The tongue was huge and the kids were amazed at the texture. They wanted to see if their own tongue was as rough, but I had to quickly put a stop to that since we had touched this guys tongue first!!

This beautiful giraffe was so friendly... they had about 5 giraffes in the enclosure... one that had been born 5 months ago... and one was pregnant and would deliver in about 5 months... It was very sweet. A lot of babies were around for us to Ahhh over.

This Ostrich was huge, but his feet is what caught the kids attention. They couldn't believe that it could walk on only 2 toes... To cute :)

We had lunch in a perfect pavilion, nice and shady, and wonderful animals to look at close by. Of course our favorite was the playground.

The playground was great... the kids were able to run, hide and slide!! It was great to get out that energy from all that sitting on the wagon... hahahaha!! The kids were hot and tired within 10 minutes and we hadn't even been to the petting area yet.

We made a mad rush through the petting area and got a few pictures of some baby ducks, and peacocks. They were beautiful. That didn't stop the kids complaining of being hot and thirsty (they couldn't buy soda in the vending machine, so they complained quite a bit), so we left shortly after that. All in all we had a great morning... and next time we will remember to bring extra water... even though that's not what the whining was all about. Now I have to think of a way to top this trip next week...

Today's Fun

Today we had a hard day. The kids seemed to be a little whiny and didn't want to do anything. I tried to get some songs going, a little Freeze Dance, and water balloon enticement. Nothing worked... huh, not even water balloons?? Come on guys, what do you want??? Do I have to stand on my head?? I sat down and we started to brainstorm some ideas... we decided to cut up some old cardboard boxes, bring out the glue and glitter glue, and have a nature treasure hunt.
We found sand, pine cones, bark, leaves, flowers, and rocks. We were excited and had fun showing each other what we found.

Here A finds some sand, he could have found a lot in the sandbox, but he likes getting it up off the ground. To cute.

Getting ready to go... there goes those markers.... by the end of the day they were full of sand and grass. But that's ok, we've got more :)

Here is the beginning of a Masterpiece... I think she changed it, added sand, and made a great mess!! But I am glad I got it at this stage... it is very beautiful.

Here D loved the glue. He had fun finding the nature items, but putting them on with glue was the best... I wish you could see his face, but just imagine a huge smile. "I can do more, Shell??"

"Yes D... go ahead, we have more." "Really, as much as I want??" "Yes, go ahead" and then a Huge smile and more squeezing...

Yup, more squeezing, and looking at each other's Masterpiece's for ideas... I think we have some great pieces....

Even the big kids got into the action....

I am not sure if this was his first creation or second, but he loved having fun with it!!

Another Master Piece




We then moved inside to work on some music. L got his "electric keyboard" out for the little guys... they thought it was a lot of fun to hear all the different kinds of sounds you could set up with the piano music.

Here our littlest one is showing us how she uses the piano on her toy... the big kids loved it... She always has an audience.

All in all we had a good day, the whining stopped and we had fun creating some fun art work. Tomorrow we finish up some of our 4th of July project... I found the two we are going to use from Trish at Preschool Playbook...You can find it HERE. We will be doing the Glitter Fireworks, and the Exciting Streamers... may have time to do the Tissue Paper Fireworks, but I am not sure I have any tissue paper left... we have had a lot of birthday parties this past week. So, go on over to Trish's Preschool Playbook, she has some really great ideas and I absolutely will use many of them... Thanks Trish!!!!