November 2011 Activities

 I was trying to figure out why I didn't have more pictures for this month.  Then I remembered that my camera got broken and I had to wait for a new one to arrive.

Ryan has been really into his name.  He has been practicing writing the letters.  Here he is with a slate and some letters from Handwriting Without Tears.  He doesn't have a good grasp yet, but he can build letters out of sticks and curves and has an idea of how to form capital letters.

Here is Ryan using a handwriting app that I like.  It is called Write Words.  I like that it requires you to form the letters using the correct formation AND it gives you some leeway, but not too much as to the boundaries.  He is getting good.  I wish Justin had had this when he was Ryan's age.

Lots of walking on our vacation over Thanksgiving weekend.

My boys love boxes.  They don't have any toys you know.

Packaging material is as much fun as the boxes.

Ryan is able to sort by color and size.

Justin's corn cob printing/painting.

Ryan's corn cob printing/painting.

Ryan really likes to get into his painting.  Why use other tools when you have hands available.

Justin doesn't make QUITE as much of a mess with paint as Ryan.

We colored turkeys and then cut them out and put them in order big to small and small to big.

I don't know what happened to the other turkey.  This one is Justin's.

October Activities

October was a month of warmer weather.  We had a lot of fun getting ready for Halloween.  A lot of the books we read were the same as last year's.  Since my camera is not working, I didn't take pictures of the books that were new for this year.  We also had a good family vacation to the Kalahari Desert area of Namibia as well as a few outings in Windhoek.

We went to a museum.



We sipped hot chocolate in the Kalahari Desert during the early morning hours.



Ryan is putting candy in treat bags that we were making for people.  I would give him enough pieces to put one in each bag.  After he would finish, I would refill his bag so he could go another round. 

Justin was much faster putting candy in the bags and even started tossing them in.

These are the jack-o-lantern faces that we stapled to the front of the treat bags.

Ryan used a bit more glue than Justin.  He hasn't mastered the "just a dot" rule yet.

We made a Halloween book patterned after "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" and called it "The Trick or Treaters!"  Justin and Ryan chose the pictures.  I wrote most of the text, but Justin wrote in the I and me parts.

The boys LOVE stickers.  They went through about 700 Halloween stickers.  Good for working on fine motor skills, right?

Justin put our poem in order and Ryan would put the ghosts in order from 1 to 10.

Ryan at Bush Park early in October.

Justin at Bush Park earlier in October.

My cute little monsters.  They love little projects like these.

Here are some of the pumpkins we made.

We painted some pumpkin pictures and then the boys did their own thing.  Not sure what Ryan's is supposed to be, but Justin said his was a Christmas tree with big decorations on it.

We played with Imaginext a lot.  The boys manage to find unique ways to combine their toys.  Here we have play food, Ty Beanie Baby Wonder Pets, Imaginext figures, wooden blocks, and Fisher Price car.

We did Five Little Pumpkins on the flannel board.

My boys managed to fight, wrestle, and play without any serious injuries this month.



We made and labeled our skeletons.  We watched a DVD of "Dem Bones" about a million times. 




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 We wove strips of paper through some pumpkin cut outs.

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Justin labeled rooms in the house so guests would not get lost.  He added pictures in case they couldn't read. 



And of course, trick or treating. :)



September 2011

We got to spend the first part of the month in the US.  We got back to Namibia and the boys experienced severe jet lag!  We didn't get a lot done this month, but hopefully October will be better!

This was a great book to read BEFORE and AFTER our trip to the fire station.  No, I don't know why blogger insists on rotating this image this way.  It is not this way in any other viewer.  Go figure.

These were some fun fire related books as well.

Justin and Ryan made these fun little fire trucks, complete with ladders that move up and down.

How cool is it to try on a helmet? 

Evidently the helmet is not as scary as the fire pole.  Justin and Ryan both chickened out of the chance to go down the fire pole.  Justin went last year, but claimed it was scarier this year.

Getting out of the truck after a fun ride in the fire truck, complete with lights and siren!

Before the fire truck ride the boys got to spray one of the hoses.  They have some pretty good water pressure!  A fire fighter assisted them so that the water didn't get too out of control.  I don't have pictures because I was trying not to get too close.  The water sometimes strayed a bit...

Justin has become a lean, mean reading machine.  When I showed him the October book order, he chose over $100 worth of books.  I told him he could only have $23.  (I figured with $23 I could fudge a bit with the numbers if needed without him noticing.)  I put each book he wanted on a piece of paper along with the cost and a face rating to indicate how close to his reading level it was.  He was able to make his choices without whining. :)

We planted some things out back and labeled them.  We will see what grows.  (Again with the sideways picture, hmmm)

Justin and Ryan had a lot of fun with rubber stamps, scissors, and glue.  Here is one of Justin's creations.  This picture is

We did some Johnny Appleseed stuff this month.

Some of Justin's favorite books to read this month.

July Stuff

In all of the excitement to go to the US for six weeks, I forgot to post this before we left. 

We use letter tiles to spell words.  Even Ryan can do this and he loves spelling the names of people he knows.

Legos and blocks are always favorites.  The boys worked together on this project, which made it a special one.  Anything they can build together without fighting is a miracle!

One of the books Justin read suggested making an x on the floor and throwing beanbags on it.  We added numbers on the tape as well.  Ryan just called out the numbers the beanbags landed on.  Justin had to add up the totals.  The beanbags are different colors and different shapes.  That must make the activity an entire math lesson for Ryan. :)

Ryan kept getting really close to his X.

If you have ever read The Big Orange Splot you may recognize this as Mr. Plumbean's house.  The boys enjoy the story and had fun making the house as well.

Ryan is hysterical to watch as he makes his way through the tires.  We continue to go to the petting zoo to see the animals and to play on the playground.

My boys are superheroes!  Thank you to Alicia for the fun surprise. :)

I line up an alphabet with a mix of upper and lowercase letters and Ryan has to match the mommy letters to their baby letters.  It is also a good activity to make sure we have all of the alphabet pieces before we put them away. :)

Fir some reason it is hard to sing the ABC song while wearing sunglasses.  I guess it is all of the coolness in the way.