April 2011

 Here are some of the ways we kept the boys busy in April.


 Our family decided to go walk around the Parliment Gardens for awhile one afternoon.  It has a lot of nice grass for the boys to run around on.

The Windhoek church as seen from Parliment Gardens.

Parliament Gardens

Justin at Parliment Gardens

Ryan at Parliment Gardens.

 Easter fun for the boys.  We made rabbit cookies like we did last year.  The boys love the ones they get to frost, decorate, and, of course, eat. :)  We dyed eggs.  I remembered that I didn't let Justin use real dye when he was two years old. Oops.  Next year Ryan will be too old to fool with plain water.  Oh well.  They had fun.  Egg hunts kept the boys busy for hours.  After the real one they enjoyed hiding the eggs themselves and then finding them or having me find them.

Ryan frosting and decorating his cookie.







Justin finishing his cookie.



Justin dying eggs (and himself).

Ryan contemplating how to make his next mess.



Justin hunting for the eggs hidden in our yard.



The boys loved hiding the eggs and then finding them again.



The boys started swimmng lessons the end of April.  Emil is a very patient teacher.

The boys play with a variety of toys.  They are pretty creative.  They LOVE Imaginext and blocks among other things.

I started adding some variety to our MANY egg hunts by putting instructions inside of them.  Sometimes I would put in sight words or letters of the alphabet instead.


We wanted to go to walk around Avis Dam, but when we got to the road leading up to it, we found it covered in water.  We saw a man get out of his SUV and walk through the water to test the depth.  It went up to at least his knees.  We opted to skip the dam and go to the petting zoo instead.  The boys had fun playing with the playground equipment.



Easter bunnies made out of envelopes. We filled them with rabbit shaped sugar cookies and gave to friends. Top row, made by Justin. Bottom row, made by Ryan.

Of course we also had our trip to Etosha. :)



March 2011

Here are some of the activities that have been keeping us busy during the month of March.  We have also enjoyed swimming/wading, playing in the sandbox, building castles and rockets out of empty boxes, making Thomas train layouts, playing our new  Nickelodeon wii fit game, and a number of other things.

Justin (Cat in the Hat hat) and Ryan (orange hat) listen to a reading of Dr Seuss books at the Embassy community Dr Seuss celebration.  Justin thought it was weird to have a bday party for someone who was not there AND had never even been to Namibia.  He thought it was really weird when he found out Dr Seuss isn't even alive anymore.

J and I flipped a penny ten times and graphed the results.

Justin trying to predict if his penny will land on heads or tails this time.

Our Cat in the Hats.  Justin made his into a thank you card, but realized that he didn't know how to write "thank you" so he stopped trying and wrote "the end" because that is what you put at the end of things.

We put flashcards on the floor and one of us calls out a word and the other person has to shine the light on the word.  I have no idea while Blogger thinks it should rotate this picture sideways.

We sorted some cards in different ways.  Shown is by number of letters in the word.



Ryan was really into coloring with markers.



Justin building with the pattern blocks Meredith made.  Once again, Blogger thinks this picture looks better rotated.

Justin has patterns down, but he does not want to work on his cutting skills.  He has the most awkward grasp!  He was a better cutter 6 months ago when he accepted help with positioning the scissors.

This is Ryan's "leopard-con" which he for some reason thinks looks like Rob.  The hat?  Bushy beard?

Looking at letters with Dad.

Ryan has FINALLY started showing an interest in letters and numbers.  Much later than Justin, but he is getting there.  He knows 16 uppercase letters and some lowercase (like w).

The boys are getting ready to play a game that is based on one of the wii party games.  I don't mind building the game with them, but I can never keep up with the rules.

Ryan working on counting to ten with 1:1 correspondence.

Justin using his feet to manipulate the unifix cubes.  Lovely.

We were experimenting with different ways we could make ten.  Justin finds it fascinating that so many different combinations of numbers can add up to ten.

Ryan thinks he is pretty cool with cubes on his feet.

We were decorating hats for an alphabet safari.  Unfortunately, Ryan decided the letters should go Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and foam letters went flying of the table and all over the floor.

Ryan sporting his alphabet safari hat.

Justin adding the finishing touches to his alphabet safari hat.

We started our alphabet safari.  Each day, I give the boys a list of letters, and we go around the house looking for things that start with those letters.  We have taken many pictures.  When we finish the whole alphabet, we will choose our favorite pictures and put them in a powerpoint.  The boys have been having a lot of fun.

Justin with Brown Bear, Brown Bear manipulatives, retelling the story in his own order.

Ryan has the leters up the coconut tree, but they will come crashing down soon.  Chicka Chicka Boom BOOM!

Tell Me a Story by eeBoo

When I saw the eeBoo Tell Me a Story cards, the special ed teacher in me immediately thought how great these would be for speech and language therapy.  Many of the pictures are fairy tale related and would allow for familiar fairy tale retelling in traditional or more creative manner.  Justin immediately got to work telling a story, quickly rejecting the first half of his story because it was going to be too scary.

There are directions for a few different ways to play, but basically the point of the cards is to get kids (or adults) coming up with fun creative stories.  I think it would be fun to have a child make up a story and then type it up for them.  Justin likes to try to use most, if not all, of the cards and has a lot to say about each one.  His would be more like a novel than a story.  No way I can remember what he says!

This was a Grandma gift.  I am probably too cheap to buy something like this (unless it is on sale).  It could be made my printing out pictures or drawing some of your own.  Of course by the time I found what I wanted, printed them out, and laminated them for durability, I am sure it would be more cost effective to just buy the things.  In the future I might add a few cards to add some additional variety.  Right now 36 is enough though.

Our first time playing the "game" we played for almost 30 minutes.  I was getting bored rather than the kids.  I have a feeling that this will be a regular in our house.  Would be good for small groups, for a child playing with an adult, for a child playing alone, or for speech/language or ESL sessions.

The 36 story cards fit inside this sturdy cardboard box.

Justin trying to put his story in order.

Ryan trying to do whatever Justin is doing.

January/February 2011

 January continued to be a rather relaxed period.   So many new things to play with since the boys have Christmas AND their birthdays in December.

We took a trip to Swakopmund on the Namibian coast.  The boys loved the water and the playground.  The snake house, crystal palace, and other more typical tourist attractions were not as exciting for them.

The beach at Swakopmund, Namibia.  Ryan LOVED the waves and the sand. Justin was a bit more cautious of the ocean.

Ryan and Justin LOVED the bouncy castles and various other inflatable climbing and sliding structures.  Justin must have gone up (and down) the water slide a million times.  I think this was his highlight for the trip.

  

To help celebrate my birthday, Justin and Ryan made birthday crowns for everyone.

February still pretty laid back.  Justin is more interested in doing his own thing rather than doing a lot of structured activities.  He loves all of his games, old and new.  He plays them the correct way and also his own creative versions.  If I am playing, I would rather stick with rules I understand. :)

There are a lot of different spins on the traditional three bears!

J was more creative with his valentines than I am.

Ryan's version had the whole word to match rather than individual letters.  Good practice cutting, something Justin really needs.

Activity related to Mama, Do You Love Me? book.

One of the robot valentines we made for friends,  Body is a Hershey's mini candy bar.  Justin really enjoys folding the paper for the arms and legs.  Ryan is all about the wiggly eyes.

Some of the Valentine books we read over and over and over...

Even more Valentine/love books

Ryan "writing" his alphabet letters.

Justin and his writing.  He needs to work on appropriate grasp and letter formation, but doesn't want to hear about that from Mom!  I get in the way of his creativity.

Watching the video show how to make the letters is better than listening to Mom.  If it is on the TV it HAS to be good, right?  This is from the Waterford early education series.

We taped markers to Thomas trains and drew on some of the paper that was used as filling in packages we received in the mail.  A great activity for a rainy day.

We had MANY trains available for drawing/racing.

We have to drive by this church regularly and, though a major tourist attraction, had never gotten out of the car to look at it.  We FINALLY did.  Justin calls it a gingerbread church and Ryan says it is a castle.  Although it was supposed to be opened, the doors were all locked.  I have read that the inside is nothing special, but the boys were a little disappointed.  At least now when we drive by I don't have to promise that someday we will stop to look at it.  We finally have!