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.

June Happenings

June is the middle of winter here.  It is weird not to be doing "summer" stuff.  I don't like that the days are shorter, but I do appreciate the warm, bright sun.

Justin looking at the frosting on his knife.  We decorated star cookies with yellow frosting and sprinkles to celebrate him being able to read 100 words from the Dolch Word List.

Ryan couldn't read the words, but he got to decorate a cookie too.  He knows his alphabet, so I guess that should count.

We made Flubber.

The verdict was that Flubber wasn't as much fun as play-doh.

Our chain to count down the days until we go to the US to visit family.  Justin helped me staple the chain pattern. Ryan was excited that the chain made an "M" for Mommy.

Ryan with a rabbit at the petting zoo.

One of our favorite playgrounds here.  Now you see why we are so excited to go to the US to visit.  I wouldn't let them play on something like this there.  Here, despite missing bolts, broken boards, etc., it is a real gem.

The boys are using monkey finger puppets to play Angry Monkeys.  Very similar to the Angry Birds game, but they do much better with their version than they do on the ipod.

An obstacle course for the monkeys.  It includes sballs with spikes, giant spiders, fence with spikes, and several other challenges.  Justin loves to take ideas from videos or games and make them his own.

The boys made this for Rob for Father's Day.  Wooden box from JoAnns plus tissue paper and glue equals a box for Daddy to put his keys in at work.  Ryan did the lid and Justin did the rest of the box.

Since it is winter here, we read the book The Mitten by Jan Brett.  We laced a paper mitten and put the animals inside it to retell the story.

Here are Justin's animals and part of his mitten.  He chose a pink mitten since pink is still his favorite color.

I laid out clothes for the boys to wear, but they got the wrong piles.  Two years apart and they still get their clothes confused.

Fathers Day 2011

Justin playing on the wii with Nickelodeon wii fit game.

Ryan LOVES typing on the computer.  He likes hearing each letter name as he hits it on the keyboard.  He also really enjoys the alphabet part of starfall.com.

Justin uses a picture dictionary I made with my kindergarten class.  It saves me from having to spell the same words for him over and over as he types them in.

Justin wanted to pretend it was winter and have some hot chocolate.  I told him that it was winter. Just because it isn't snowing and we aren't wearing coats doesn't mean it isn't winter.

Justin likes his hot chocolate to 'warm down' a little bit so it is cold.

We played a game with instruments.  We laid several out on the floor.  Two of us would cover our heads with a blanket while the third person would play one of the instruments.  The blanket would come off and they would have to guess which instrument they heard.

I made an overlay for the intellikeys so Ryan and Justin could retell the story of Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by typing simple sentences on the computer and hearing them read back.

We missed a couple of weeks of swimming lessons because the heat pump was broken and they had trouble getting it fixed and back up to temp. Once that problem was solved, we started making up lessons, meaning three times a week instead of only two!

Justin is getting better about getting out of the pool on his own.  It took him a long time to learn.

May 2011

We played Blue's Clues to guess what letter I was thinking of.  Justin only needed one clue, but he had fun looking to find all three of them.  With three clues and some exaggerated pronunciation, Ryan could figure out what the letter was.

The boys wanted to make a Lego (Duplo) tower that was as big as they were.

Justin helped to sequence the words for the nursery rhyme "Bluebird, Bluebird" so we could read it from the pocket chart.  Ryan liked to be able to recognize the letters and his name.

Painting our bluebirds blue.

The finished bird was a perfect prop for the rhyme.



Dot-a-dot markers are always fun.





The boys can never hear too many books.



My Mother's Day necklace.  The boys loved that I had a snack for them wherever I was.  Justin thought he should make me one each day.  I helped him decide they are for special occasions like Mothers Day or birthdays.  He then asked if there was a Fathers Day.  :)

We love stickers.  It is good for fine motor skills too, right?

Clothes fight!

Justin has been really wanting to read non-stop.  I have been having him do some of the Reading A to Z worksheets after he reads a story.  That slows him down a little.

Making something with scraps of paper is one of Justin's favorite things to do.  It involves glue, markers or colored pencils, scissors, paper, and no structure.

Our lovely dinosaurs.  Thank you Jo-Ann's Crafts!

Walking around Avis Dam.  You can barely see Justin's blue hat between Rob and Ryan.

My helpers make sure that all of the jobs take twice as long to do half as much. Thank goodness we have a housekeeper come in as well or the house would never be clean!