Snow Day Fun

My kids have a snow day today. Now that the snow has stopped they are having a blast building forts and sledding. As a new snow activity, I filled up their hockey water bottles with water and added some green food dye and away they went, drawing in the snow.

Drawing in the Snow

A Little Girl's Dress

Remember being a little girl in a dress? I don't wear dresses often anymore. But seeing my daughter get ready for the day brings back childhood memories of wearing dresses to church and parties...where it was the most fun feeling to just twirl around and around.   My daughter loves this.  And yesterday she discovered the joy of a hot air vent.  A little Marilyn Monroe moment at church.

My Daughter at Church

 

Piratey Things

My daughter went to a friend's birthday party yesterday.  Her friend James is a boy.  She got herself all dressed up and ready to go. She told her Daddy that she was a princess ready for a party. I told her that actually she was going to a pirate party. She wrinkled her nose and said, but that's for boys! 

My princess ready for a pirate party.

 Once I got her all sorted out, reminding her that James came to her party which was a Minnie Mouse girl party, she did go and had a great time.  She even got into "walking the plank" on the faux pirate ship that was there.
Our party hosts gave her a couple of pirate hats and swords for her to bring home to her brothers.  This of course ended up in an arguement of "I'm Captain Jack Sparrow!" "No! I'm Captain Jack Sparrow!" To which the following conversation happened between my husband and I:
me- "one of you could be that other pirate, you know that guy..."
J-"you mean that pretty boy one?"
Me-"yeah, the elf from Lord of the Rings"
J-"I don't remember his name"
Me-"me neither, hey boys, one of you can be the elf pirate"
They didn't go for it.

Two Captain Jack Sparrows

 *Yes, I know now that the other pirate was Will Turner - thanks to my friends on Facebook for that reminder.

Captain Jack Sparrow and Elizabeth Swan?

 

Saturday Night Post

My poor blogs have been suffering from a case of "the busies".  Not them being busy, but me being busy and not posting.  I always have the greatest of intentions to post (trust me, you should see the back log of pictures of food waiting to go onto Whatcha' Eatin'?).  I also have a backlog of teaching successes to share with my teacher friends, parenting updates and even a few crafty bits to share on here.  Those great intentions are more and more sidelined by...well life really.  Living life with my family.  The time for blogging slips away as I teach 8 and 9 year olds how to multiply and use proper punctutation in their writing.  It goes as I go once again to cheer on my favorite 5 and 8 year old hockey stars.  It goes as I juggle all 3 kids attending 3 separate birthday parties at the same time.  It goes as 100 day and Valentines Day come and go and Winter Carnival begins its approach.  And when I do sit down I realize that book stack I bought with my Christmas money has barely been touched because the only time I have left in the day is a half hour to myself where a glass of wine and the Big Bang Theory is just so darn appealing.  And I look back and see the best times I've had blogging are in the summer and Christmas Breaks and mat leaves.  So my dear blogs, know that I do enjoy you and you are missed.  March Break is a couple of weeks away and we will catch up a bit then.
 

Looking Back

This past week my husband was cleaning up some computer files and stumbled upon some older videos we took of our kids about 5 years ago. What a treat for our family to watch these. This was back when we had 2, not 3 kids. The boys were just these sweet little guys, babies really. My oldest had boundless energy and loved playing ball hockey in the hallway and dancing to Elvis. My middle child was just a baby learning to crawl and walk and had the most kissable chubby cheeks ever. These moment we captured were nothing big like birthday parties or Christmas morning, just every day events. I love my boys dearly the way they are now, but boy do I miss those sweet little boys!

My boys in Feb. 2008

My boys last week

Classroom Art - Falling From Space - Self Portraits

This was a super fun, but time consuming art project. The kids first traced their shoes, then their hands. Once the feet and hands were in place, they drew a head and filled in the body. The effect makes it look as though they are falling. The added a background - most drew theirs as if they were in space. They outlined all of their marks in marker and filled in the rest with pencil crayon. This was all done on a rather large sheet of drawing paper to fit everything in.

one student drew his feet on fire as he re-enters the 

Atmosphere and lands on a sheep!

One of my students falling and drifting in space

Classroom Art - Fall Owls

Yes, I'm right into the Owl craze too. And why not? They are super cute and made for fantastic October Art. I began with the background. The students chose to paint with either blue or purple and then shaded in a little bit of black paint to capture that fall evening sky.
The trees were cut out of black construction paper. I threw up a picture of these button trees up on the Smartboard to give them a little bit of inspiration and let them go at their own tree designs.  Button trees were found here.

 For the owls I brought in a selection of scrapbook paper.  We used this sewing template as the basis for our owls. 
Once the children had all their pieces they glued them into place, creating a nice layered effect.  I think it's one of the cutest art projects I've done with kids!