field trip
Kid Powered Toys!
Monday, February 22nd, 2010 | Uncategorized | No Comments
Something I truly love is an afternoon listening to the kids play games from their own imagination, especially when their imagination is bursting with ideas from our recent field trips, books and learning together. Back in August of 2008 I was inspired by some ‘habitat boxes’ that were at an exhibit at our local zoo. I took detailed pictures and vowed to make this for our family- which ended up being 7 boxes so I could gift them to the other families in my home school group as well. That box combined with a good set of play silks are about the best kinds of toys available for children of all ages (habitat box has some items that would need to be held out until a child is past the age of eating the contents). Here are some of the highlights from the past few weeks of how my kids have used these ‘toys’ plus their own ideas!
- mini marshmallows with wood skewers and a tiny battery operated tealight provided many giggles and fun for 3 and 4 yr old friends ‘roasting marshmallows’ over their campfire (and the older kids wanted in on the fun too!)
- Yellow play silks worked as a sandy desert and blue silks were used to make the Mediterranean sea and the Nile River to go with their Egypt Playmobil. Some of the yellow play silks were on occassion waved over the whole scene to create sand storms as well as used to cover some artifacts for the archeologist playmobil men to find.
- The kids used the piano bench to be the pier in Seattle and their legos to build the Seattle Aquarium. Pieces of the habitat box were used in combination with play silks and some under the sea Playmobil to create the underwater scenes (under the pier). Kelp forest silks are hanging under the pier, yellow silks for sand bottom habitats and rocks form rocky bottom habitats…all kinds of fun!
So far 2010 has been rich with FIELD TRIPS!!!
Monday, February 22nd, 2010 | Uncategorized | No Comments
Fairies, Ballets and Puppets…..
Sunday, December 14th, 2008 | Uncategorized | No Comments
Just a few pictures to highlight some of the fun from this past week(end). Hannah went to a much anticiapted ‘fairy’ birthday party and worked long and hard on her gift. Grandma Engle suprised Hannah and took her to Pacific Northwest Ballet’s performance of ‘The Nutcracker’ in Seattle. All three kids enjoyed watching the group ‘Puppets Please’ put on a Christmas show at our local library. The activities and the advent calendars are counting down……..its almost CHRISTMAS!
New pictures…
Wednesday, November 12th, 2008 | Uncategorized | 1 Comment
I haven’t blogged in awhile because I want to post the pictures from Hannah’s birthday party back in September before it gets too buried. I hope to work on those today (they are all edited I just want to make a little music video for you all) but we’ll see. In the meantime here are some updated pictures of the kids that I took yesterday on our trip to the Children’s Museum of Tacoma. Elias really enjoyed finding a quiet spot to read, Bayus was all about doing the craft (gluing tissue papers into a construction paper cornicopia), and Hannah enjoyed catching bubbles.
Yeeee-Haw!
Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008 | Uncategorized | No Comments
Some friends invited us to this special event put on by their church, WayPoint located on the pennisula. It was a fun filled day filled with hot dogs, baked beans, mechanical pony rides, leatherworking, cactus roping and lots of games. My kids tried out the three legged race event for the first time as well as horse back rides with dad (which they have much more experience with- dad is glad they don’t have spurs!).
Junior Naturalist program…
Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008 | Uncategorized | No Comments
this summer we have had a blast with the Seattle Mountaineers and their Junior Naturalist Program! In August we had our last gathering- a trip to the Ballard Locks for the Salmon run! We had a blast crossing over the locks and checking out the boats, watching through the underwater viewing windows as the salmon swam upstream, spotting a sea lion feasting on the grown salmon and a gray harbor seal feasting on the young salmon. We made our way back to the park for a game the naturalist coordinators had prepared for us where the kids were the salmon! This was an amazing program, very well done and creatively executed- don’t miss it next summer!
Make your own habitat
Saturday, August 16th, 2008 | Uncategorized | 1 Comment
I love it when I come across an idea that is so very ingenious and yet so very simple that I must, just must, find some opportunity to re-create it! This summer while visiting the zoo the kids played with a set of seemingly random items put together by the zoo to be used to make ‘habitats’. Each storage box contained a cut out of green and blue indoor/outdoor carpeting to represent water and land and then an assortment of various other props. Add in a hefty dose of a child’s imagination and maybe a few small toys (I’m dreaming of little bendy fairies and needle felted animals) and you have endless possibilities!
