Archive | February 2012

Yup it is Tuesday

Today we watched some videos with Irish dancing. I definitely have to share them both. Trinity also coloured an Irish Dancer today. You can find her on Education.com right HERE


We finished assembling some simple games – the Currclick Irish themed matching game (seriously check out their site and search St. Patrick’s Day… this is the freebie, link on right side of my blog), and then another from Education.com – a math activity – Pots of Gold. Not overly difficult addition and subtraction but a good revision and a chance for the boys to teach their brother.

Filling the pots with gold

We did our “smelly shamrock” craft today… pretty simple – you need either to print out the shamrocks on green paper or do what we did and have a template (great practice with cutting shapes), some green jell-o (I used jell-o brand, I wonder if the no name brand would smell as good… white glue and paint brushes. You can find the instructions HERE. We will have to see how smelly they are tomorrow, but we have plenty of jell-o powder to make more. 

Applying the glue

We coloured some simple Celtic knots, Our favourite UK site has some great St. Patrick’s Day printables. You can find some HERE.

With Emanuel and Trinity's knots

It was library today so Karyn, myself and Trinity and Emanuel made the trip to the downtown branch. Karyn alerted me to the fact that there is a substantial teen rated manga section in the upper levels… so I now have some reading to do! I still want to PURCHASE the back Gin Tama volumes but for now I can catch up and enjoy them, temporarily. AND the first 3 of Mushi-shi… YAY. 

Craft time

Books!!

We have a couple crafts to get working on over the next few days… I just need to find the time to make one of them myself first. I am hoping that we can just keep on having bits of fun through out the next two weeks and still find progression occurring… I have a few more books from the library to read tomorrow and of course more videos to watch. And that WIP to come back to… I promise more pictures are to come! 

A moment of quiet play before Baby Sister of Doom attacked!

 

Monday With a WIP

I am not sure how many of my readers are aware of what the initials WIP mean but for many people it means WORK IN PROGRESS… now I honestly can say the dreaded WIP’s are not TOO numerous here in the Reinsch-Johnson home BUT they DO exist. One of the biggest thorns in my side is a WIP cross stitch that has chased me for YEARS… as in I think I began it back when Emanuel was little… it has morphed from tentative gift to tentative gift and for a while was placed out of sight. With the move to this present location the dreaded project was thrust out into the open (partially due to not having a safe place to store it and partially because seriously I NEED to get it done!) where any and all could see it. This has had the sad repercussion of people actually engaging me in conversation regarding it… Ohhh so it is by THAT artist (it is a Teresa Wentzler) and ooo when do you figure you will have that done… and how are you going to frame it… well, enough is enough… this WIP is officially PROGRESSING. I am at the drawing board for Christmas presents right now so I have no excuse, well until Ken buys me the duct tape he has promised me… but then again who can resist rolls of brightly coloured and patterned duct tape? I know I can’t. So… in keeping with my promise to myself to not unveil this piece until it is DONE DONE, here is a tiny chunk of progress… 

Just a bit

We are in full St. Patrick’s Day learning mode… another story today of course!!

Today's book

Rainbows have been added to our decorations… thanks to Trinity and Emanuel. Trinity cut MOST of hers out and then conned Emanuel into doing the rest… you turn your back for ONE minute! 

St. Patrick's Day curtain

I am hopeful that MARCH will be the month for Gavin to finish his cross stitch. He is making some progress but lacks the drive to go back to it every day. 

Stitching

Of course with fresh Play Doh in the house there are MANY spontaneous creative group moments. Note that in the below picture Echo is given “twisty crayons”… while she is one smart cookie it is not the best idea to tempt fate and give her something that seems so much more… edible!

Around the table (Emanuel was still napping!)

We started with some Ireland related videos today. I found the official Discover Ireland youtube feed last night and had it set up to watch their whole series. We skipped the first one on Bed and Breakfasts and the boys watched 2-13… the one item shared with Mommy during her bath – Ireland apparently has over 90 beaches! 

Each of the kids drew their own special pictures about yesterday’s Sledding and Skating Party. I love seeing what stood out for each kid… Trinity’s was very cute with a picture of myself with a marshmallow in my hand by the fire… with the bag of them on a table! 

Trinity's

Zander and Gavin's

Inside

I love having them reflect back on an event and create some sort of art or other memorandum. 

Emanuel's

We have worked on our mini books… cut out pieces for a couple games (pictures to follow tomorrow) and of course played Legos… I am amazed at how well the boys are sounding out their words now and the excitement that they feel for themed pages. Put a shamrock on most anything right now or a well placed Leprechaun and they are all over it!!

So we made it through our Monday with a minor amount of fuss and bother. I am hoping the rest of the week will follow suit. After all we have a birthday party in the city on Saturday followed by Sunday School. I honestly am not planning anything else until AFTER Echo’s surgery… so if you feel the urge to see our little pixie before it please let me know, we should be home! 

Our little girl

This entry was posted on 27/02/2012, in Uncategorized. 2 Comments