Tag Archive | tent

May Marches On

May 23-24

After such a busy evening our following Thursday was slowed a little… With her helpful sister in tow Trinity busted through one of her workbooks for a completion!!

Busy together

Complete

We had a penguin craft to work on using hands and feet to make ourselves some adorable penguins!!! Lots of helping each other tracing and cutting and gluing!

instructions to follow in the resource page!

Each one unique

It was finally a relatively sunny day so the kids spent plenty of time outside assisting Nana and Baba in the gardening… pulling weeds… fun stuff! And highly educational!

Progress on the gardening

Wandering the bales

Trains expanded to being under a tent to keep out the sun!

Tented trains

And Echo even sported a braid for a portion of the day!!!

Braid!

Honestly Friday followed suit in gardening friendly weather so we added another day of outside learning. So much work to be done on those days that are NOT rainy!

Gardening in the sunshine

3 of the kids went out to buy soil so Gavin, Echo and I had a lovely snack  together…

Snack

And then some gaming

Gavin even pulled out his long ignored sewing. I am hoping June will be his month to return to it!

Cross Stitch

With our busy school schedule and the gardening going on in the backyard when the weather permits… we are getting in lots of activity AND learning. Spring in Minnesota.

Out in the backyard with Daddy before bed!

Even dolly is having fun!

Monday to Begin the Mondays

Monday is here… the first of the year. We did a GREAT job in making it a positive start. Ted and Sean stayed over ANOTHER night and left this afternoon for home. And then, in celebration of Lauralee’s birthday Karyn, Victoria, Lauralee and I went to Marble Slab and had ice cream. Definitely NOT a place we go to often… but so good!

Occupied the kids before we left

Poor Gavin is still trying to worry out his front tooth. The adult tooth is down and straight and wonderful but the baby tooth has been pushed further out and crooked. It is not affecting anything else but it is driving him mad. I cannot wait until it falls out, I think the tooth fairy will give a bonus for something he had to work so hard to remove. 

The kids took advantage of the card table out to make a tent. I have to put that away tonight as we do need to get back to our normal… but it was cute to see the bulk of the kids under the table playing peacefully. 

Tent

I have started the ground work for Zander’s duct tape bag. I decided to do it shopping bag style instead of what my cousin Veronika terms a “man purse”. If this works out well I may make them for other kids on our Christmas list. A good bag to take to the library or carry some prized possessions in! 

A beginning

So not a leap forward in schooling but we are getting there… the house is on its way to tidy, the kids are calming down… tomorrow we start talking about telescopes and space in earnest. 

Girly snack time

Duct Tape!!!! Enough Said!

Life goes on and on in the Reinsch-Johnson house and lately at breakneck speed. I would say that is just how we like it, but I would rather have a nice and relaxing week just this once (which begs the question as to why we had 5 kids… not a calm set up at all!). But since that is not happening we are just going with it!

Popcorn baby has recruited siblings!

We started our morning with Stuart Little… apparently he has decided to run away from home and actually knows a dentist who can make model cars that turn invisible! I certainly don’t know the right people! The kids were rather credulous about how REAL something like that would be… 

Stuart and his begginings of a new adventure

I ducked away to have a bath once Echo was asleep and left the kids to finish up their art, work on cutting out some more stuff for their months lapbook and apparently making princess crowns for Trinity!!

One crown

And the other... note the wooden crafts they found when we tidied.

Can you tell I am getting as much use as I can out of the camera before I ship it off? We took a family picture (well kids) in front of our picture tree before we ran errands…

In the front yard

It turns out Best Buy in Canada does NOT ship out objects unless under their warranty so Ken has a few calls to make and if we can’t find a local company that DOES if you are under warranty we mail on Monday… At least the trip was not a total waste – we were at the same end of the city as ValueVillage and bought the items we need for costume creation, a pair of rubberboots (Gavin), new runners (Trinity – 1.99) AND a new bathingsuit for Emanuel (who is overjoyed as there are DINOSAURS on it!) all for 20.00. 

So proud of his new swimshorts!

I ran out to Michaels with Lauralee and Karyn and picked up some more supplies for schooling – not bad and they gave me the teacher discount!!! 

Crafting goodies!

I left the kids well foamed and busy crafting to go out with the ladies… they do love a good gluing, stickering, messy sort of craft!

Craft time

Today was overcast and cold, as seems to be our fall norm. So we scrapped our morning and had a tent! Handy sheet over the diningroom table and there is just enough room for all 5 kids to enjoy the experience. They took the flashlight that doubles as a lantern, some crayons and paper and hung out under the table for much of the morning. 

In the tent

We had some workbook time… the mini offices are coming in handy to give the big boys some space while the littles babble away at their own books and pages.

Now onto the main focus/excitement of the day – DUCK brand DUCT TAPE!! We took full advantage of what I bought yesterday (black and zebra patterned) and got to work. First off… bracelets! You can find the instructions we followed here. One for each of the kids, though the twins did the work.

Bracelets

And then Gavin took his time and made a basic flower that he in turn gave to his sister. Lots of fun, basically the same as the rose I made previous only on a straw and a lot less petals! (out of choice). You can find THOSE instructions here.

Finished flower

It is hard to find actual visual instructions but the kids decided they wanted to make a coin purse. So we followed a YouTube video and voila – working coin purses for their allowance!!!

I had to make the little ones theirs but the big boys did most everything themselves! 

Zander and his change purse

And then since no one would make one WITH me, I made my OWN bookmark and matching hairbow! You can find written instructions for the bookmark here. And of course the bow here.

Bookmark and hair bow

For fun and with Ken’s help I made myself a full out purse! If you want to give it a go hereare the instructions.  I love the zebra print, it was a GREAT choice! Trinity has a little coin purse out of it that I am ever so tempted to grab. 

PURSE!!

Now as much as I am sure there is more to talk about… I am on a roll here and need to dig out the hot glue gun for other projects. Probably NOT to get going on them BUT to have it ready for tomorrow… crafting is an AWESOME way to end a week!

Future crafter!