nature color hunt

Yesterday we went on a little nature scavenger hunt with our homeschool group.

I painted the insides of some egg cartons with colors I've been seeing on our nature walks: white, purple, orange, yellow, brown and green.


It was threatening to rain, so we didn't have as many kiddos from the group as we expected, but we still had fun wandering around and hunting colors.



But, then our clever little nature game deteriorated when the boys just wanted to be boys!



My friend's sweet daughter picked a huge bouquet of flowers and then gave them to ME! So sweet.


Once we got home, Enrique was a little more into his treasures. We had fun talking about them all.


This is about as structured as we get on the homeschool front these days. I am really liking just being, spending time in nature, keeping it simple. There is PLENTY of time to get a little more serious about our homeschooling. But, for now, we are enjoying doing it like this.

split personality or imagination in full bloom?

Enrique has been so funny lately with his imaginary play.

Yoda

Little dude is obsessed with Star Wars these days. In particular he constantly talks about needing to go to Yoda's for a sleepover.

For over a week he was totally focused on building a space ship and flying to the Dagobah System to see yoda.

He packed this bag of supplies that he might need on his journey.

Baseball, check. Money, check. Water glass, check. Shovel, check. Ok, now we can fly into space to see Yoda!

Bacon Tawon

The most craziest imaginary play is the creation of other personalities. He is so good at it that Don and I are beginning to wonder?!

Most recently, he has become Bacon Tawon. He will leave the house and then come back and knock on the door. When I answer, "Hello, I am Bacon Tawon, what is your name?" And then he makes this funny face that I have not been able to capture with the camera.

The deal on Bacon: He is a treeman (not sure what that is) that lives in the southwest. He is also a cowboy. He has a gun, which is a spiderman pez dispenser. (I am not a big fan of guns, but have decided boys will be boys, so I let it be). He is super duper polite, calls me Lisa and Anabel "little princess."

The funny thing is that once he comes into the house, Enrique is not here. If I say, "hey, Enrique, come here," Bacon will just ignore me. I have to address him as Bacon (or whoever he is being at the moment). And he asks about Enrique... Who's shoes are these? What is he like? What did you and your son do today? etc. He DOES NOT go out of character at all. It is kind of amazing really.

And this will last FOR HOURS. The other night, Bacon ate dinner with us, brushed his teeth and went to bed (in Enrique's bed). Then, in the morning he was still here. He had breakfast and then left.

When he leaves, he goes out the front door and spins around a few times then comes and knocks on the door again.. "Mama!! I missed you, I am home!" Lots and lots of kisses and hugs. Then Enrique goes around and ask questions about Bacon. Who's gun is this? Was someone here? Was he nice? What did he call Anabel? etc. And he tells me all about being at Grandma's, which is where he was this whole time.

Makes me wonder if we have a fine actor on our hands. It is fascinating (and a little strange) to watch!

nature walk

We went on a nature walk last week with some friends of ours.. It was so LUSH and GREEN outside. I took WAY too many pictures as usual... but that way you can pretend to walk along with us..

heading out.. don't you love him wearing his "baby" ??

buddies.




it was so nice out.. this look says it all.


thirsty. uh, not sure that's safe, but, ok?



taking a rest.



discovering.


some serious adventuring. he is getting really brave these days.



heading home.

garden watching and waiting

Well, it is finally looking like we may actually get some food out of our garden! Yay!

It is so strange to read blogs from around the country and to watch people already harvesting crops when all we have are little sprouts. Gardening in Colorado is just not the same.

But, we ARE growing stuff! I think that is so cool.

Here you go..




We have sprouts on the cauliflower, beets, beans, broccoli, swiss chard and lettuce. Maybe a few carrots, but we seem to have bad luck with carrots. The carrots failed on our last garden. We shall have to wait and see...



I was a little nervous about our tomatoes, they did not seem to be doing too well. My sister asked if I planted them DEEP.. uh, no?! Well, apparently they like that. But, I think they are starting to recover.. again, a waiting game.

Enrique is excited about everything growing and getting to water his OWN plants!

Lots of mamas claim that having kids grow their own food inspires them to want to eat it. The only vegetable my son will eat these days is carrots and rarely that. I am hopeful that he will want to eat his own home-grown veggies here soon!

Lately I have been tricking him to eat his greens.. spinach and apple juice popsicles anyone?


Both the kids really like them, but the beet ones seem to be their favorite.

Next up in our gardening adventure is planting the rest our our seeds. That's on the calendar for next Sunday...

leaf printing

On a sunny day this past week, we decided to make some leaves for our little nature table tree. Poor thing has been sitting naked all spring, even though the trees outside are full of leaves! Well, you can't stay on top of everything, right?

To do this, we picked a few leaves from our yard.


I mixed up the paint on some plates and let the kids dip their leaves into the paint.


We then pressed the leaves onto the paper, leaving a print of the leaf behind.

I think they look pretty great!

We got better results from putting the leaves on the paper, then laying another piece of paper onto it and using something to roll over the top, like the paint bottles.

After they dried and we cut them out, I hung them on our tree. It didn't come out as pretty or as fabulous as I had hoped. (I had great visions for this project!). You win some, you loose some I guess!


They have all been pulled off the tree in the meantime anyway! 4 year olds..they just want to PLAY with everything.. jeesh! :) But the printing was fun. I am loving seeing Anabel get really into our little projects these days!

weekly art group :: paint bombs!

Oh, yeah, nothing quite like paint flying everywhere to celebrate kid creativity!

We had a small window of nice weather yesterday, so we took our art day outside for some good old fashioned messy fun!

I took some old pantyhose and we filled them with rocks to give them a little weight. It is really better to do this with sand, but we don't have any of that.. just muddy dirt, which I didn't want mixing with and making the paint all yucky. So I used some smallish rocks.


You then need to water down the paint a little to help give it more "splash."

Our yard has 2 levels so I put the paper out down below and let the kids drop the paint bombs from up above.


After getting the bomb really loaded up with paint.. 3..2...1.. BOMB!


Paint everywhere!



And I really do mean everywhere...

It is all over everything.. Next time we do this, I need to remember to cover things up a little better.

Enrique took one of the paint trays and poured it all over the yard..

we now have red footprints as yard art!


And all of us were covered with paint splatter!

A sign of good times happening!

The rain kicked in, but we didn't want the paint to go to waste, so the kids painted our outdoor craft table in the rain.. which led to more paint splashing!!


This was the most fun at art day I think we have ever had!

a nature walk

Been awhile since I've posted pictures from our nature walks. And summer is officially here! The dry river was FULL of water, everything is lush and green, and it smells so good outside!