Peter's Birthday Party

We celebrated Peter's birthday back at home on Saturday with my parents.  First thing in the morning Peter got one present to open - it was sand toys to go in his big, new sandbox.

Doug had already assembled the sandbox, but it was empty.  Peter got to go with my dad and I to the landscape supply place to get two loads of sand.


Then after lunch we had the birthday bash...

Elliot was feeling under the weather.

Then presents...

That evening we went out for a birthday dinner at IHOP.

Peter's Birthday

 Peter's Birthday breakfast:

Peter's Birthday balloons:

Peter's Birthday decorations:

Plus, Elliot pulled himself up to stand for the first time:

And Scott serenaded Peter for his birthday:

Our Trip to Chuck E. Cheese

A Few More Cat Activities

Peter enjoyed working on his activity drawers with Daddy this morning.


Drawer 1 - Morning Message.  We have been counting down the days until we go to Nana and Papa's house and now there is only one day left.


Drawer 2 - Small Muscle Practice.  First he did two mazes for pencil practice.  Next he cut out some clouds and pasted them in the sky and added some stickers of flying things to liven up the scene.

Drawer 3 - Math.  He rolled a paper cat die and put stickers on a graph to show how often each cat was rolled.

Drawer 4 - Art.  I drew out the 4 steps to drawing a cat (adapted from a My First Drawing book) and Peter carefully followed them.  Both Doug and I were very impressed with how well he followed the steps and gave his cat ears, eyes, nose, mouth and whiskers in approximately the appropriate places.  Then he painted his cat with water colors.

Caged

Elliot on the Move

Elliot has turned into quite the scooting fiend over the last few days.  He has mastered the army crawl and can cover ground VERY quickly.  Today he army crawled around the circle and uprooted two of our marigold seedlings while I helped Peter in the bathroom.  This weekend the two baby gates will be going up again where they used to be when Peter was a baby.

My Cat Likes to Hide in Boxes

I rearranged some things to neaten up our craft area.  At the same time I set up Peter's activity drawers.  In homeschooling lingo they are work boxes.  There is one activity in each box/drawer and he does them sequentially.  In the drawer he should find everything he needs to complete the activity right down to his pencil or glue.  I view this as a good opportunity to try out the system and see how it works for us.  Hypothetically, if it is a good fit for us we could continue to use a work box system throughout his schooling (with slight modifications, obviously, as he gets older).

Drawer 1 was his morning message and drawer 2 had the book My Cat Likes to Hide in Boxes (which we read together) along with some cat-themed pencil practice.

Drawer 3 was a cat puzzle to practice putting the numbers 1 - 20 in order.

Drawer 4 had all the ingredients for a free-form cat craft.  Peter is getting much better with scissors and cut the cat's whiskers all by himself.

Numbers, Bubbles and Play Dough

First we read his Morning Message and then he ran and did his chore - empty the drier and sort the clean clothes by owner.  Then he counted and popped twenty bubbles on the bubble wrap.

Next up was pencil practice where he did a few mazes.

And then play dough time.  First we focused on the number 10 and then he was free to play with the play dough for the rest of learning time.

Let the Pre-Preschool Begin

I am intending to start a slightly more rigorous preschool curriculum with Peter in another month or so, and currently we are preparing for that.  We have shifted our schedule so he and I have a block of time for activities while Elliot takes his morning nap.  Now we are getting used to the new schedule and the idea that he has to finish his chores (somewhat independently) before he and I can sit down together and get to the fun stuff.

Today he used his paint rollers to make the new neighbors a Welcome to the Neighborhood card.  Unfortunately, when we stopped to give it to them, we found out that the small children we saw playing at the house last weekend were, in fact, impostures and not actually the new neighbors.  The new neighbors have a seven year old girl, but no children closer in age to ours.

Then Peter counted life savers and arranged them to make flower lollipops.

We discussed melting as we watched them in the oven.

 

That night after dinner...

Do I get one, Mom?

 I do?!?!  Really!?!

 Yum!!