Our Little Vandal

Nathan loves to play outside and one thing that he always does is play with chalk. We have gone through two large tubs of chalk this summer. We make hopscotches and draw pictures. Sometimes Daddy will draw roads all over the driveway so Nathan can drive his cozy coupe on the roads. Everything outside is Nathan's canvas . . . even the house.

Messy Hands

We like to do lots of arts and craft projects at home. Nathan loves to paint. He always starts out using brushes, then he sometimes switches to Q-tips. Our painting projects always end with finger paining. Nathan loves to squish the paint between his fingers. It's always more fun when you end up with messy hands.

Oil Change

Nathan has been wanting to help Mommy and Daddy all over the house. So, we have been giving him some chores that he can do all by himself. Today, Daddy changed the oil in Mommy's car and Nathan really wanted to help. Daddy let him pour the new oil in the car with lots of help, of course, but Nathan was trilled to help out.

Nathan's First Day of School

Nathan started school on Tuesday, August 31st. He is in the same class that he was in last year and has the same teacher, Ms. Melissa. Nathan was very excited to start school this year. He was dressed and ready to head out the door 15 minutes early.

Nathan is eagerly ready to go back to school.

Nathan got a new backpack this year. I think it's so cute! Nathan likes it, too.

He was a bit nervous when we arrived in his classroom.

We put his backpack and lunch box in his cubby. He found some toys on the table to play with. I kissed him good-bye and reassured him that I would come back to pick him up after lunch and he was just fine.

Nathan had a great first day at school and he made some new friends. We started a tradition to end the school year with ice cream. So, we decided to start a new tradition to also start the school year off with ice cream. We stopped at Yogurtville after school. Nathan selected vanilla with chocolate sprinkles.

4 Year Old Check Up

Nathan had his four year old check up this morning. He did great as usual. He weighs 33.2 pounds putting him in the 25 - 50 percentile. He gained 5 pounds from last year. He is 40 inches tall and in the 50 percentile. He grew 3.5 inches this year. Nathan is average weight and height for a 4 year old. He has finally all caught up.

Nathan also got his 4 year old vaccinations on this visit or ouchies as Nathan calls them. He will now be ready to start school tomorrow.

Lowe's Build and Grow Clinic - Ball in a Cup

Here we are again at Lowe's. We can't seem to get enough of these clinics. We now have our system worked out. Mommy reads the directions, Daddy puts the nails in place for Nathan to hammer them and Nathan gets to put the stickers on the project, if there are stickers.

This week's project is ball in a cup. Everyone loves playing this game!

Watch your fingers, Daddy!!

Nathan trying to get the ball in the cup. I think he hit himself in the head several times with the ball before he finally got it in the cup.

Summer 2010 - Dinosaur Week

This week is about Dinosaurs.

Nathan and I visited the Museum of Nature and Science in Fair Park. We looked at many different dinosaur bones.

Nathan also dug up some bones and measured them in the Dino Dig exhibit.

Our craft project was a dinosaur made from different shapes.

First, Nathan, decorated the background with his paint daubers.

While he was dabbing, Mommy cut out shapes from construction paper. Nathan dabbed some green on them and then glued them to the paper to form a dinosaur.

We call him Shape-O-Saurus.

We did a physical activity this week. I gave Nathan a stick dinosaur. It's just like a stick horse but with a dinosaur head. We ran dinosaur races around the house. We ran relay races and also timed each other.

Nathan ran a relay race during Olympic Days at his school last year. This was a great opportunity to revisit this concept of taking turns. Nathan remembered the races from school and I think he has relay races down.

Some of our favorite dinosaur books we read this week are:

The Littlest Dinosaur by Michael Foreman

The Super Hungry Dinosaur by Martin Waddell

Museum of Nature & Science

Nathan and I ventured downtown to Fair Park to visit the Museum of Nature & Science. We have been there a couple of times before and I think hands down, this is Nathan's favorite museum.

I let Nathan plan our day and tell me what he wanted to see and do . . . which turned out to be everything.

The Science building had a water exhibit and Nathan enjoyed learning about water. He touched ice, played in water and with some encouragement walked through a fog curtain that was representing steam.

Nathan learned about water pumps and how they pump water from the ground to people's houses. He loved to turn the handle round and round to pump the water. If you pumped all the water out of the ground, it would rain to fill the reserves back up. Nathan did this several times until I pulled him away to give others a turn.

We are studying dinosaurs this week and we stopped by the Dino Dig to search for dinosaur bones. Nathan quickly found a big one by brushing the sand away with his brush.

Then, he measured it to see how long it was.

Nathan made sure we didn't miss out on making giant bubbles. We each took turns to see who could make the biggest bubbles. Nathan likes to pop the bubbles and swish his hands in the soap.

We headed down stairs to the Children's Museum. We had to stop at the dollhouse where you can turn the lights on and off. You can even light the fire in the fireplace.

I had to drag him away from the dollhouse after I noticed he was telling the other kids that it was "his" and they couldn't touch it. Nathan has started to be more assertive about things he is passionate about.

We also had to play with the numbers that you can flip around. One side has numbers and the other side shows dots. Nathan remembered this from his last visit and was requesting to play with it once we arrived at the museum.

We had to skip the water room because it was closed for a mopping. So, we headed straight to the farm. Nathan planted seeds in the garden and shopped for veggies. We also picked eggs from the chickens' nests and put them in egg cartons.

We were surprised to find the cow full of milk (water) because it had been empty on our other visits to the museum. Nathan was very eager to milk the cow and patiently waited his turn. The cow was very easy for him to milk it and he really enjoyed it.

After the farm, we headed to the backyard area. Nathan crawled through ant hills and spider webs. There is also an exhibit on neon gas with buttons to push to light up the tubes of gas. So, yes, we were there for awhile so Nathan could push the buttons over and over.

Our tummies started to growl, so we headed back upstairs to the cafe for lunch. Nathan picked out chips that left his lips and fingers orange.

After lunch, we walked to the Nature Building to see the dinosaur bones.

There is also a light exhibit in the Nature Building that has lots of hands on stations that Nathan loves.

Nathan is turning on the light bulbs to the same wattage and seeing that one is brighter than the other.

This photo wall is another one of Nathan's favorites. He played with it what seemed like forever. You stand next to the wall and it flashes. Then, you step away and it leaves your shadow on the wall. Nathan put his arms out and up. Then, he started to lift up his legs in funny poses. He giggled and laughed each time. Everyone around us enjoyed watching Nathan play with it.

Anything with buttons grabbed Nathan's attention and wouldn't let go. This cave exhibit was one of them. It had buttons to push that lit up different parts of the cave with tiny red lights. Nathan would push a button and ask me what lit up and I read him the description of each part of the cave over and over and over.

I finally dragged him away by letting him choose one more thing to do again. He choose the Dino Dig. So, we walked back over to the Science Building to dig for some more dinosaurs.

By this time the museum had cleared out a bit, so he found his own spot all to himself.

We spent about 30 minutes playing in the sand before we left for home.

We both had a great day at the museum. I enjoyed taking our time at the museum and letting Nathan lead the way. It was fun to see all the exhibits that caught his eye and keep his attention. We can't wait to return!

Swimming Lesons

For the past two weeks, Nathan has been taking swimming lessons at the Rosemeade Rainforest Pool. He really enjoyed taking this class. I will have to sign him up every year.

Playing Ring Around the Rosy in the baby pool. They started each class in the baby pool for 5 minutes to let the kids get use to the water.

Then, they would move over to the big pool. Here he is swimming with the aid of a noodle.

While his instructor was working with the other kids in his class, Nathan would stand on a platform with bars around it. He would hold on to the bar and bounce up and down. He always had a smile on his face the whole lesson. He is standing next to the girl with the pink hat.

Here he is first in line for his turn on the diving board.

On the diving board with his instructor encouraging him to jump off. He didn't jump by himself. His instructor had to lift him up and drop him in. But, don't worry. He loved it! And, couldn't wait to do it again. This diving pool is 12 and 1/2 feet deep.

This video is from his last day of lessons. The kids showed the parents what they had learned during their lessons. Nathan received a Certificate of Participation and an American Red Cross card stating that he completed the requirements for the Preschool Aquatics Level 1 of the Learn-to-Swim program.

Summer 2010 - Summer/Beach Week

This week's theme is Summer/Beach.

We had fun this week celebrating summer. Nathan loves this time of year. He loves to be outside in the bright sunshine playing outside or swimming.

We started summer week with a craft that we got from our playgroup activity swap. It's a great opportunity to get some crafts that I wouldn't think of to do from the other members of our playgroup.

We received this mini bucket, shovel, rack and scooper. The bag was filled with foam stickers and a marker to decorate the bucket.

This activity is right up Nathan's alley. He loves stickers. Pulling the backing off the stickers is a good fine motor workout. Fine motor skills helps to coordinate hand muscle movements like eating with silverware and holding a pencil, which Nathan needs help with.

Here's his finished bucket. He even decorated his shovel with stickers. He asked that I write Summer Time and his name on his bucket with the marker.

We also started our Cousins Camp this week. We get together with Nathan's cousins at least once a week during the summer. We don't get to see our cousins as much as we would like to during the school year, so we make up for it during summer. We go on lots of fun field trips to keep the kids busy like visits to the library, swimming pools and this week we went to the beach.

About a 30 minute drive from our house is this great beach on Lewisville Lake. The sand is very soft and great for sand castles.

We met the cousins there after swimming lessons, so Nathan was a bit tired. He enjoyed playing in the sand and filling his bucket full of water and dumping it out near our feet. Here he is just kicking back and eating some lunch. Shortly after lunch he was exhausted and begged me to take him home. He quickly fell sound asleep in the car. Once we got home, I just put him right in his bed, sand and all.

Nathan and I made a new sensory box this week. For our beach week, we added some shell shaped pasta, sea shells. starfish, his mini bucket and shovel and foam letters and numbers.

Can you tell that Nathan loves playing in the sensory box? He likes to feel the different textures of each item. Sometimes he likes to take items out of the box and examine them on his blanket. He really enjoyed the foam letters and numbers and putting them together like puzzle pieces.

Since it has been so hot lately, we decided to make a cool summer treat. We made yogurt popsicles.

We mixed vanilla yogurt, strawberries and bananas in the blender.

Nathan pouring the yogurt in the blender.

After mixing and pouring the smoothie in the molds, Nathan put the lids on top. Then, we had to wait for them to freeze. It was hard to be patient.

Nathan enjoying the yummy cold popsicle. It was a nice cold treat on a very hot summer day.

Here's a list of our favorite books we read this week about summer and the beach:

Pig Little by Mike Thaler

All Summer's Fun by Daniel Skalak

Sand Castle by Brenda Shannon Yee

Mouse's First Summer by Lauren Thompson

Duck Dunks by Lynne Berry

Bats at the Beach by Brian Lies