Mentos and Diet Coke

I needed some 2 liter bottles for some upcoming science and art projects. Only we don't drink anything that comes in a 2 liter bottle. So we went to the store to buy the cheapest drink we could just to get the bottle - when the cheapest happened to be diet coke we just had to turn it into another project. If you have never dropped a roll of mentos into a diet coke bottle, you really should. Here the kids only got a few mentos into the bottle - they were afraid of getting covered in diet coke - and there was still a good reaction.

Sweet Son's turn

Sweet Daughter's turn

See those bottles in the background that are still full? Wonderful Husband and I did those and while we got bigger reactions, my favorite videos are still those with the kids. :)

Science Museum

Another fun trip to the Science Museum. I am so glad we live in a city with a museum dedicated to Science. Our surrounding cities also have nature conservatories and the big city near us has a giant Science museum. Still there is something to be said about being only a couple of miles away from a local museum where most of the employees know your kids by name - and not because they are trouble makers!

Sweet Son playing with Jacob's Ladder and a Crackle Disk at the same time.

Sweet Daughter playing with Physics

Both kids watching sound waves

Have you ever wanted to crawl inside a nose? I didn't, but here Sweet Daughter and Wonderful Husband seem to be happy!

Wordless Wednesday

They played by themselves without help for the first time.

Environmental Science

We do a lot of Science experiments and here are some of my favorites.

Making paper - easy, fun, and memorable

This is easily one of my favorite experiments. It makes a huge mess, but everyone will learn something. You start with a great environment - clean water, sand, plants, rocks, shells, animals. This is ideal.

Oh no! There was an oil spill in the water. It's all over everything. It doesn't stay in the water - it seeps into the sand and touches everything. How are they going to clean it up???

I don't have any more photos of this experiment because it gets so messy the camera wasn't a priority. I gave them a variety of materials - cotton, pantyhose, dish detergent, kitty litter, nets, etc. I also let them use anything (within reason) they thought might help. Remember anything being used will end up with oil on it.

The cotton soaks up the water and oil. The pantyhose attracts the oil to it, but doesn't clean it. The dish detergent takes it off animals and plants, but leaves it in the water. The kitty litter soaks up the oil the best, but can't be contained. The nets don't do anything. The best solution is a combination. Put kitty litter inside the pantyhose for the best solution. The biggest take away is it's best not to make the planet dirty in the first place.

Renaissance Festival

Every year we go to a Renaissance festival and the kids love it. We don't dress up in costume, but we do spend a full day enjoying shows, activities, and merriment!

The perfect tree chair for them to share

Knight training

With their knight certificates

Mermaid

Another mermaid

Seeing an owl up close

Regal and amazing

Sports

As a child, I wasn't very athletic. I did dance, but other than the twice a week classes, I did almost nothing. So it's surprising to me that my kids and our whole family are so active.

Hockey Practice

Their chosen sport is ice hockey. Strange to me, but they love it. They have practice twice a week where they rotate through drills and games. They come out completely sweaty and with giant smiles.

Monkey Bars

We also go on long bike rides at least once a week - by long I mean 5 miles typically. Both kids ride without training wheels and they think it's fun, not exercise. We often stop in the middle to play at a park. Sometimes we stop at multiple parks so the kids can run off extra energy. She will do loops of monkey bars for 30 minutes. He usually climbs and runs around the playground.

Earth poems

The assignment was for the kids to write an acrostic poem about Earth. I thought these were impressive for Kindergartners.

Sweet Son

Sweet Daughter

Wordless Wednesday

Practicing Multiplication

Bluebonnets and Climbing Tree

In addition to the photos of the kids that I posted yesterday, we also did some family photos. We bribe the kids for good photo behavior by promising to let them climb the big tree. Those always end up being some of my favorite photos.

Posed and happy

A much more natural photo of our family

Family tree climbing

They are getting high enough to scare me

He just walked up the tree

Kids Bluebonnets

It's a tradition around here to take annual photos with bluebonnets. They come out once a year and everyone rushes to fields get their photos in before they are all trampled or stop blooming.

Sweet Daughter

Sweet Son

Silly Kids

Tired of Photos

So cute!

Two of my favorite people in the world

Western Birthday

We went to a great western themed birthday. Here are some photos. As always, I won't post photos of other people's children.

Training for roping.

Her "bad guy" face

His "bad guy" face

On the way home - clearly this was a good party.

Car Wash

It's time to wash the cars! I love how enthusiastic the kids are. The cars end up somewhat cleaner on the bottom half. One issue when it's hot outside is the water evaporates before you can rinse off the soap. It's more about the fun than anything else.

Scrubbing

Scrubbing

Water hose!

Spraying is fun

Wordless Wednesday

Cooking

Cooking is great for fine motor, math, science, sensory, and fun. Here we were making "everything cookies". It is a basic cookie mix and then you add as many things as possible. We decided to add an additional step to work on fine motor more specifically.

We bought pecans in their shells.

Growing up, my great-grandmother had a giant pecan tree in her backyard. We would go over there and pick pecans, open them, and eat them on the spot. It was great. You really appreciate them so much more when you have to take them out of the shell.

There's the inside!

This is what they had after 30 minutes of work. Then I helped to get enough for the recipe.

Here the kids are rolling the dough to make cookies. We ate these quickly so no after photos.

Music

 Many parts of our life are surrounded by music. Here are just a few recent examples.

 A brass quintet performance by a great group. Between each song they did an activity to teach those in the audience something. Here Sweet Daughter is holding a tube connected to a funnel. They brought out many of these - each at a length to show how long each brass instrument would be if unrolled. 

Here, Sweet Daughter is singing along with the piano. 

Of all the choices, she loves Fly Me To The Moon. 

Both kids played in a festival for judges last week. We got Sweet Daughter's results on Thursday - She got a 1+. The only comment was not to rush the rests, which I think is impressive for a 5 year old. She played the first movement of her sonatina (titled My First Sonatina).

Sweet Son played two songs from his repertoire book. Old MacDonald and Jumping Jacks - they are more difficult than they sound. We got his results today. He also got a 1+. The only comment was that the judge couldn't believe someone his age was playing such advanced music. That was literally the only comment. Not even one suggestion for something to improve. I was standing outside the door when he played and while I couldn't hear perfectly, I know he made mistakes. I wish judges would always at least give one piece of constructive criticism.

Spring Egg Hunt

The kids both had Spring Egg Hunts at school. This is their last year at the school since it only goes through Kindergarten. I have many photos, but all of the others include their friends. It was difficult to get them by themselves long enough for a photo.

He helped friends find eggs and didn't get many himself.

She wanted all the eggs.

After the kids went back to their classrooms, every child dumped their eggs into a pile and they were divided equally between the students. This works best since they are a mixed age classroom. Everyone knows this will happen ahead of time so no one gets upset. The teachers also notice patterns, i.e. one boy in Sweet Son's class only wanted orange eggs, so when they divided them up they only gave him orange eggs.

Cinderella

We have been studying how the same story changes in different cultures. We have read the The Story of Cinderella (Disney Princess) , Yeh-Shen (the original story all the others are based on, from China),  The Egyptian Cinderella , and The Irish Cinderlad . Then the kids were given an assignment to write their own Cinderella type story. (They were given a template.)

Sweet Daughter
Title: Ella Dancing
Once upon a time there lived a dancer whose name was Ella and she lived in a one story house. Ella was treated very poorly by monsters. This evil person made monsters eat Ella. One day Ella danced on March 15th. Ella was very upset because she lost her dancing shoes. Then Ella met some fish bones and fish bones helped by giving her new shoes. Ella went to the stage where she danced. Then Ella lost a dancing shoe. After searching everywhere, the lost shoe was found by a Princess. The Princess knew the shoes belonged to Ella because she was dancing. Ella and Princess lived happily ever after and rode elephants.

Sweet Son
Title: Mr. Stinky Pants
Once upon a time there lived a garbage man whose name was Mr. Stinky Pants and lived on a farm. Mr. Stinky Pants was treated very poorly by Mr. Pokey Pants. This evil person made garbage come out of the truck. One day Mr. Stinky Pants drove his big garbage truck. Mr. Stinky Pants was very upset because he lost his socks. Then Mr. Stinky Pants met a chicken and the chicken helped by seeing who had the socks. Mr. Stinky Pants went to the farm where he drove the garbage truck. Then Mr. Stinky Pants lost his socks again. After searching everywhere, the lost socks were found by a Prince. The Prince knew the socks belonged to Mr. Stinky Pants because they matched the uniform. Mr. Stinky Pants and the Prince lived happily ever after and had kids.