Springtime and Preschool

Spring in Ohio is so beautiful! We have finally been experiencing the change in seasons here. In other words, it means lots and LOTS of rain, roller coaster temps, allergies, and everything is beginning to grow again. This was what out tree in our front yard by the street looked like several days ago. Now it's already changed over to reddish leaves and no more pretty blossoms. Things change so fast around here!

Recently we visited Slate Run Historical Farm. We have been there a few times because it's free and fun to see the animals. It's self-sustaining and they use zero electricity. The farmers demonstrated how they sheer a sheep with clippers powered by a hand-crank. Pretty cool! But that poor sheep has to sit in the strangest position in order to be sheered... 

There were some week-old lambs and pigs, and even a few lambs that were literally born a few hours earlier. The lambs were so cute, however Grace was concerned about the smell (as always). She was not too thrilled by the experience.

We had a picnic at the park there and it was very chilly. We all felt under-prepared but the kids had a good time at least.

And as spring-time often goes, we went to a local park with friends on a different day and this time we were way too hot. It was probably 80 degrees and we tried to have a picnic there as well. We were overdressed in jeans and shoes/socks... just look at those kids' cheeks! Ryan was sleeping off a night shift at home so we stayed away a little longer by sharing an ice cream from DQ. It was perfection.

Last weekend we went out to Texas Roadhouse for dinner together. I had been looking forward to going out together to a sit-down type of place for weeks, so we chose something out of the ordinary for us. :) I think the last time Ryan and I went to a Texas Roadhouse was in St. George several years ago! Grace surprised us by being really good at (and really interested in) cracking and eating the peanuts. She is growing up so fast.

Logan was so cute pouring out the crayons and putting them back in the box one by one. He is getting pretty good at his hand-eye coordination.

Here are some photos I took during an afternoon with Dad. Ryan had been sleeping off a night shift and had a couple hours before his next one, so we all went outside for a bit.

Some cute sibling shots...

Both of these kids are obsessed with Disney Cars. Luckily we now have two Lightnings and two Maters. They still fight over them, but it's less frequent now.

Ryan was working hard on our front garden while the kids rode their bikes.

Here they are getting into trouble together. It was one of those days when I just needed them to stay interested in something for even 5 minutes straight! Cookie cutters did the trick this time...

For pre-school 2 weeks ago my topic was Dinosaurs. It was really fun! I was surprised how much fun I had planning it since I don't know much at all about them, and we don't have any dinosaur toys ourselves. Luckily I have a friend in the ward who seems to have every type of toy I have ever needed for a preschool topic! :)
The kids learned about the letter "Dd" so we talked about the sound, sorted items into a D-basket and a no-D basket, and they worked on these Dd shape sheets.

I saw somewhere that you can use Bananagrams for a letter activity, so I made something in Word. I like this activity and the kids stayed focused looking for letters to match on their sheet.

We talked about fossils and made imprints in play dough. They loved to feel the impressions, especially the bumpy, scaly ones.

We also made dino footprints in some sugar cookies, and ate them as part of our snack. 

I saw another idea where you take a plain white piece of paper, a white crayon, and you trace over a print-out of a dinosaur skeleton. Then the kids use watercolors to discover the skeleton underneath! So neat! They become paleontologists. :)

The kids also did some free-play with a bunch of electronic (moving, roaring, stomping) dino toys from my friend and that was one of the highlights i think. Grace was very sad to see those toys go home later that day. She is so NOT into "girl" toys and always surprises us by obsessing more over what you would think would be a "boy" thing. I do kinda like that about her, but I also wish she would want to brush her Rapunzel doll's hair, or play barbies sometimes. haha Probably because that's how I was.