Rodeo Day

As we celebrate Texas Independence Day, the Kindergarten team hosts Rodeo Day!  The kids wear their "Texas Best" and have a morning filled with cowboy/cowgirl fun.  Crafts, games, activities and snacks. :)

They had so much fun with their friends. :)

Nursery Rhyme Parade

While studying Nursery Rhymes in Kinder at school, the teachers organize a Nursery Rhyme Parade to share with the school.  The kids were to dress up as a character from their favorite nursery rhyme character and memorize the rhyme to share with their class.

Pat-A-Cake

Old King Cole

Mr. D actually shared his rhyme with his classmates, Little Miss A, not so much.  :)

Native American Day

We were feeling better enough by Friday to join our friends at school for a super fun morning of Native American rotations.

The kids started the day with War Shields with Dad. Then it was on to several different stations across the grade level completing different activities with their classmates. It was so fun to see their loot at the end of the day.

Since I had classes, I wasn't able to make it, so we don't have pictures. I'll have to take some of the kids with their treasures and post later. :)

Pumpkin Math with Dad

Our Kindergarten team has a grade level event every month. The event for the month of October was Pumpkin Math with Dads (and/or Moms). Daddy came up to school with a pumpkin and carving tools ready to go and the kids brought the rest of the supplies: instruction paper, pencil, yarn, scissors and unifix cubes.

They started off with estimations and measuring...height, circumference and weight. Then came the interior scooping. Let the seed counting begin! :)

With faces sketched it was time to carve the shapes...

What a super fun family morning!

Day at the Museum

We met our bffs downtown for a fun afternoon at the Children's Museum...no Rexy or anything like that, but still TONS of fun!! :)

Every time we go to the museum, Little Miss A and Mr. D become immediate pins balls and the giant space that surrounds them is the machine. They go bouncing from one place to the next within seconds...make me crazy!! They worked the kitchen, manned the trains, operated the dairy farm, acted like Austin bats hanging under the Congress Street bridge, learned about Mexican culture (pinatas, music, food, etc)

All this "ping, ping, pinging" (hence the blurry pictures) while Little Miss A is clinging to different animals from the pet clinic..

They did, however spend a lot of time in creation station. :)Little Miss A made a kaleidoscope and a hat. Mr. D made a new and improved light saber...shocker, I know. :)

What a great day with great friends!!!!

Afternoon Science Experiment!!

As I was weeding the other day, I came across this...

AN OWL PELLET!!!!

I used to dissect owl pellets with my 4th graders, so I knew exactly what it was. I had no idea we had owls in the area though. I was so excited...I couldn't wait to share it with Little Miss A and Mr. D. After explaining what it was, the kids were in awe! Definitely a mouse after looking at the bones inside. Wishing so badly there had been a full skull for the kids to see (wishful thinking, I know) at least we found some pretty cool teeth, mandibles and a femur. :)

I'm hoping the kids love science as much as I do!!!!

Tuesday Trip #2

Our Tuesday Trip this week took us to the Austin Zoo. To my out of town family and friends that haven't experienced this little gem, our zoo is as weird as Austin...it's a rescue zoo. The super fun thing about our trip to the zoo is that it used to take us about an hour to get there, today it was a mere 20 minutes!!! Have I mentioned how much I love our new house and location?!?! :)

We had so much fun reading the exhibit write-ups on each animal. This was truly the first time we actually stopped to read each animal's info, usually we catch their names and what they are and that's about it. The kids really got into it this year, which was so much fun!!! It was almost like we were on a fact finding mission for all of these new friends. :)

Here we are reading about the brown bear...

Of course one of the MAJOR highlights of the zoo is the petting corral. We bought bags of food to feed the goats, sheep, deer and llamas and the kids could have spent the day JUST doing that....so fun!

The other highlight is the train.

The Caswell Kids LOVE to ride the train!!! :)

We had an iced treat before to help keep cool in this crazy summer Austin heat. It wasn't long after this picture was taken that Little Miss A lost her snow cone to the ground, we've been totally butterfingers over here lately, but that's another post in and of itself. :)

As we were leaving the kids spotted a sunflower. I am only including this because they have literally been on the hunt for sunflowers for the past MONTH and this is the first one we've found. There are TONS of wildflowers on the side of the road everywhere here in the spring and early summer and the kids were convinced that the little yellow ones we kept spotting were sunflowers. When we FINALLY found one today, they realized how special they really are. I was telling them about the sunflowers I remember seeing on the side of the road when growing up in Salt Lake City...way taller than Daddy. They were completely shocked!!! Maybe we need to purchase some seeds to plant our own little Sunflower garden in the backyard. :)

Tuesday Trip #1

Our first "Tuesday Trip" of the summer took us just outside of Austin to the Dinosaur Park. (Part of the excitement to our trips is that the kids have NO CLUE where we are going until we get there.) This place was perfect for 2 five year olds!!! We picked up the scavenger hunt sheet at the entrance and walked our way through a dino adventure!!! With dinos along the trail and "hidden" items along the way it was like a real life "I Spy" experience. :)

Our first stop was peering through the t-rex's mouth. Do we look scared?

Having fun together as we trekked through the woods. :)

Screaming "A T-Rex is Coming!!!! Run for your lives!!!"

A dino dig...
Teamwork!

We loved reading the dino blurbs and learning more about these fascinating creatures. I think I've spurred a new obsession...as we enter the world of Dinosaurs. We got home and pulled ALL of our dinosaur books off the shelves and read ourselves into an oblivion, then curled up with Dinosaurs the movie and popcorn and a prize for a fun ending to a fun-filled day!!! :)

First Word

Okay, not what you think, but equally cool. Little Miss A was on her doodle pad creating her next masterpiece, not an unusual event since she's constantly writing letters and drawing elaborate pictures. But this time she says "Look Mommy!! It says no flowers." Expecting to see a picture of some flowers with a crossed out circle around it, I was shocked to see the word "NO" surrounded by flowers. Clever girl. I love that my little scholar LOVES to write her letters. She is constantly asking how to spell words and writes them down as we spell them for her. She knows all of her letter sounds so she's now transitioning to sounding the words out on her own. :) Smart girl.

Figuring Things Out...FINALLY

Well after 3 weeks of hotel life, I think we FINALLY have things figured out over here...just in time for us to move out in a week. ;)

For the past few weeks, we have had the everyday battle over who is going to push the elevator buttons (inside and out), who will be the one to get Spencer out of his "house" and on a leash for a walk, who gets to use the room key to open the door, etc...

You never realize how simple things would be if you just did EVERYTHING on your own and avoid the sibling squabbles associated with taking on responsibility. The kids helped create a system of every other day tasks to trade off back and forth. We brainstormed what would be fair from day to day and put a schedule together. This was quite the learning experience for A & D to help and assist and actually have a say in the decision making process.

Now I hear all the time "Hey Mom, I got a good idea!" My little monkeys are turning into some GREAT problem solvers! :)

Children's Museum

We hadn't been to the Children's Museum in ages!!! Since we've had several friends raving about the new exhibit, we decided to take the grandparents downtown and check it out. The exhibit featured all sort of create-it-yourself crafts. Something I totally thought the kids would be completely into. Little Miss A was for a little bit, creating a book and a purse ad even experimenting for a little bit with a "rotocopter" creation as well.

However, they both headed to the regular exhibits we've seen and done so many times before...with a twist.

Little Miss A spent over an HOUR in the milk department. Loading up bottles to send down the conveyor belt. Stocking the shelves of the store, then sending the bottles up the chute and back to the manufacturing plant. We've NEVER experienced this stationary exhibit. (Not sure if it's always been too crowded to play in the past or if the kids just never saw it as "interesting" before or what.)

With the train out of commission today, D helped A in the milk department even milked the cow!!! Then was his typical pinball self spinning uncontrollably from spot to spot...store, kitchen, nurse's station, bat cave, library (though he didn't make it through story time), metro bus, construction zone, etc. I swear the kid is the next "Houdini" and can disappear in an instant!!!! Thank heavens I had reinforcement help to keep tabs on the little man! Even then, 3 sets of eyes wasn't enough at times!!!

Letters, Letters, Letters

Little Miss A has been quite the brainiac lately...constantly wanting to practice writing her letters. She'll sit for hours just drawing them all out and singing the alphabet as she goes. Too cute. :)

Field Trip to the Stables

A & D's class at school took a field trip to some local stables to learn about how to take care of animals. (Totally has Little Miss A's name written ALL over it, right?) She has been in countdown mode since we found out they were going over a month ago. She was so excited. The day of the field trip the kids had to wear long pants, since a horse ride was part of the experience. This was what Mr. D was so psyched about. Every morning he would pull out his jeans and put them on with his cowboy boots...then he would ask if we were going on our field trip that day. After finding out it wasn't field tip day it was a major chore to convince the little man to change into shorts for a regular school day. (Remember we're in Texas...though it's only May, we're already hitting temps in the upper nineties.)

Finally the big day had arrived. They both jumped out of bed with smiles on their faces "it's field trip day!!!" They got ready faster than I've seen them move in the early morning all year. (If only every day could be field trip day...is there a real magic school bus out there somewhere?) Since I wasn't able to go on the field trip with them, this is a super busy time of year for me in my classroom, I'll have to see if Ms. L has pics I can upload. That said, the only real info I have is from post trip questions. Here's the gist...Little Miss A LOVED the lamb. She said she just wanted to keep petting it. "Mommy, can't we have a lamb at our house?" Yikes, I swear my little girl would have a zoo in the backyard if we had the space. She loves animals. Mr. D's favorite part of the day was riding the horse. I honestly thought that would have been A's favorite part of the day. :) Drew says he "was like a real cowboy!" Other than that, they pet a lot of animals and even got to brush them, they listened a lot, ate lunch and played with friends. Yep, that's all I got from them, but they went on and on about their favorite things. They definitely had fun!!!

Computer Time

Little Miss A and Mr D are CONSTANTLY wanting to go to my classroom and play on the computers. From behind they could have been some of my kindergarten students. SCARY!!!

A Starry Night

Ever since we left Florida at Thanksgiving with a telescope from Grandpa, the kids have been in LOVE with the moon, stars and planets. They were studying space in school, my second graders are actually studying it as well, so we took a field trip Saturday night with my students and their families to the UT planetarium. Okay, so it's not so much a planetarium as it is just a giant telescope to view the stars. The kids LOVED it!!! We saw Venus, Orion's nebula and even Saturn and it's rings...so cool! What a fun evening!!!

Stalactites, Stalagmites and Caves, Oh My!

We went to our local Inner Space Caverns for some cave exploring fun with J's Mom and sister. Before we even got started, we immediately began selecting our cave exploring treasures from the gift shop. Mr D wanted a very appropriate cave exploring helmet. Little Miss A, on the other hand, selected a pair a magic handcuffs. (Pronounced handcuffis.) They both proudly wore their individual treasures through the entire cave exploration. As you can imagine, we got a few sideways glances at A.

Well, D was ALL excited about the possibility of finding bats in the "bat cave" whereas A was petrified of even coming close to a bat in the cave. What you play up with with one, you down play with the other in an attempt to make everyone happy. Parenting games are so much fun!!! :)

We did see some bats...and holy crow, they were small enough that Little Miss A even thought they were cute. Just hanging there with their toes clung to the cave ceiling. However, when we entered a room with some flying friends, they suddenly weren't as cute. (That's my girl!) D and I got so close to a sleeping little guy, we could have reached out and touched it. (I'm kind of surprised Mr D didn't...very glad, but still surprised!) The cave itself was far more fun this trip than in the past. The kids learned all the formations and could even point them out. (You probably already know that the teacher in me LOVED that!) They loved using their imaginations to see all the images in the calcite and were even making up their own.

One of the rooms in the cave is a fairy tale. Complete with a king and queen, a princess and knight, a giant castle and a dragon protecting an enormous tower. It was awesome, Little Miss A was completely entranced. However, when asked if she wanted a picture taken in front of the scene, she immediately without hesitation said "NO!" As we walked by it on the way out, I asked her again only to get the same response. :( Well, guess what, we woke up this morning and seriously the FIRST thing A said was "Mommy, can we go back to the cave and take my picture with the princess?" I guess we need to go back. Obviously not today, but definitely sooner rather than later. :)

Reading Time

I LOVE A & D's daytime reading. I swear, I could watch them for hours!! :)

Science in the Park

We met some of our playgroup friends for science in the park after school today. We learned about the moon...it's surface and will be charting the phases of the moon over the next 28 days. :) Ms. J had some seriously fun action plans for the kids that of course, Mr D. just gobbled up. Notice the "air tank" as he is orbiting Earth in his space shuttle and Little Miss A throwing meteoroids with the other A. They both had a blast, what a fun way to end a day. :)