The Eyes Have It

OK, yes I know it's a corny title.. but how often do we really get to be corny, silly and goofy? Today was another lesson, obviously about eyes. First I showed him a picture with an eye and the word EYE printed on it. Then we hung up our words: EYE and EAR on the wall. That way he can see them all day long. He was so funny. I was trying to get him to talk and he kept telling me: "Mom, I'm eating!" That's what he's been calling me this week... I'm not sure how I feel about it...I had him look at pictures of our family and tell me the color of each person's eyes. He wasn't overly impressed with my efforts... but we did notice that some people have green eyes, some people have blue eyes, and most of his Leavitt family have brown. Of course, the Leavitt family picture I was using is almost 6 years old. There have been many blue/green eyed additions to it. Riley kept say that Jeanie (his 7 year old cousin) was Emmaline or Hannah or Faith. He wouldn't believe me when I told him it was Jeanie. The first activity that we did today was making sequin bottles. We filled empty water bottles with water and sequins. Then we shook them up and let the light make pretty swirls of color on the wall. Then Riley and I made pretend binoculars. I used a paper towel roll, cut it in two, glued them together, punched holes and tied a string to it. I let Riley used some of the sequins to decorate. I told him that we would use them on our nature walk. Then we played a fun game of water eye toss. I used wiggle eyes and a shallow pan. I had Riley stand a little ways away and toss the eyes into the pan. He was so funny! He really liked doing it and he got pretty good at it too. Then we used the really big googly eyes to make puppets. He named them: Demya and Benson. I think the name came from the fact that our puppets had curly hair and so do Mya and Ben. He made Demya and I made Benson. He was so funny, he used funny voices to make the puppets talk. By this time it was lunch... and Emmaline was up from her nap. During lunch I used some pictures from the LDS art work to tell the story about how Jesus healed the blind man and how the Nephites were able to see Jesus after he was resurrected. It was cool to have both Emma and Riley excited to look at the pictures. Emma got upset when I didn't show it to her sooner! Then when she saw what we were looking at, she started to squeal, her legs were just going! They know who Jesus is... and they can feel the Spirit. After lunch, we went to Tule Spings Ranch. I figured that was one of the few places in Vegas that doesn't feel like you are in Vegas. It's so beautiful! There are trees all around and a bunch of ponds. The point to going was to use our eyes and ears to hear the world around us. We heard the wind, saw way too many geese, saw the ducks, and looked the different kinds of leaves and trees. Riley with his binoculars. I carried Emmaline in the backpack. It made it easier than trying to push the stroller. This is a cat tail I pulled out of the pond. We had fun waving it around and letting the seeds blow into the wind. Riley told me that it looked like snow or bubbles. I love it when the lighting is just right to catch a great picture... This is where Allen and I took our engagement picture, and where I took both TJ and Mary Lynn's and Demya and Bensons' engagement pictures. I've never really been disappointed with Tule Springs! Emma's helping to collect leaves for our nature bag! She was so cute. She started cooing as we walked along. I think everyone enjoyed the outing. It was nice to get out of the house and see some beautiful things!

YEAH FOR EYES!

Hear, Hear for Ears

Continuing on the theme of our body, today we talked about ears. Today didn't go as well as I'd hoped... Riley had a hard time sleeping last night. He went to sleep well, but woke up at 10, 2, and I think 4:30-5:00ish. So he had a hard time staying focused on the tasks. He also didn't take a nap. So, I don't know... but we still had fun! One of the first activities we did today is called: Playing the rainbow. We filled up glass jars with different amounts of water, then you add food coloring. Using a metal spoon, you gently hit the jars. It was really fun! We did the four colors that came in the food coloring package, but then Riley wanted to mix them together... We went from Red, Yellow, Blue and Green to Green, Orange, and Purple. Drummer Riley! He had so much fun playing with these jars. The first activity we did was the head band on his head. It reads: My Ears Can Hear. He loves playing with glue, so he had fun doing that too. Of course, if they are stackable, they will be stacked... He did this for about 5 minutes. He rearrange the jars in every possible way. Which one had the most to the least, by the color, by the sound. It was cool.Of course, accidents will happen! This made the loudest sound! We both had a good laugh about it! No good lesson about ears and sound would be complete without checking out some instruments. Demya and Benson were kind enough to let us come over and explore the many instruments they have at their disposal! Riley liked getting to touch the different kinds of guitars (Benson has several). We talked about how the different kinds of strings make different sounds. They played a cool duet for us too. I know it's hard to imagine a stranger combination than a french horn and a guitar, but it was really very beautiful... It was the first time Demya had played since the 4th of July... she was surprised by how much hard it was to play with the new baby belly! This is an wooden flute that Demya made during her student teaching. Her master teacher had a class of eighth graders that made these every year. They would have a concert, and many of the kids got to play solos. Mya had fun making hers. It has a really pretty sound to it... well, when Riley isn't trying to make it sound like a train whistle! This is also a Indian whistle. It belongs to my mom. Benson was trying to explain to Riley that if you played softly you can make really pretty sounds with it! Emma found the sheet music fun... She has definitely hit the age of exploration! It's driving me a little crazy... she seems to find every light socket, cabinet door, piece of food/paper/gooey thing on the floor! But then she looks up at you with those big blue eyes and smiles. She's cute, and she knows it! I asked Riley at the end of the day what his favorite sound was. He told me the trombone! He was so proud of himself. He was able to make sounds come out the horn!

All About Me

For the month of September, I've decided to do a unit called: All About Me. The first unit was called: My Body. We did our lesson today, and I must say, it went way better than I'd hoped. I have been trying to figure out how to do the opening activity, morning circle, with just one kid in the class... Last night I finally decided to do the morning circle activities during breakfast. This worked GREAT! I had found a book at the library called: My Body, Your Body. It was perfect for introducing the theme. It compared our body parts to the ones that animals have. Riley really got into it. For example, when the book talked about our tongues, I told Riley to pull out his tongue too... HE DID IT! Holy cow! That's the moment that I finally felt that maybe, just maybe I can do this homeschooling preschool thing. I also decided that our word for the week is going to be BODY. I printed up the word using really cute graphics, and I had Riley tell what each of the letters were. Then I told that they spelled Body! He was funny, he kept spelling TRAIN! That was last week's word! He said he knew the word was different, he just liked TRAIN better. After we read the book, I told him we had to clean up breakfast so that we could do an activity. He loved the idea of having a special thing to do. He kept asking all day for another activity. We got the table cleared and I brought out "Johny" a paper doll that I had made last night. I laminated it so that it would last longer that just one lesson and put Velcro on the different body parts to hold on the clothes. I figured that this would make it easier for Riley to put the clothes on. He had a blast. This picture is a little fuzzy, but you can so tell how proud he was of getting Johny dressed! First we put clothes on that were for it being hot and to go swimming, then we put on clothes to go out in the snow. After "Johnny", I tried to do some dance time with the hokey pokey. Riley HATED the version of the song I had downloaded last night. He wouldn't dance with me at all. But Emmaline LOVED it! I later downloaded a different version, and then, he was happy. After dancing, I had him do a coloring page of the letter B. We talked about all the different things that start with the letter B that were on the page. He was so proud of his artwork that he insisted that we put it up on the fridge. By this time it was about 10:30ish so I packed everyone up, and we went to the park. It was such a nice day I couldn't waste it all inside! I brought Riley's bike with us. I was planning to go to the new addition to the park by our house... Would you believe that they had the parking lot closed? On Labor Day?! What were they thinking! UGH. It worked out OK, I just parked at the other end and we walked down. Riley rode his bike. It's great to see him finally using his pedals. After we got to the playground I kept hearing someone calling "Riley" I found the mom, and it turned out the boy she was calling was the boy my Riley was playing with! How funny is that! This Riley was about 6, and my Riley thought he was great! Little Riley followed big Riley all over the playground!

(This is Big Riley and Little Riley)

After lunch, and Emmaline went down for a nap, Riley and I did our last activity for the day. I got out a big sheet of paper and we drew his outline. Then I let him use markers to decorate it. He was SO excited! Riley held perfectly still. I know, it hard to believe but he did. He made eyes, pants, socks, and a railroad hat. We hung the picture up on his door. Riley was so proud of it, the moment Allen got home he was rushed off to see Riley's work! I can't believe that it's working! Riley's loving it, and getting worn out in the process. He was asleep by 7:45 tonight! This is the kid who we usually pray is asleep by 9! This is a lot of work, but makes the day so much more fun, and so I believe that it's worth it!