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10.09.2010

Around here

Well, we had quite the week. Dan was in Boston most of the week at a conference (or 'on vacation' as the kids tell people). My sister, Emily, and her friend came into town from CA on Wednesday night - Thursday afternoon. The kids just looove to see her.

While she was here, the kids discovered some black swallowtail caterpillars camping out on/feasting on our parsley. Every year we find them there. This year the kids decided to keep one as a 'pet'. They named him Slimey. (I think the name was Emily's idea.)

Meet Slimey.


We'll see if he spins a cocoon. Wouldn't that be cool?

We learned how to keep a caterpillar here.




Apparently, you don't have to keep them in anything. You could just bring a parsley plant inside and let them pupate on the plant. You just need to add a few sticks.

I was at the kids' school this week helping out and goodness gracious! that school is so cute. I sat with Indigo during circle time. They ask each of the kids how they are doing each day. They asked Indigo first, since I was there with her. She answered "super super super super good." (I guess she always says this!) Some of the other kids responded with "fantabulous" or "terrific!". But they all said it nonchalantly which made it more hilarious. After circle time, she went to an art station to work on a project



and I headed over to Jude's class to help with a project. For Halloween each year the kindergarten teachers have the kids make their own 'Wild Things' Shirt. They use fabrics to design a 'Wild Thing' face. I got to sit with the first group of kids and ask them to draw a face (saying 'think big!'). Earlier in the week I cut 44 9"x12" fabric pieces and backed them with interfacing so we'd be good to go for this part of the project. There are 20 kids in the class, but this way they had some flexibility in fabric choice. The kids then cut the pieces out themselves (with me closely watching and at times helping) and they placed them exactly where they wanted them on the shirt. Then they taped them there. I appliqued one group of shirts this weekend.



I'll bring them back to school on Tuesday and they'll start adding the facial features. I am hoping to help again with that. I love sewing and I love working with the Kindergartners. They are so sweet.

At home we are getting ready for Halloween.

I wanted to make the kids trick-or-treat bags, but didn't want to spend a lot of time making them. So I was really excited to find this tutorial. I got everything I needed to make them at the craft store today for $16. For three bags? Awesome.

Jude and Indigo decided that they want to be a bat family for Halloween, with Jude being the Daddy Bat, Indigo the Mama Bat, and Evie the Baby Bat. We are going to use this tutorial to make their costumes and already went to the craft store to pick out the fabrics. They each wanted to have different colored wings.

I found this list of recommended Halloween reading for kids and placed most of the books on hold at the library. Almost every book on the list was currently checked out(!). But I'm hoping we'll get to read a few before Halloween.

We've been doing quite a bit of baking.






Oh how we love Fall!

4 comments:

  1. LOVE the Wild Things shirt idea! SO cool!!!

    Our favorite Halloween books (not on the list you posted) are: The Spider and the Fly (AWESOME!) and Scaredy Cat Splat (Brand new and absolutely adorable- my kids LOVE the "Splat" books). I'll have to look through our fairly significant stack here. I know we have lots we love, but none from that list!

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  2. Oh, I just love this season too....we are unseasonably warm right now, almost record breaking but the trees...oh my...the color is gorgeous!! I don't ever get tired of it and will hate to lose it!

    I love that you were able to help out in the classrooms and I know how special that can be!

    Can't wait to see their Halloween costumes and though I have not peeked at the Halloween book link just yet, I'm gonna add one just in case....two of our faves:

    The Night Before Halloween ~ part of the Night Before series. We also adore Corduroy's Best Halloween Ever.

    :) Happy Haunting my friend!

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  3. We LOVE Fall. Hasn't fall been great in Texas so far? KUP on the caterpillar. We had a luna moth caterpillar this summer and it was amazing to watch hatch and fly away when we released it. I will never forget it flying off!

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  4. Fun. Rhett wants us to be a ghost family. I need to start working on that. Good thing it mostly requires white sheets and scissors.

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