Science Experiment: Acids and Bases!

     Wyatt asked if we could do a science experiment from his science kit, so we went looking for one that looked interesting. We settled on an acids and bases lab because we had all the materials, and it sounded like fun to pick out lots of different liquids we could test to see if they're an acid or a base. Now, I did my best to try to explain, at a 6 year old level anyway, what an acids and bases are, but, let's be honest, most of it was kind of like I was speaking Hebrew to them or something...lol! They do know that they've heard of acids, and that there's a scale of acids and bases, and that bases are sort of "opposite" of acids, and are at the other end of the scale. They understood as best they could, and we moved on to the fun! Here are some pictures of them testing out different liquids! We made an pH indicator with red cabbage powder provided in the kit, and got to work! I also included a picture of our chart we made (so charting was involved too!). Chances are not all the answers are 100% right, but we had fun, and they did learn something, so we'll worry about being correct with acids and bases in a few more years. <3

Library Days - 6/19 and 7/3

Here are the library books from 2 of the last 4 weeks... I always end up in such a hurry on library days that I end up forgetting to take a picture. When we come to the end of  Kindergarten when we start First Grade material in August or September, I'll put up a word file of all the books we read (that weren't superhero type books for fun) this year! It's so long it's crazy!

The boys really love the choose your own adventure type books, so we had Scooby Doo and Batman ones that week! Plus they think the Ducking book is hilarious so we had to get that for the third or fourth time. 

This week's collection of books is pretty small since it was 4th of July week! Still read some good ones though; with their favorites being the rock book, the ninja turtles and the Peabody and Sherman. 

The boys love to collect rocks, so when I found this book I knew they had to see it. They really liked it, and had it out comparing their rocks to the different types of rocks listed in the book, which is exactly what I had hoped would happen! I may even look for some more fun rock collecting books! Until next time! :-)

Library 6/5 and My Book System

     I haven't been doing great in the remebering to take pictures before going to the library area... but one week I remembered! Lol! Here are the books from a few weeks ago.

There were a few of the random choice books this week, they were all pretty good, nothing super exciting in their eyes anyway. The favorite book was actually from this last week, and I forgot to get a picture so I went with my buddy Google, and found one!

This is a book about a little boy who has too many toys (much like my kids)... and his mom finally has had enough (again... a little close to reality here...) so she tells him he has too many toys and needs to get rid of some. So of course a toy negotiation starts happening and eventually some toys are sorted out and put in a box. In the end, Mom goes to get the box, toys are everywhere, and we find out what we've always known... kids would rather play with a box! Super cute book, and we all liked it.

Now, you may wonder how in the world I manage to get the books back on time and not have a billion dollars in library fees. Well, part of it is my "OCD" that doesn't allow things like this to happen... so I set up a handy dandy system! The boys have a book shelf that has four shelves. I've divided it up into certain shelves for certain books. The top shelf is "my books" or the books I picked out for them to read (sometimes it's overflow from their shelf too, but mostly my choices). The second shelf is "their books" or the books that they picked out from the library; mostly Scooby Doo and Superhero books are found here. Finally the third shelf (4th shelf is just our books), is the "books that have to go back this week" shelf. Our library lets us check out books for 3 weeks at a time, so by the third week, there are certain books that need to be read so they can go back. Every Friday when we go to the library, when we get home, I check the list on our account on the library's website to see which books have to go back next week.  I take those out of the top two shelves, stick them in the newly emptied 3rd shelf, and then refill the other two with the new books. Make sense? Who knows. Honestly you just deserve a high five for reading all that... so I'll stop now. Lol! If anybody want's anymore information on my system, just let me know. :-)

St. Mary's Glacier Hike!

     We wanted to go on a fun new hike, and we've been wanting to check out St. Mary's Glacier, but figured we should wait until it got warmer so it wasn't a slip-n-slide instead of a hike. The trail is about 3/4 of a mile... and it isn't just an easy walking trail. This is an uphill, rock filled trail. Half way up was all dirt with some snow along the sides of the trail... but then suddenly the whole trail was snow! We still made our way up... and the view was beautiful! We had a ton of fun going up... but once we got up there Wyatt was suddenly very cold, very tired, and his head was super hot! Nothing like a fever showing up in the middle of your fun. We ended up giving him a piggyback ride down the trail, and headed home to rest, and a few days later he was fine. Definitely a lot of fun while we were there though! We all even went down a "snow slide" that we found along the trail. 3 of us only went once... but Wade ended up going 6 or 7 times he was having so much fun. :-) Here are some pictures of course. The pictures at the beginning show the trail when we started and the snow slide. The last pictures show the buffalo that we saw on the way to the trail! We've been looking for those buffalo on that road for over a year now!

Library Days - 5/8, 5/15, 5/22

      I somehow managed to miss a week of library book pictures... but oh well I guess! It's been crazy busy since the boys' birthdays, so I'm trying to get all caught up. So, here are our library books from 4, 3 and 2 weeks ago. 

Here are the books from the week of 5/8. We read the book The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry, and The Big Hungry Bear for school, and it was a really cute story. The boys liked it and we had to read it again later that night. It's basically about a little mouse that the "reader" is tricking the mouse into sharing half his strawberry so the "bear" nearby doesn't eat it. Good stuff. Definitely worth a read if you have a kiddo. 

There are books from the week of 5/15. We had Wade's favorite book again this week, Press Here. I guess I'll just have to go ahead and buy him that one so we don't have to reserve it once a month! Lol! Otherwise nothing too interesting to report. We read another Magic Tree House book, which of course is always good. 

Finally, here are the books from the week of 5/22. For some reason we didn't get through quite as many books that week, and no real favorites to report. Pick A Pumpkin Miss Millie was one of our random shelf picks, and it turned out to be pretty good. Definitely check it and Five Little Monkeys Trick or Treat out at Halloween time! (Or if you're my kids... all...year...long... haha). More to come hopefully next week! 

Mother's Day Crafts!

For Mother's Day this year, we decided to make a fun new art project! I saw a few ideas online, and ended up going with making handprint potholders! I don't have a link for this one, but it's pretty self explanatory. I just got some potholders, put out some paint, and we got to work. They thought it was a ton of fun, and they did a great job making sure the handprints looked good! I wrote the words on it since the writing was in paint, but I'm thinking next year they'll be doing that part themselves too. They turned out super cute! 

Library Day - 4/17 & 4/24

Here are the books from 2 weeks ago. Yoko is Wyatt's favorite new book, so we had to get that again. :-) Other than that, there are some "choose a book from this shelf" choices that turned out pretty good; My Favorite Michael and the Nuts book are both good! Oh, and Wade has taken a liking to Berenstain Bears books, so you'll be seeing some of those now too. The Spooky Old Tree was a good one.

Here are this last weeks books. The boys decided they HAD to be part of the book picture this week, so I have some models this time. ;-)

There wasn't really any big favorites this week, but some pretty good ones to read either way. Hot Rod Hamster was pretty cute and Dotty and Romping, Stomping Monsters were random shelf picks.