Happy New Year!

Happy New Year from our family to yours! I hope that your 2014 is filled with warmth, joy, curiousity, exploration, and love.

These are the photos I took to send our to family as our holiday cards, they are not the traditional formal pictures I take, but I thought the kids would enjoy this sitting more. I set up a secret hot cocoa picnic compete with artisan marshmallows and candy canes.  It is fun to give them a big treat like that every once and a while.

After taking the photos we went on our annual December float on the Willamette River with our kayaks lit up for the Illuminata Regatta. It is always fun, but this year was so amazingly pleasant. I don't know if it was the really cold (14 degree ferenheit) weather we had in the weeks leading up to the Illuminata Regatta or what, but it felt so warm we didn't even need our gloves!

I hope you enjoy the pictures.
:) Emilia

Preschool Turkey Activity

Friday morning I decided that I wanted to do an activity with my daughter and the little boys I was taking care of that day. I thought it would be nice to use the homemade playdough I had sitting around and something with fall colors.

I decided that I could easily make colored pasta and then shape the playdough into the shape of a turkey's body. The kids could then use the pasta to decorate the turkeys. I also added in some long pieces of dried spaghetti so the kids would be able to make longer "feathers" by putting the penne pasta over the spaghetti pasta.

While the kids were making their turkeys we talked about the colors, what the playdough felt like, if the noodles stayed in well, what patterns they could make, how they could make the noodles look like feathers on a turkey, and how the colors of the noodles and turkey looked a lot like fall leaves.

They enjoyed this activity a lot and after finishing their turkeys moved on to making their own shapes with the playdough and decorating those. It is great for fine motor skills, sensory play, creative play, learning about patterns, and colors.

To make the pasta all you do is get dried pasta, fill a bowl half way with white vinegar and add food coloring of you choice (I used probably at least 10 drops of color per bowl) then add pasta so that it is covered by the vinegar. Let it sit for about 5 minutes, maybe a little more, stirring a couple times while it sits. Then dump out the liquid and lay the pasta flat on a cookie sheet to dry. It took about two hours maybe three for ours to dry completely.

Now you are ready, just set out the materials for the kids to get to work.

Curious George Discovery Beach: A Preschooler Game

It has been a while since I have written, I have gotten horribly busy and there just was not room for this for a little while. Sorry for the lapse...

I have been thinking about games again...we have one in our house the both kids started playing at about two years old. Well truthfully my little girl started sitting with us at about a year and tried to play along but just was not able to do it. It is called Curious George Discovery Beach.

This is a great memory game that mixes things up (literally and figuratively) by having you search for objects on the card with in a "sea" of blue. There are tiny objects that hide in the "sea" and when you shake the box they get mixed up again. Little puzzle pieces open to reveal a window into the sea.

This is a great game for learning about taking turns, strengthening memory, matching, learning to look for an object based on the picture, and can help in learning colors. The game does not take very long to play which is good for young kids.

                                                                   

Tulip Fest Outing

Every year since my son was born I have attended the Tulip Festival at Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm. In fact I have been attending since I was a kid! It has changed a lot from what I remember as a kid but it remains a great tradition. 

If you attend on the weekdays you will find that there are much fewer people to contend with (which I love). Attending on the weekend means a sort of carnival feel, with some small rides you can purchase tickets for, pony rides, food and art booths as well. 

The farm has fun slides, tire swings shaped like horses, duck races, and other activities for kids. Just be prepared to play instead of look at the fields! 

I love getting outside with the kids and it is a great perk for me that I get to take photographs of them playing around the tulips. For the younger kids talking about the colors helps them to learn their colors. The older kids can talk about how the flowers grow and their parts. Really though this outing is all about fun.

 
You can check out additional photographs from the tulip fields at my photography website emiliabrasierphotography.wordpress.com under the post Tulip Fields.