Neighborhood Fun

Afterschool fun with our neighbors...

Pirate Party

Malachi turned 5, and we had a pirate party to celebrate.

First, the little pirates made parrots...

Then we climbed aboard our makeshift Pirate ship and

 fired some cannon balls at our enemies (which was really just an empty trash can).

Next we had a relay race to see which team could pick up the most pretzels with their pirate hooks.

Here is Malachi cheering his team on.

This is a pre-party picture of Malachi's birthday cake (a.k.a Pirate Ship).  Take note of Malachi's "pirate face", as he called it.

Singing Happy Birthday...

Malachi received several great presents and he was particularly excited to get this one:

To end the party, the little Pirates had to go on a treasure hunt to

 find their loot. Here they are receiving instructions for the hunt and their first map.

Here they are working together to figure out where the next map, or possibly the treasure, is located.

And another map....  eventually a key was connected to a map which lead them to the treasure chest.

In the treasure chest, they each found their own box of loot.

Even the princess..

Asher was VERY excited about this lollipop.

About 45 minutes later, he had conquered it.

One of our pirates models some of his loot.

And finally, our not-so-scary Birthday Boy Pirate.

Handwriting Progress

We are praising God for giving us the ability to progress with joy and enthusiasm in what has typically been very frustrating for all of us!

Asher's Training

The fun has begun:

The above didn't last very long...

Needless to say, we are on pause with this until I can get to the store to buy some pull-ups!

LMNOP

We ended our school day today by putting together this puzzle:

We sang the Alphabet Song over and over again so we would know what puzzle piece came next.

It was great for letter recognition, learning ABC order, and (mommy) trying to teach that LMNOP is five different letters!

On a side note, this is how Asher usually spends school-time:

I Get Wet

Yesterday in Science we read this book:

Through this book and the mini experiments it lead us to do, we discovered some things about water.

First we learned that water flows and takes the shape of whatever is holding it.  It is rectangular in this picture because the glass dish is a rectangle.

Then we watched how water sticks to itself and forms a drop of water...

which inevitably lead to catching the drops with our tongues.

 Karis is further noting how water sticks to itself by observing how the bristles on this brush only stuck together when we got them wet.

In this picture, Malachi has just discovered that water doesn't stick to everything-- like wax paper (or even a duck's back since God made it that way so they wouldn't get cold in the winter while diving in the water)

Water does stick to some things... like paper towels.  And it is really cool to watch the water move up the paper towel.

and long before we got to this part in the book, Karis was already discovering that water sticks to us...

and it is really fun to pretend like the water and paintbrush is nail polish.

Asher just had fun playing with the water and the brush.

So, we learned that we get wet because water flows, sticks to itself, and then it stick to us!

Work and Play

We eased into school this week, just trying to get into a good routine so that by Fall we can really get down to business.  This was the favorite "work" activity for the week...

Cutting and pasting all by themselves...  

That is always a blast !

Our favorite "play" activity was Daddy's puppet show:

It was about a dog, "Hinzo", that needed their help to find the dragon named "Dragonfly".  They had to help Hinzo by barking whenever they saw the dragon.  Poor Hinzo wasn't the hound dog he claimed to be... this made it all the more hilarious for preschoolers.

Asher had to take a closer look...

When the show was over, 

Malachi and Karis wanted to be the puppeteers.

Of course, in their story, the dragon caught the dog...

The puppet show returned later in the week,

 and we have a feeling it will be a family favorite.