Season of Spring
What with the official commencement of spring this weekend, we got out some of our seasonal books -- like The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter, Bunny My Honey by Anita Jeram, and The Little Lamb by Judy Dunn and Phoebe Dunn. They're tales of cute animals with, in the case of The Little Lamb, lovely photographs of actual lambs and sheep and green fields.
The weather has been warming up around here, but so far, our fields and our lawns are still more brown than green (as attested to by the mud patches on the knees and rear ends of the pants of a small child with an affinity for pink clothing). We're experiencing some flooding this year, in that some bridges are closed so you have to take the long way around, but it's more of an attitude this year of "regular" flooding, rather than "emergency" flooding.
And Toys R Us had their annual "spring's coming" outdoor toys sale last week, so we got Nora a new bike, since she had outgrown her old one. We also had to get her a helmet that said it was for ages 5 and up (she is not even four yet!) because my kid is a giant, and the three-year-old ones were too small. While it was sunny on Saturday, the wind was pretty bitter, so she couldn't ride it then (also, DH had to assemble it), but she did wear the other gear -- helmet, knee and elbow pads -- to the dinner table instead. She got out for a brief ride, up and down the block, on Sunday afternoon, and I'm pretty impressed with her pedaling. (Steering needs work. As does the concept that, if you move your feet backward on the pedals, it turns the brakes on and the bike stops.) When looking at the bikes in the store, when she spotted the one with the basket, she went right to the thought that she could take her Sheep along for a bike ride in the basket, so she had such accompaniment on Sunday.
Now I need to figure out how to sell stuff on Craigslist, so we can get the old bike out of the garage. It will also soon be time for spring cleaning that area -- and the rest of the house. We haven't planted the mustard seed that Nora came home from Sunday school with this week, because it's such a pain to get to the flowerpots and the potting soil. (Right now, the mustard seed is wrapped in wet paper towels stored in a sealed plastic bag. I'm checking that it remains wet -- and must note that it smells awful every time I open that bag.)
Nora also received the April issue of the National Wildlife Federation magazine Your Big Backyard late last week. (This is the one for kids who are too young for Ranger Rick but too old for Wild Animal Baby.) A lot of this issue is about spring-like topics like birds nesting, including the page that you tear out and fold together to create a small booklet. This one is about some cardinals who build a nest, hatch eggs and feed the babies insects. It's short and simple enough that Nora has it memorized and has been "reading" it to me. It asks questions as part of the story -- good for practicing reading comprehension -- and, when I tried to mix things up after the fifth or sixth episode of her reading it to me, she informed me that I was supposed to "do it right" when she asked me questions like "what is she sitting on?" (eggs) and "who is feeding the babies insects?" (the daddy bird). Evidently, my answer of "a gorilla" didn't sit well.
She was also excited about the rainbow on the suggested projects page (she's thoroughly into rainbows lately, and has drawn many of them with her crayons and markers), and I was excited because I thought finally! an easy craft we immediately have all the supplies on hand for! (colored tissue paper, plastic sheet protector, glue stick) -- except that the folks at Your Big Backyard hadn't updated their website yet to include the rainbow template, and I knew they wouldn't over the weekend. I tried checking out rainbows from other printables sites, like DLTK , but they were the wrong size. Phooey. We'll have to wait a few days to make this rainbow.
The weather has been warming up around here, but so far, our fields and our lawns are still more brown than green (as attested to by the mud patches on the knees and rear ends of the pants of a small child with an affinity for pink clothing). We're experiencing some flooding this year, in that some bridges are closed so you have to take the long way around, but it's more of an attitude this year of "regular" flooding, rather than "emergency" flooding.
And Toys R Us had their annual "spring's coming" outdoor toys sale last week, so we got Nora a new bike, since she had outgrown her old one. We also had to get her a helmet that said it was for ages 5 and up (she is not even four yet!) because my kid is a giant, and the three-year-old ones were too small. While it was sunny on Saturday, the wind was pretty bitter, so she couldn't ride it then (also, DH had to assemble it), but she did wear the other gear -- helmet, knee and elbow pads -- to the dinner table instead. She got out for a brief ride, up and down the block, on Sunday afternoon, and I'm pretty impressed with her pedaling. (Steering needs work. As does the concept that, if you move your feet backward on the pedals, it turns the brakes on and the bike stops.) When looking at the bikes in the store, when she spotted the one with the basket, she went right to the thought that she could take her Sheep along for a bike ride in the basket, so she had such accompaniment on Sunday.
Now I need to figure out how to sell stuff on Craigslist, so we can get the old bike out of the garage. It will also soon be time for spring cleaning that area -- and the rest of the house. We haven't planted the mustard seed that Nora came home from Sunday school with this week, because it's such a pain to get to the flowerpots and the potting soil. (Right now, the mustard seed is wrapped in wet paper towels stored in a sealed plastic bag. I'm checking that it remains wet -- and must note that it smells awful every time I open that bag.)
Nora also received the April issue of the National Wildlife Federation magazine Your Big Backyard late last week. (This is the one for kids who are too young for Ranger Rick but too old for Wild Animal Baby.) A lot of this issue is about spring-like topics like birds nesting, including the page that you tear out and fold together to create a small booklet. This one is about some cardinals who build a nest, hatch eggs and feed the babies insects. It's short and simple enough that Nora has it memorized and has been "reading" it to me. It asks questions as part of the story -- good for practicing reading comprehension -- and, when I tried to mix things up after the fifth or sixth episode of her reading it to me, she informed me that I was supposed to "do it right" when she asked me questions like "what is she sitting on?" (eggs) and "who is feeding the babies insects?" (the daddy bird). Evidently, my answer of "a gorilla" didn't sit well.
She was also excited about the rainbow on the suggested projects page (she's thoroughly into rainbows lately, and has drawn many of them with her crayons and markers), and I was excited because I thought finally! an easy craft we immediately have all the supplies on hand for! (colored tissue paper, plastic sheet protector, glue stick) -- except that the folks at Your Big Backyard hadn't updated their website yet to include the rainbow template, and I knew they wouldn't over the weekend. I tried checking out rainbows from other printables sites, like DLTK , but they were the wrong size. Phooey. We'll have to wait a few days to make this rainbow.