March Playtime

Here are some random activities we did in March that didn't really fit into any another category... :)

Family Fest

At the beginning of the month, our church held a carnival-type festival to kick off Lutheran School's Week. After attending early service on a Sunday, we ate a barbecue lunch and then tried out the carnival. The activities were all looped into the cost of a wristband, so Jaden and Cody tried out most everything. They spent the most amount of time indoors on all the jump houses. But, they also liked the petting zoo outside as well as the train ride pictured below.

The guy and his daughter behind us are part of our life group, so he wasn't just randomly waving for our picture. :)

I didn't think to bring a change of clothes after church, so poor Cody and Jaden had to play all morning in their khaki pants. :) They didn't seem to mind too much.

Cody and Jaden rode a small ferris wheel independently for the first time. You can hardly see them in the picture below. They rode somewhat tentatively, but happily!

Dr. Seuss Playdate

Later in the month, we had fun with Dr. Seuss activities at our twice-a-month themed playgroup. My sister's friend Tanya planned a super cute Cat in the Hat craft. Cody and Ryan posed fairly nicely for us...

...but getting all of the 3-year-olds (plus one 2-year-old) in a picture together was definitely more of a challenge! Our attempts are somewhat amusing, at least. :)

Aliceson led a couple of awesome activities, too. First, she read the book Ten Apples Up On Top to the group. Then, while she re-read the story, the kiddos all "stacked" apples on top of a guy's head in numerical order by clipping clothespins to a paint stick.

The kids all seemed very focused on this activity. It was great practice to even open the clothespins!

Next, the kids stacked pool noodle pieces to create a tall tower of apples. As Jaden is demonstrating, this activity took a LOT of concentration. :)

Cody tried to make his stack of apples completely free-standing.

Library Storytime

This particular week, the theme for our library storytime was spring. The librarian read Eric Carle's book The Very Hungry Caterpillar and showed the kids how to make a caterpillar hat. So cute!

Train Riding

On the second Saturday of every month, an organization called Houston Area Live Steamers opens up its model trains to the public for free rides. We had heard Kim and Matt talk about this event often but hadn't yet attended ourselves. This month was their first time to reopen after their "winter" break. A family from church invited us to visit along with them, so we eagerly agreed to try it out! The trains were somewhat smaller than we expected.

But we still fit our family (minus Jason, unfortunately, who couldn't join us) and our friends the Bortnems on one train car. As you can tell from our attire, the morning was a cooler Texas spring day. It felt wonderful! :)

The tracks wove through a lot of vegetation. Jaden and Cody kept asking, "Mommy, are we in the forest?"

The ride was about 15 minutes long. At the end of our track, we saw another conductor on a steam engine. This engine even whistled for us!

After riding the train, we enjoyed some playtime at a nearby park. It was a beautiful morning to be outside!

U & V

We have not been quite as consistent with letter activities lately, but we still try to squeeze some projects in whenever we have a lighter day at home. Here is some of the fun we had with the letters U and V...

We kicked off our letter U learning by having our snack underneath the table. Cody and Jaden thought that this was "a pretty silly idea."

Then, we painted umbrella outlines with watercolors. This project started the boys on a week or two long watercolor kick.

After painting the umbrellas, the boys added raindrops using Q-tips and tempera paint.

Jaden had more of a downpour on his umbrella. He did, however, keep the rain on top of his umbrella as opposed to Cody's full-out rainstorm.

The final paintings:

Another day, I stuck foam letters into an umbrella. We took turns spinning the umbrella around (although the boys arms weren't quite long enough to do this very well). 

When the umbrella stopped, the boys each grabbed out a letter. They identified the letter, tried to name its sound, and then attempted to say a word that started with this letter (I had to guide them quite a bit with the last two steps).

Then, of course, we had to pretend that it was raining inside the house.

For our tactile letter book, Jaden and Cody filled their U with clipart of "up arrows." I printed off the arrows in one big strip, so the boys were able to help with most of the cutting.

Letter V was a fun one because we got to play with vehicles! First we had vehicle races down the stairs.

We awarded the cars with a first, second, or third place trophy.

Another day, we did a few vehicle sorting activities. We first sorted them into groups by type (car, truck, bus, other), and then we sorted them by color.

Jaden and Cody really enjoyed this parking lot activity. We put stickers on their vehicles so that they were numbered from 1 to 10. Then, the boys had to count the stars in each parking space, and put the correctly numbered car in each spot.

The boys' favorite part of this activity was getting to put numbers on their cars! We spent the rest of the day numbering most of the rest of their vehicles.

Finally, we learned a little about volcanoes. After watching a couple clips of volcanic eruptions on youtube, Cody and Jaden performed the familiar vinegar & baking soda experiment to create their own eruption.

After doing this project, Cody asked to draw a few pictures of a volcano. Also, both boys started incorporating volcanic eruptions into their playtime ("Hurry, let's run away from all the hot lava!"). I love what little sponges these boys are now!

Our 1st Texas Rodeo

Yee-haw! Can we officially count ourselves Texans now that we've attended our first rodeo? :) We definitely did the kid-friendly version this year (meaning that we didn't even attend the actual rodeo), so to most Texans, our visit probably doesn't even count. Plus, we left our boots, belt buckles, and cowboy hats at home, so I think we have a ways to go before becoming official rodeo-going Texans! 

Regardless, our family thoroughly enjoyed the daytime events at the rodeo. We took Grandpa and Grandma along with us to experience all of the kids' activities and left well before the evening rodeo and concert. We'll try that part out another year. The events we did this year were right up Jaden and Cody's alley, so it was perfect. First, we watched a series of pig races.

Each section of the audience was given a colored flag and a certain pig to cheer on. The crowds were quite enthusiastic.

One of my favorite activities of the morning was walking through this farm-to-market experience. First, the boys received tokens (or seeds) to plant into the ground. Then, they got to try their hand at tractor driving (or at least steering a stationary one).

Jaden and Cody did chores around the farm like feeding the chickens.

Then, they used baskets to harvest various produce items from around the farm.

The boys got to feel actual wool from a sheep...

pump water,

and milk a cow.

At the last station, Farmers Cody and Jaden sorted out their produce at the market, where they sold it for cash. They deposited half of their money in the "bank" and used the other half to purchase a sweet treat at the store. It was a wonderful learning experience!

Next we visited the indoor Ag-venture building, which was full of more activities for kids. First, we planted sunflower seeds in a small cup. Once we took the seeds home, Jaden and Cody took the task of caring for their seeds very seriously. They were very eager to check on the seeds' progress every morning. We actually had 4 seeds sprout (3 of them from Cody's cup). The boys helped me replant them in our backyard, and three of them are currently growing strong. We'll see how long they'll last!

Then, we made all kinds of new friends at the petting zoo.

Some of our new friends were quite large! :)

Then, we learned about the life cycle of baby chicks and saw some egg hatching in action.

We visited the piglet birthing center and saw many piglets that were less than a couple weeks old. 

Cody and Jaden were particularly interested in the bunny exhibit.

At the end, they were even allowed to pet a soft bunny. This was, of course, a highlight!

Our family, I guess, did get to see a couple bucking broncos before leaving. :) The rodeo experience was a hit for all! Thanks, Grandma and Grandpa, for joining along with us on this adventure!