February Recap

This month has been great. Casey let me go to a three day conference in Provo that would help me earn credits toward my teaching license renewal. I stayed two nights at a friend's house (over Valentine's Day, too) while Casey stayed home and watched the kids. Talk about the greatest husband EVER. Love him!

Also, this month we've been studying rocks. I showed off a few things from our unit in the previous post, but thought I'd include a few more pictures here of some of the fun things we did.

Casey found a rock hounding store in Salt Lake City near the county office where he works. He stopped by after work one day and got a couple of fun rocks and minerals for Emmett to "study" as well as an "easy-break" geode. Emmett had so much fun going outside with his daddy and breaking their rock open with a hammer. It was even easier than we thought it would be.

Proud boy with his geode.

As a math activity I had Emmett use a bead sorter thingy-ma-bob and blue gems as counters. Each segment of the container has a number on the bottom in masking tape. Emmett's job was to put the correct number of gems in each one and then take them all out again by counting as he removed the gems to double check his work. It was a little tricky, but he did a great job. I think it's one I'll bring out again in the not too distant future.

Emmett also loved to help Bethany study rocks with the magnifying glass. We now have a second little rock enthusiast in the family, who gleefully screams, "ROCK!" whenever she goes outside.

We made volcanoes out of clay as a finale for the rock unit. Emmett and Bethany both love volcanoes and have been especially facinated with the Bill Nye episode of volcanoes on youtube. The both race all around the house screaming, "VOLCANO!" and then trying to make sounds to mimic exploding lava.

After the paint dried, we put a teaspoon of baking soda in the bottom of the volcano and Emmett poured some vinegar with food coloring inside it.

He was fascinated by the reaction.

Funny sweet boy. We have to set off our volcanoes at least twice a day, he has so much fun with it. I'm hoping he won't be too disappointed when he wakes up in the morning to discover that we've moved on to another topic.

We haven't just been doing school, of course. Much of our day is spent lazing around, playing with toys, and learning to share and be nice. 

Bethany loves her stuffed animals. Both kids tend to fight over this little green frog lately. They love to take their stuffed animals/dolls and run all over the house holding them over their heads so that they "fly" the way Daddy picks them up and makes them fly each day when he comes home from work. So cute.

  

They love to help me make goodies every Monday night for FHE treats.

Bethany is quite a talker. She is now constructing small sentences fairly well. One of her favorite things to say is, "I don't like it" and "It's yucky." Fortunately for me, there are a few foods she always eats: raisins and homemade yogurt.

Emmett has become very skilled at making silly faces.

One of our neighbors is moving. She happens to have three girls and a baby boy and has quite the collection of girl toys that don't get played with anymore. She was sweet enough to bring them over and donate them to Bethany. Part of me wonders if she felt sorry for our little girl after seeing her playing with cars and dinosaurs during church and noticed she needed a few more "girly" items!

Emmett loves the girl toys as much as Bethany does, and has officially claimed the purple necklace he's wearing as "his" necklace.

Try explaining to a 3-year-old the difference between boy toys and girl toys, or even boy clothes and girl clothes for that matter. It ain't easy. Rather than fight it, I just let him wear Bethany's tutu and take lots of blackmail photos.

 

Bethany has discovered the pink stick horse I made for her and drags it around the family room shouting, "Yee-haw!"

Most of the time, however, she just likes to slam her head into the back of couches while shouting, "Ahhh!" at the top of her lungs and building static in her hair.

The kids spend a lot of time playing together and are frequently very good playmates. They do have a couple of problems when it comes to sharing toys (Emmett loves to take Bethany's toys away still) and teasing. Surprisingly, it is not Emmett who does most of the teasing. Bethany has developed a taste for annoying her older brother. She loves to hit him. She doesn't know how to hit hard yet, but she'll swing at him whenever the thought occurs to her. She'll smack him and then giggle with delight at his whining before smacking him again. When Casey or I intervene, we put her in timeout and tell her that it's not nice to hit Emmett. I don't think it's working, however, because her response is literally, "No, hit Emmett is FUN!" and she starts giggling again. It has become a fantastic game for her and I'm not entirely sure what to do about it. The worst thing is, it takes all our self control not to laugh every time we see her chase her big brother around the house, hitting him and giggling while he cries about it. Sweet Emmett never hits back, and while he may occasionally take a swing at his mom or dad in a moment of frustration, neither of us have ever seen him hit anyone else. I'm not sure how to teach him to deal with Bethany's teasing. She'll poke him, kick him, and push him too, just so she can see him get upset. I wish it wasn't funny to see such a tiny little thing bully her big brother, but it IS.