First day at Countryside Playschool

Today was the first day at our new preschool, and it was SO much fun :0)  Honey Bunches & I are the teachers, and Tweeters is one of the students - along with 6 other children ages 2-8.  Here are a few pics from today:

Snack: organic oat groats cooked overnight in the crockpot with homemade yogurt, honey & blueberries!

Washing our dishes

Awesome bright chalk!

A bit of playdough

"Little Blue & Little Yellow" hugging to make green

We also talked about primary colors, so had to add in some red

HB helping Tweeters & a friend hang some new shelves in the housekeeping area

Wet felting acorns!

Gluing them in (yes they were still damp but I think it will be ok)

Service with a smile!

Today was bring your lunch day - next week we will make & serve lunch all together!  The main attraction will be homemade applesauce - yum

So, the church is planning to fix up or replace the playground equipment.  It is really fine, except for a few safety things ;0)  But get this - and you Waldorf readers know this already - these children played in the dirt til it was time to go home!  Give them a toy & they play with the box....give them dirt and sticks and acorns in the fall....and watch their imaginations!  Wow!

HB & Ezra made an acorn racetrack!  When some of the others saw them having such a great time, they ran over so they could join in the race, too!

Good ol' dirt

HB reliving her childhood ;0)

You can follow our Countryside Playschool blog as well - countrysideplayschool.blogspot.com
More updates coming soon! 

More handmade dollhouses

Another nifty tutorial showed us an easy peasy portable dollhouse - so we just whipped one right up ;0)  First I sketched it out on heavy cardboard, then cut it out.  Tweeters & Jam played w/ the cardboard version all day, then that evening Tweeters traced it onto some thin underlayment (for flooring) that we found Grandpa J's house.  She & Jam stood on it for Papa J while he cut it out, then we all took turns sanding the cuts to make them smooth.  The little dremel tool was handy for this & a bit faster, but I still like old fashioned sand paper!  It slides together & you're ready to play - slide it apart & take it with you in a little baggie for church or quiet times.  Here is a link to the tutorial:
http://knechtruprechtdolls.blogspot.com/2013/02/portable-imaginative-play-dollhouse.html

cardboard model

helping Papa J cut out the wooden version

wooden one in action

paper prototype for 6 room house

Lots of fun pretend play!

Gourd dollhouse

Dan Dan the Apple Man gave us a gourd last week - it's been sitting in a bin of other webby gourds for awhile now!  It caught my eye after seeing an awesome tutorial on how to turn them into houses.  So we tried it & it was super easy.  Jenga blocks work great for peg people beds, by the way ;0)
First we cut a door & windows (I just used a steak knife).  Then we scraped out all the old dried goo inside & saved the seeds to plant our own next year (the dogs ate the dried goo?  weird).  Then we cut windows, sanded them & the inside, painted the inside & voila!  A lovely little home.  Now I need to make another, because both Tweeters & Jam want it....see next post!  Here's the link to the tutorial I used: http://bitterbettyindustries.blogspot.com/2008/09/gourd-dollhouse-tutorial.html

Playdough & veggies

Help!  We're being overrun with produce!  That is a good thing though, just need a bit more freezer space.  I prefer things as raw as possible so I freeze green beans, apples, tomatoes - some to be cooked later, some used in smoothies as is.  SO!  I just dumped a 5 gallon bucket of beautiful green beans into the compost pile b/c it went bad before I could blanche them to freeze...I'm having a bit of guilt about it but I'll get over it. I couldn't give them away - apparently everyone's garden is doing well despite no rain since June.

This grew in our compost pile!

So far we have picked like 28 bushels!  It's a trade - you keep so may of what you pick - so I think we have 5 or 6 bushels of our own

yum! Fresh applesauce for lunch!

We also made playdough about 2 weeks ago - I've been busy with apples & other stuff since Flash left for Oregon so haven't posted much lately.

I like to use wilton icing colors - they are so bright!  I bought these like 15 years ago when I ran the other mother's day out & they are nearly gone!

Jam did stars

Tweeters did angels

We are busily preparing to open Countryside Playschool (countrysideplayschool.blogspot.com) so many preparations are buzzing around that as well.  I would love to lazure the walls before opening day but I don't see that getting done!  Honey Bunches has offered to study up on the topic & get us going - we can always do it after we open.  A work in progress :0)  But it is fun to see things taking shape & the plan coming into action....

A wool felted sheep

Flash is leaving in the morning for Oregon!  I miss him already.  He's going for the Burning Bush Festival at Summer Lake w/ some family friends (yes, they have 6 daughters & a baby boy!) for 2 weeks.  The family who is hosting it keeps sheep, so I thought I'd make one out of wool as a little thank you for hosting!

It is bigger & sturdier than the fox I made from the kit, and went much faster.  I used some partially felted wool for the insides & then covered it w/ a nicer more carded wool.  I also added facial features w/ thread - something I haven't done before.  I don't know if I'll do that again though; I don't have a good place for the knots.  HB wants a llama so that's next...

Woodworking with Grandpa J. & Flash

Back in March "Mr. Michael" gave Flash a very nice (sharp) birthday present.  It is the same as his favorite knife to work with when he's helping prepare a catered event or pop up dinner - but it didn't have a case to keep it safe.  So, he & Grandpa J. sliced up a nice cedar log from the neighbor & made one!

The knife fits right down inside w/ a holder - really cool & no one lost a finger ;0)  When we get them moved out here (soon I hope!) he plans to set up a workshop & make stuff all the time!

The other garden, a bit of henna, and chinese writing

We have another garden a few miles away at a friend's house.  She's getting up there in age and doesn't feel like maintaining a big garden anymore - but the soil is so rich it would be a waste for it not to be used!  We have our green beans, sweet meat squash, onions, many tomatoes, peppers & zucchini there.  When we're picking we get to see the most spectacular sunsets!  She is in the middle of farmland, so she can see more sky than we can...

Those romas are hard to see in the thick growth!

Jams usually gets smeared before it dries....

Last week Tweeters had a "quiet time" instead of a full blown nap - we gathered some things for her to work on & play with for an hour or so.  One was an OLD book called You can Write Chinese (she's been into the 7 Chinese Brothers lately).  She went through the whole thing & wrote her favorite words on the small dry erase board!  The book is falling apart though so I plan to put it into protective sleeves...that way she can trace right over the characters w/ a dry erase marker, too.

Another Park Day

We have so much fun at the park :0)  If I walk out my front door & stand in the street in front of my house, I can see it, so it's really close.  It has a simple fort/swing set which is fun, but we have the most fun doing other things....

Tweeters & Jam love pretending to be bunnies - they balance all along the woodpile near the campfire ring & have a little grass "nest" on one side they curl up in to sleep :0)  They will spend a good 15 minutes gathering grass to fluff up their little nest!

Even though we live really close to this area, I usually take a bag w/ a few things - elevensies for one!  This day it was orange watermelon from JG, yum. 

This time we brought 2 pieces of sidewalk chalk & made a long road with familiar places on it.  Like Hyvee!  Everyone from Radiator Springs shops at Hyvee ;0)

Yes, we have 3 Maters....

The road goes from the lake, then by our house, through the countryside to both Grandparent's houses (even the one in Florida) & then south to Mexico (why they wanted that I do not know?!) & northwest to Denver where our cousins live.  Many happy hours!

A night walk to the beach....

Summer is winding down.  It's getting dark SO early now - I think I'll move to Belize.  Really.

JG went along, carrying Honey Bunches!

JG is moving to N. Dakota this week and we will miss him!

JG is going to miss Little Z!

Kiss kiss for the Bruce

A little bit o' picnic table gymnastics...

They love the simplest things.  When we come down here to swim I always bring the bag of tows - buckets, shovels, cars, boats.  What do they play with?  Sand, water, sticks, leaves, algae.  Ok, and Jam does play w/ a car, but really they love the natural stuff best & play with it longer than anything I could buy at the store.  Well, except a matchbox car.

Tweeters just loves to fly!

Show off!

What are you doing to wrap up your summer?  Are you soaking up every last bit of it or are you ready for fall?  Please leave a comment & let me know what you are doing this week!

Sunflowers, the moon & sunset

We went crazy planting sunflower seeds this spring - and so glad we did!  They are just in the pathways & edges of the garden, but so pretty.  It's been fun for Tweeters & Jam to have been able to plant the seeds, watch them grow, and now see the bees coming to visit.  We'll also harvest the seeds to feed the birds this winter, and leave some on the plants so we can watch the birds out there.

How tall IS that??  12 feet??

A blue moon.....hard to capture w/ my camera....

Another lovely sunset...