2ND GRADE FALL LEARNING EXPERIENCE

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On Thursday the kids in Carter's class were able to enjoy some spooky and sweet fun.

Jack “o” Lanterns and Trick or Treat!

By the time I remembered about carving pumpkins, it was after 4:00 and I kept my realization to myself. I admit it: I was personally getting tired of the go-go-go of birthday party/birthday/Halloween and just wasn’t “feeling” like dealing with the mess of pumpkin carving.

Of course, the kids remembered, and of course I hauled out the little saws etc and we got a’carving.

This year Cole got to use the saws himself, and he chose the design. I helped with the harder bits but only a little.

Carter intensely dislikes the ‘gutting’ of the pumpkin, but he loves carving. It’s like life, kid – you sometimes you gotta get up to your elbows in something unpleasant to get the rewards. :)

Bunny carved hers to look like an owl of her own design.

All of a sudden, the verrrrry long afternoon was over and it was dusk. As I was hurrying to get kids in costumes (and remembering a little too late that it’s a pretty awful idea to spray colored hair spray indoors… still finding green in spots in the bathroom), the doorbell started ringing, and it was “go time.”

Paul covered the kids in glowing stuff, as is his yearly ritual (I swear he’d really like them to all be Tron one year so they can glow head to toe: Safety First!!) and we almost forgot a photo.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween Day

This year since Halloween fell on a modified day, students were allowed to wear their costumes to school. Cole had to join in on the fun, of course.





The teachers always dress in theme, usually a whole school theme, then each grade chooses a subset of matching costumes. Last year was the ocean. Kinder teachers were jellyfish, others were in scuba suits, and so forth. This year many in our area were a little excited about a sporting event of some sort, so their costumes were very timely.



School dismissed early that day, so the long afternoon waiting for the Big Show felt all the longer for it.

Carter received a box of break-your-own geodes for his birthday just the day before and was anxious to get crackin’. We placed them in an old sock to help prevent shards from flying in our faces.


Somewhere between 70-80% are crystal-filled, and the rest are duds. Carter liked the rusty insides of the duds a lot, though. It’s a fun little activity with some educational merit. It’s a good way to amuse antsy kids and less than even a trip to the ‘cheap movie theater.’
By then we’d gotten to all of 2:30 with roughly 4 hours to burn before sundown. Thankfully, staying up late the night before made everyone a little more interested in chilling out than they usually are.
::to be continued::

Bouncy fun, fun, fun, fun, FUN

My kids all have birthdays pretty close to a major holiday, but of them all, Carter most associates his with Halloween. In fact, it’s only been in the past year that I have been able to convince him it would be good to be able to say the actual date when asked, “When’s your birthday?” instead of answering, “The day before Halloween.” Carter’s not one to fuss with unnecessary details, lest it occupy valuable memory space inhabited by facts about spiders, pirates, and Star Wars.
Every year, I ask him what theme he’d like for his party, and every year it’s Halloween. Thank goodness there is plenty to choose from to accomplish that! This year he decided he wanted his party at the “Bouncy” Pumpkin Patch, so we booked it for a week early, and an afternoon during the week, since that place would be NUTS on the weekend or the week of Halloween itself. (Plus, this time of the year is so FULL, it was kind of nice to not be trying to cram it in as an afterthought.
It figured the week of his party the weather would be unseasonably rainy. All day Tuesday I kept peering at the sky, willing the clouds to separate, lest we have to relocate to the still fun, but much less fun pizza place down the street. I’d have kept a smile on my face and acted like it was the best dang idea ever to have his party there a third time (he really likes the pizza place), but, as the day progressed, I started to become irrationally mad at the weather in case it turned. You better not give us sun all day and turn rainy at 3 to spoil this party, I’d silently think up at the sky, as if that were not at all insane.
Thankfully the weather was perfect, just a few clouds, a nice chill in the air that offset running and climbing—and it seemed to affect the numbers of kids at the patch, too, so our party guests had no real waiting in lines to play and slide. Perhaps thinking crazy thoughts at the sky all day does help! (or not)

Bouncy, trouncy, flouncy, pouncy, fun, fun, fun, fun, FUN!

We went to “a” pumpkin patch yesterday.  Not “the” pumpkin patch, which is more of an excursion, just one a few blocks away, which, really is a pretty sorry excuse for a pumpkin patch, seeing as it’s a corner of a parking lot with the blacktop covered in blue tarp.  We’re jaded.

While it may be a pretty pathetic pumpkin patch, what it is is a really nice outside bouncer place.  Upon entry, you pay the fees, get the kids into wristbands, and off they go onto some incredible bouncy slides.

For a couple of weeks, every time we drove to Target we went past this lot and I was serenaded with a chorus of pleeeeeeases.  So, yesterday was the day.  They really have crazy prices that more or less force you to buy an all day pass, so I was determined they’d get their $15 per kid out of the place.  It wasn’t so hard, to be honest.

 

This shark slide was the one that got ‘em really going every time we drove by.  It is pretty crazy.

I kept thinking that it looked like Jaws here was spitting out kids that didn’t taste very good.

After about an hour and a half, everyone was thirsty, had to go potty, and was also hungry.  Since the ‘patch’ was open until 9:00, I got us all fed, grabbed sweaters from home, and we went back again for another hour and a half.  These three never stopped moving as afternoon turned to dusk and finally the moon and stars came out.

You can see how sweaty this bunch was near the end.  They all earned their baths that night!

Creeking

Yesterday summer decided it wasn’t really done with us after all, and gave us a gorgeous day.  Bunny asked to go to the park and play in the creek to look for rocks and play.  No problemo.

After the sun got really low and dipped behind the trees, I insisted they come out from the water and change into dry clothes.  There was still time enough for some playground play, though.

And then – then! – the coolest surprise.  We parked near “airplane park” and walked over the bridge past the train to go to the creek, and at 4:whatever it all looked normal.  By the time we were walking back, we noticed the train, which usually pulls into the station the last time at 4:30 or 5:00, was still running, and then we saw they were offering free carousel rides.  That alone would be awesome, but the kicker was that they had only the decorative colored lights on and were playing scary(ish) music.  You know what?  I liked that music about 1,000% more than the usual calliope stuff.  It was like my kids were in that scene from The Lost Boys.

The light was… problematic for my camera to get anything that was not an overblown icky flashy shot (I have plenty photos of my kids on merry-go-rounds and don’t need a super crappy one), so I played while they rode.

 
15 second exposure, using railing to stabilize

We ogled the Goblin’s Glen stuff for a while, promised to think about returning to do more one evening when we’d really planned for it, and then returned home to a crock pot full of beef and veggie soup waiting for us.  I was glad I had thrown together that earlier in the day, so I didn’t have to stress over making dinner.  Winning!