Class Hamster

Two weeks ago The dude's class lost the class hamster Rush. We get a daily sheet of what is going on and occasionally they will include pictures (which I love!). I get these right after lunch while the kids are "resting", so a great start to my afternoon at work seeing my little guy. On the day they buried the hamster, I got this pic of him holding the tin with Rush inside. The summary was:
Today we buried Rush outside our classroom window (the side his cage was on). The children each had the opportunity to say their final goodbyes to Rush. Many of the children told him they “loved him”, “would miss him”, and that “he was a great class pet”. The children worked together to dig a hole large enough to place the tin can and helped to cover the hole by patting the dirt in.
When I picked him up he told me about his day and that Rush went to Hamster Heaben (Heaven). He also colored a sheet and they put the art work on the wall dedicated to Rush.
Today's summary was:
Before going to the woodchip playground, we visited Rush. The children were reminded what happened to Rush and had the opportunity to say “hello” to him. The children also said, “We miss you” and “I love you, Rush.”

They have since gotten a new class hamster, but I am not sure what his name is. The dude said it is Whitey, but the other day he tells me his name is Fluffy or Cloudy, but he likes the name Whitey better, so that is what he is going to call him. Haha.

Homework: Homemade Paint

For the dude's homework last night , we made homemade starch finger paint. (See below on directions how). It was a lot of fun for both of us. He loved painting with his hand. He said, "Ms. Jessica says if you mix these colors it makes purple!" It did make purple. If you look at the finished piece, it is mostly purple. I got my hands in it, too. It felt pretty cool.

Of course I procrastinated (was due today). I had to go to three stores to get the soap flakes (or powder laundry detergent) because I was too cheap to pay $6.99 at Target just to use it to make paint. Then the Family Dollar did not take credit. Next had to run home to get one more quarter so I could pay for it at the Dollar Tree. It was all worth it and I am glad we did it, since it was so much fun. Oh and I used my camera time for the first time and set it on the counter to take the one of the two of us holding the paint.

We made 4 different colors of the paint.

Calvin wanted to be part of the art project.

Look at my Goopy Hand! My finished Masterpiece!

What you need?
1 cup of cornstarch, 1 cup of water, 4 cups of boiling water, 1 cup of soap flakes, and paper to paint on
What you do?
Dissolve cornstarch in one cup of water. Add remaining water and cook until thick and glossy. (Cook on medium initially and then low). Next, add one cup of soap flakes. Cool and add tempera paint if a specific color is desired. Explore new finger paint with your child.
Variation
Have your child create a picture using the new finger paint created. Take pictures documenting you and your child making the paint and then exploring the finger paint. Have your child bring in the photos and/or painting to share with the class.
Value
Appreciation, Discovery, Mixing, Following Directions, Color Recognition, Creativity, Pride, Textures

Circus

This morning we saw a commercial for a circus and dude talked about how we went to the circus. The Ringling Brothers Circus was in town earlier this month. We went last year and were pretty excited to go again. He loved it! It was very cool. My favorite part is the elephants and the dude agreed with me. Hubs thought the Lion Tamer part was probably the coolest. We managed to score some discount tickets but they are still $costly$. We talked with some friends and discussed the costs and between admission, parking ($10), snacks ($9.50 for a drink and popcorn), and tickets, you're talking $100 for an afternoon out. Yikes! If you decide to get a little souvenir or picture on the toy elephant, both of those will run you an extra $20 each. We opted out of those.

The theme song was "You're so Beautiful" by James Blunt. This is one of the dude's favorite songs, he used to sing this song all the time before we expanded our kid's music collection to have more of a selection of songs, his faves now are Kids Bop CD's. He had not forgotten the words to the "Beautiful Song" as he calls it. He was singing right along. Just like children's TV shows and movies, there is a bit of an adult theme I guess to keep the parents entertained while the kids may or may not be oblivious to it. This year one clown was in love with one of the acrobat girls. I don't think he got it, per se. There was one funny where the girl climbed on this very tall pole and was swaying on this pole practically right above us and he said, "Mom, look at her bum bum!".

A few pics from the circus:

Super Heroes

I think most little boys love to dress up as super heroes. The dude loves them all! He had a little buddy Eamon over last night and they dressed up as Buzz Lightyear and Spiderman. They were so cute running around in their costumes. The dude has a buzz lightyear room, he has a nice wall mural with a moon, Little Green Men (LGMs), space ship, stars, Buzz, and Zurg. He has some glow in the dark stars, too. I took the opportunity to take some pictures in front of his wall mural.

Attempt at Volunteerism

Today we were supposed to go glean fields for an organization called Society of St. Andrew. We were going to introduce the kid to volunteerism and it would be a good and fun way to do it. Go pick collards for those less fortunate. We all got in the car, our friend Elysia and her two kids Gabby and Derrick, Chris, Christopher and myself. I was quite shocked and happy with us that we were on our way to the field and were going to only be a few minutes late. Then, the lady called to cancel, it was raining hard, thundering, and lightning. I learned today that , you cannot pick in the fields during lightning or thunder (not that I would have wanted to) because it is dangerous. We are going to try it again in April. I was pretty bummed we didn't get to do it.

So instead we ended up at Chick-Fil-A. I am such a regular customer there it is not even funny! I was just there this past Tuesday for family night where I totally lucked out and got a free cow, free calendar, and the kid made his own Sundae, which I got to finish.
Here are a few pictures of the kids being silly in the play area of CFA. They love to play there.

Introductions!

Hi! Here we are:

I am finally joining the blogging world. I cannot promise I will be exciting or even interesting, but at least I will be able to try and keep family and friends updated with the goings on in our house.

The dude is 4 and is in preschool at Bright Horizons at my work, it is so nice and he loves it so much. He will be starting Kindergarten this summer. How time flies.

I work in pharma designing IVR systems for clinical trials. Not too exciting, but it is okay.

Hubs works for a really cool software company testing software for cell phones for ring tones, answer tones, voting on the phone, and more.

Here is our dog: