bodner037

It's hard to believe it's the end of March and that as I write this we are getting another batch of fresh snow. As much as I love winter fun, I'm ready for winter to be over. However, the outside world currently looks like a Christmas card. So while I may be tired of the snow, it's what we have outside to play with so we're getting creative. One day after school we decided to try painting

Among all of our Simple Summer Theme Weeks, this has to be one of the favorite ones so far. We're pretty lucky to live with a giant woods area right behind our house so we didn't have to travel far - yet each time we went into the woods I felt our energy change as a group. In fact, the boys have continued to ask to go into the woods many other times this summer so that they can repeat some of

This week we kicked off our Simple Summer Themes with Science Week. We've had a blast with a variety of science experiments and explorations, all using materials we have on hand.  For this experiment we were inspired to use something from nature: wildflowers. I love that this time of year both in the yard and along the roads, flowers are blooming. The boys and I went for a walk the other day

This spring a big focus for us as a family has been getting the backyard ready for summer. We're pretty blessed to already have a large backyard, but this spring it's gone from a fun place to play to a pretty kid focused yard. One of our motivations has been that this summer (in addition to visiting some of our favorite local spots) I really want to spend time just relaxing, at home in

Sometimes we create art because we want a finished product, and sometimes we explore it for the process. This art exploration was one we stumbled across, but we loved enough that we'll do it again. I loved that not only was it colorful, creative, and hands on in many different ways, but it also became collaborative. Our container of chalk had been left outside and after several days of rain

The weather this week has been amazing, and we were really pleased to be able to get out and enjoy the nice temperatures again. Little Brother and I had a ton if fun playing with shapes outside in the fall sunshine and leaves. We had a blast bringing our large, foam pattern blocks outside and involving them in some great backyard autumn play.  Before going out to play I took one of each

The last few weeks have been so hot weather wise that it's been a little hard to get into the mood for autumn and we've been finding ourselves thinking back to summer fun. One activity we've enjoyed on hot days in the past is doing a Sink or Float exploration.  For this exploration we took it outside and collected items from nature to experiment with.  Materials for this type of set-up can