Fun in Learning

There are only certain ways in which I am creative.  Teaching Hannah is not an area I excel in my creativity, which I'm okay with.  I just turn to the internet and books for help.  

And Grandma Moon, she's really good at creative learning.  

For Christmas, Hannah got a game called Math Dice.  After reading the instructions, I thought to myself "we could have done this on our own" but I just don't think like that.  

Anyways, we have it and Hannah has fun.  

And she wins.  Sometimes.  

Other times, she gets frustrated and tells me she wants to play again.  She gets that from her dad! ; )

Our first sleepover

Recently Michelle and I formulated a plan.  Every other month, I'll take her kids for a sleepover at my house.  On the months I don't take her kids, she'll take mine for a sleepover at her house.  The genius in this plan is that the parents hosting the sleepover get a break and the other parents get about a day and half to do whatever they want.  And everyone has fun.  

I like this picture, David and Dustin in our backyard.  

This past weekend was the first sleepover, which we hosted.  Over the days leading up to the event, I got pretty excited.  The kids were SUPER excited.  Michelle and Dustin went to see a broadway show in Durham and had plans to stay the night up there.  Michelle and Dustin get here a little after 10 am to drop the kids off. 

I helped Michelle do her eye makeup, and in that moment, I got excited for David and I next month.  

As for the sleepover, it went great!  And it snowed!  

The kids went on rotation.  They would spend about 30 to 40 minutes outside in the snow before they got too cold.  They'd come, and take off all the wet clothing.  The clothing went in the dryer and the kids went to play upstairs, which would last about an hour.  Then they'd be ready to come back outside.  

Jared and Noelle came over with Kadence.  So there were 5 kids.  And no fighting. 

Meanwhile, David built a big bonfire in the backyard, to get rid of some big stumps we had in the backyard.  

We threw up the tent for Riley.  She kept up with the big kids, for the most part.  She did spend  more time sleeping than usual though.  

Crafting their snowman.  

Poor little guy.  

They got along beautifully, and only slowed down when we put a tv show on for them at about 730 that night.  

So our first sleepover was a huge success.  We did get out the door with all of them to church.  Which was rather comical, with David running around constantly trying to coral all the kids so that they wouldn't get distracted.  

She draws

Hannah did some artork the other day.  I thought she did exceptionally good on her

freehand drawings.  In this first photo she drew jacks, a rocking horse, a stick horse, a drum, and football, a teddy bear and more.  

This is her drawing of the cat in the hat and thing 1 and thing 2.  

And here's a picture of a banana, a pineapple, a strawberry, cherries and some other fruit.  

This kid draws better than I do.  I think she's inherited the Moon artistic side.  

Free play

Some random moments.  How the girls pass the time.  

I love it when Riley sprawls out like this.  

Going headfirst down the slide.  She did this MANY times. 

More outside time.  We've had some very mild, nice weather days here.  Hannah's making herb soup.  It was very fragrant.  

Riley likes playing in her car seat.  When it's available for her to.

She just sits there.  This time she was reading Hannah's zoo magazine.  

Hannah made this one day for David and I.  I can't even begin to know what she was thinking.  It was cotton stuffing, crackers, tinsel, popsicle sticks and some other unidentifiable stuff.  

It was gross, I was trying not to look to much at it.  

Merida, with her horse.  

More outside fun, with the tunnel.  

Our school

Upon moving back to Fayetteville, we joined back up with our church, Arran Lakes Baptist.  The church also offers a homeschool co-op that meets once a week.  In order to have your child in the co-op, the parent must volunteer somewhere in the co-op.  

The group meets every Wednesday morning, from 9 to 1 p.m..  Later this month is our talent show.  We go on field trips and we have a pretty traditional classroom.  Right now, Hannah and Riley are in the same classroom.  Next year that won't be the case.  

Riley participates in all the activities.  

Playing freeze dance.  

For the first 30 minutes of class, the kids have free play, while we get set up.  This last week, Hannah brought Guess Who and taught the other kids how to play.  At one point she ran up to me and said "Do you understand I'm teaching them all how to play?"  And she was shaking her hands dramatically while smiling excitedly. 

Hannah reading Hop On Pop to the kids.  

Riley gets pretty excited being around so many big kids.  Watching her on the play ground with them is so cute.  Her she is playing in the water fountain.  

The underground art exhibit

Recently David and I met up with some friends to go caching.  They told us about one they had been waiting to go on, an underground art exhibit.  

Basically, you crawled into this storm drain, took a left into a smaller tunnel which  you crawled through for a few minutes then stood up in a small manhole entrance and signed the log book, which was the wall.  

These are the friends that went with us.  David went down with them first, and I stayed up top with Riley and Hannah.  At first Hannah didn't want to go but I think the two girls here inspired her.  

Because when David emerged, she had decided she wanted to go.  So back in he went with her.  After a few minutes, I decided to leave Riley with our friends and go check out the art exhibit.  

I am so proud of Hannah for trekking through the dark and wet tunnel.  It had rained a few days early, which is why it was so wet.  Once we made our left turn, it wasn't wet.  But it was cool, damp and it didn't smell so good.  

We made it!  And signed all our names.  The small tunnel was longer than I would've guessed.  I had to crawl in a squat position for maybe 5 minutes.  Hannah had a serious advantage, being so short.  She didn't have to squat.  She was so excited, she kept speeding ahead, which was only problematic because she had the light!  And it was so dark!