Getting Into Guts

Last week the kids went to IVCC and attended their all-day Ed'Venture Camp.  This week they (Noah, Livie, and their buddy Caleb) returned to attend "Getting into Guts" Camp.  This camp is not for the squeamish.  If you don't like looking at animal body parts, you may want to skip this post.  From Mon-Thurs, they spent their mornings making cool body crafts and dissecting a new organ from a different animal.  We begin on Monday (thanks to Noah for taking these pictures with his iPod)......

The first thing they got to dissect was a cow eyeball.  Livie had to leave at some point, because the smell got to her.  But, Noah LOVED it!  He didn't even wear gloves when he was dissecting it.  When we were driving home that day, he said, "I need to wash my hands again.  I still have cow iris on them.".  Yeah.  I insisted on gloves after that!  Livie thought that one was pretty gross, but was still able to come back in the room and start cutting into it.  She said that there was a lot of blue slime inside.  Nice.

On Tuesday, they got to cut into a sheep's brain.  First they had to cut open the skull, then they got to dissect the brain.  This one is the grossest to me, but Noah loved it.  This stuff is so interesting to him and he doesn't get grossed out by much, I'm discovering.  Livie had to step out for some fresh air again, but made it back in time to cut into this one as well.

The crafts they made that day were brain hats (love it!) and these full body skeletons.  On Monday, they made a cut out of the body using paper.  So, they glued on the lungs and stomach and then drew in the esophagus and stuff.  The instructor must have the coolest criket cartridge for body parts!  So awesome!  I want it for my classroom too!

On Wednesday, Livie made it through the whole class without stepping out!  How did she do it?  They got to dissect the heart and lungs of a pig and she was so excited to cut her heart to make it look like a frog (that she named, Alpher, by the way), that she didn't seem to mind the smell.  Their friend Caleb had to that day though.  He said it smelled like rotten pork.  Ugh.

Look how happy this girl is!  You say the word "frog" to her and it doesn't matter if she's making a frog out of origami or a pig heart, she's on board!  And, of course, Noah handled it like a pro and didn't blink an eye as he cut open those bloody lungs and heart.  Did I mention how many times I would puke if I had taken this camp at their age?  I love it, don't get me wrong.  I think it's an AMAZING learning opportunity for them!  I mean, how many elementary-aged kids can say they dissected real animal organs?  Not many.  But, seriously, I would not have been able to do this as a kid or now, for that matter.  The smell alone would've sent me running!  But, that just makes me prouder of them for doing it. :-)

Today was their last day and today, they got to dissect an entire shark!  Granted, it's not a Great White or anything, but still.  Super-cool!  You can see that the sharks are pretty wrinkly.  I assume this is how they preserve them.

Noah had been taking all the pictures this week, so I told Livie to grab his iPod and take a picture of him for this blog.  Looks like he and his partner Matthew had already started opening the guy up!

Noah took this one of Livie before she cut into hers.  Looks like her shark has a small little grin on his face.  Fun!  All-in-all, this has been one of the best camps they've ever taken.  They've learned so many unique things and I've never been more excited to hear about their mornings than I have this week!  They said the teacher talked about doing a camp next year about zombies.  Where do I sign them up?!

So, if you made it through this post, you'll see what a great time they had!  Madie and I spent those 3 hours, while they were in camp, shopping and spending time together, so it was fun for us too.  The camps are all done for the year and they start school in a little over 3 weeks.  Glad they ended with such a fun one. :-)

Gettin' Things Ready

I don't think I've mentioned this yet, but I've been hired as the new lead for the 3s class this year!  So, I will teach on Tuesdays and Thursdays now for a FULL DAY (hooray!) and continue teaching the 2s/Explorers on Thursday nights and Friday mornings.  Not only that, but I will be taking another college class to build up my early childhood skills.  Add that to my busy kids' schedules, sunday school, and babysitting and, well, it's going to be even crazier than in years past!  That's good though.  I thrive on chaos, right? ;-)

In order to keep from going nuts, trying to get everything ready for school and sunday school all at once, I decided to start working on getting my classrooms set up now.  I actually started back in May, when I helped a good friend of mine sand and restain my cabinets in the 3s room and then helped her repaint it all.  I did very little of that work though.  She and her husband did almost all of it themselves - bless their generous hearts!  This room was in serious need of a facelift.  The paint was peeling, there were cracks in the walls. It wasn't nice.  Now, it looks amazing!  Throughout the past three weeks, while the kids were in camp, I found I would have an hour and a half here or 2 hours there, so instead of driving all the way home for a short time, I would go to the school and work.  I'm happy to say my 3s room is practically ready to go and my Explorer classroom is getting close!

The room before was a pretty pale blue, but was so dirty and peeling and all that, it was hard to see the niceness of it.  Now it's this beautiful sea green.  My co-teacher Lori made the curtains a couple years ago and I left them, because they matched so nicely.  Other than keeping that, it's all been changed!

Each month we will change out the toys and create a new dramatic play area.  This month I decided to have an apple orchard theme, since we'll be talking about apples in September.  On the bulletin board behind it are words/pictures of everything apple - from cider and baskets, to apple pie and apple trees.

I have the number chart up to show the kids were they will sit.  I bought a new calendar for them to help add numbers to each month and weather symbols to add to the dates as well.  I still have a few things left to do, but until I have my final class list, it's hard to get that stuff done.  That will be my August projects, as I get ready for home visits and stuff.

My favorite new addition to the 3s classroom is our friend, __________ the Sloth (we're still waiting on my FB poll to be complete, so we can find out what everyone voted his name to be).  Each classroom has a puppet friend, as you'll see below.  Last year, when I was in Lori's class as the asst., we had Calvin the Dog.  He was from down south and had quite the accent! ;-)  Now, I'm not a normal gal.  I'm quirky and silly, so I thought what better animal to introduce to the kids than a sloth!  He's quiet and slow and will hopefully help the kids to settle down when he comes out to chat.

I really couldn't work on my 2s room, because, just a couple weeks before the end of school in May, we noticed that our cabinets was pulling away from the wall!  We had to take everything out of it and wait for it to get repaired.  I didn't want to run the risk of it all falling on the floor - which had happened in my Sunday School classroom a few years ago.  It fell and shattered all over the ground!  Not a good thing to happen when you have 2 yr olds in there!

Pete, bless his heart, decided to fix them for me.  I helped him take them off the wall - thankfully they weren't heavy!.  He went to the store to get angle brackets and went to work making sure they were nice and sturdy.

He got them back up on the wall and made sure they were even and level and ready to go!

He did a few other things for me that day, but that was the biggest job.  We were literally there from 10:30 or so (with a lunch break) until 5:30.  Eeek!  It was a long day, but the room was finally coming together.  

I got all of the furniture arranged.  I got some of the toys on the shelves, the books on the bookcase, and the bulletin boards ready to go.  I even got up all the wall stuff, which wasn't too much, since I leave most of it up all year round.  I even got this brand new picture of our puppet friend for my Explorer Class - Gus the Gorilla.  He's been a friend to the Explorers since before I was their teacher.  He's been a faithful pal and needed a new picture for the wall.

So, things are coming together nicely.  I'm so glad I've had these hours here and there to work on stuff.  Like I said, I have a few things left to do and then I'll be ready for the start of school.  So, I'm ahead of the game right now!  If only I could say that for our Sunday School program..... that's next on the to-do list!

IVCC Camp

We had a busy week of camps again this week.  This is one of their favorites camps and they've done it every year for the past, I think, 6 years.  It's the IVCC Ed'Venture Camps.  They are in camp from 9-3 and they get to pick a major for each day and minors for each afternoon.

This is the first year they've had any friends from town join them.  Their buddies, Caleb and Tobias, took the camp too, so they rode along with us each day.

Livie and Tobias both took "Upcycle your Recycle".  They got to make lots of cool stuff out of recycled objects, like cans, milk jugs, boxes, etc...  Livie loved it and I had quite a collection of things by the end of the week.

Madie and Noah got to take "Imagination Animation", which is a major they've wanted to take for years!  It's always been full, so they've never had the chance to take it.  This year, we called early enough and they got in!  This minor has them making movies.  In the past they did it all with clay, but this year they used paper, which was a bit easier.  Though, they tell me the stop-animation is hard work.

They each took several minors.  This one was about making a terrarium.  Noah caught an actual grasshopper and put it inside, but thankfully released it before bringing it into the house.

Here's a picture of Madie and Caleb.  They have such a fun time together, even though he's quite a bit younger. :-)

Here's another one of the minors that they took.  It was about making birdhouses.  She made a birdhouse, bird feeder, and a little wooden bird, that she bought home and painted.

Here they are, all excited about their camp!

On the final day, they don't have a minor.  Instead, we are able to join them for lunch and watch their program.

I always pick up Subway and bring it to them on the last day. :-)

Pete took a half day and came and the boys' dad, our friend James, came.  Their mom, Donna, had to work that day.  Darn!

Madie and Noah got all "dressed-up", because we were about to watch their movies, then see their "Academy Awards Ceremony". ;-)

Here they are with one of their fellow team members and a friend they met while at camp.

Livie and Tobias had their special projects ready to show.

They called each group up to talk about their week and what they made.

Livie made a snake house and a snake.  It was so big, she had to use both arms!

Here is the video that Madie and Noah made.  It's called "The Peachy Battle".  It's about a peach that eats all the school supplies, then blows up and the room gets cleaned up by the cleaning supplies.  It's pretty cute!

They got to open one of the cards for "Best Action Movie".

They won for "Best Comedy", which is exactly what they were hoping for!  Madie gave the acceptance speech.  She said, "I want to thank my mom and dad for bringing me to camp.  I want to thank my crew for helping make this movie.  And, most of all, I want to thank our teacher for being so great!".

Here's Noah holding up their "oscar". ;-0

It was another great time at Ed'Venture Camp!  They had the best time and walked away with tons of great stuff!

Rec Camps

Last week was a very busy week of rec camps in town.  We went from one to the next to the next, without much time in between.  They had so much fun!

As is our "tradition", as Noah calls it, they got to take rollerskating camp.  They're really such great skaters, that they probably don't need to take the camp, but they do, because it's fun.  And, I usually find a parent/friend there that I get to talk to, so it's a win-win for me! :-)  Livie was first up. She was able to participate for the first hour with her age group.

She skated around with ease and was a total pro at backwards skating too.  Her age group is for K-3, so she was one of the oldest kids there.

Noah's group was the following hour and he was with kids up to 7th grade.  That means Madie was too old to participate in that camp, but she just played with the other kids that were there or read her book.

He had a really fun time too and can't wait to do it again next year.  Here we are with our friends, Jenna and Grant.  Their mom is my very good friend, so we enjoyed chatting those 2 hours away while our kids skated.

I failed to get a picture of our next camp, but I would drive Madie and Noah home right after rollerskating, then I would take Livie to her basketball camp.  She said it was hard making baskets, but she had a fun time there as well.  I'm totally bummed I forgot to take a picture of her!

The last camp was their Bike Camp.  Their rollerskating camp was from 10-12.  Livie's basketball camp was from 2-3:30.  Then bike camp was from 6-8:30.  They did those camps each day for the week, except this Bike Camp, which was just M-Tu-Th.  They got to learn about bike safety and took a nightly ride out and about town.  They always ended with a quick ride to the local ice cream shop.  Bonus!

On their last night, they took a 7-mile bike ride all over town.  They LOVED that!  Like totally, completely, loved it.  I worried a bit if they would get too tired riding that far, but they were still full of energy when they got back.  While they were at camp, Pete, Livie, and I took advantage of that time and went out to eat together.  We even had dessert!  It was great!

When we got back to pick them up, they were getting back on their bikes after their ride for a trip to the ice cream shop again.  They didn't want that camp to end, let me tell ya!  So thankful for these opportunities through our town to have fun activities for our kids!

Lord Of The Rings Party - Part II

The day after we got back from our camping vacation, we had another LOTR party!  Yay!  If you don't remember, this is a party we had back in May (?).  It's a role-playing game that our friend James came up with and we each got to pick a character that we wanted to play.  I was an elf and Pete was a dwarf.  We had so much fun playing the last time that, when James asked if we could do it again, I said "Fo shore!". :-)

We have it at our house, since we have a bit more room than James and Donna.  We had two more people join us this time, so we decided to set it up in our basement, around our ping-pong table.  It worked out perfectly!  Donna came this time and she helped get the food ready.  The kids played upstairs together, while we were downstairs.  It was the best set-up!

Since our last game, James bought this grid thingy.  He used it to draw out our map, so we could make up our battle strategy.  It was really helpful in visualizing the whole thing.  The kids brought down our LOTR lego figures, so it added to the game board too. ;-)

This was Matt's ranger defeating a dire wolf.  Hilarious!  We had a great time and actually got to finish the game this time!  We're hoping to have another game before Sarah and Hannah head back to college.  Maybe it'll be a Star Wars game next time.  We'll see!

Camping Vacation .... All The Rest Of The Days!

I'm so far behind (once again), so I'm just going to share all the rest of our camping vacation photos in this entry.  I think I got us up to sometime on Tuesday on my last post.  So, starting on Wednesday, Pete, Jeff, and our older two went out fishing Wed morning, so it was just me, Em, Livie, and the girls.

We had found a little tree frog the night before, after the kids went to bed, so I covered him with a bowl and waited to show the girls the next morning.  They were SO excited and proceeded to play with him all through breakfast.

We took the opportunity that morning to go to a nearby playground and they had lots of fun playing there.  Kendalyn climbed up this big house all by herself!

Tater had fun, though not so much in this photo. ;-)

Here's Livie climbing up the big house too.  They had swings and other climby things, but this was the fav at this park.

Around lunchtime, everyone came back, so we took our packed picnic lunch (we did that after the playground) and had lunch by the lake.

While the kids went swimming, Pete, Jeff, and Tater went on the fishing boat again and tried their hand at fishing.  It was a really warm day, so they had the best time swimming!  They didn't want to come out of the water for anything...other than food. ;-)

Look at these sweet bathing beauties!

All the kids played together and kept an eye on each other.  Em and I went in with them for an hour or so, then spent the rest of the time on the beach.

My sweet girl all bundled up, having a snack.

They occasionally liked laying in the shallow part and playing in the sand, but mine mostly liked staying in the deepest parts, which thankfully wasn't so deep - since they can't swim.

Happy, happy swimmers!

Em and I with our beach curls.  This was the tamest my hair was the entire trip.  Eek!

After swimming, we went back to our campsite and had dinner, then went back out to go fishing.  We had the boat for the day, so they wanted to use it all the way up to 9pm, when they had to turn it in.  Pete and Jeff went out on the boat after Jeff took his family for a quick boat ride.  Pete got our kids ready to fish and left me in charge.

I actually had to bait worms on their hooks.  So gross, but I did it!  I refused to touch the wax worms.  They looked like larvae.  Blah!  The worms aren't gross, but sticking the hook through their body made them tense up and it was gross.  Once I realized that Livie could bait her own hook, then I gave her that job from then on.  She caught a few fish that night!

Noah caught 4, I think, that night.  I was also left in charge of taking the fish off their hooks, which I couldn't do.  Again, too gross!  So, thankfully, just as Noah caught one, Em was there to help and she took them off the hooks.

Noah caught this tiny blue gill twice.  Guess he really liked what Noah had for bait!

Madie didn't catch any, so she was pretty upset, but the next morning, they went out again and Madie caught 4.  She was pretty excited then!

Livie caught the only crappie of the bunch.  But, it got a big hole in its lip and was bleeding, so it made her very sad.

She kissed it to make it feel better before she threw him back in the water.

After fishing, we went back to get ready to go to the lake again.  Jeff rented a boat for an hour and went fishing while we stayed with the kids again.  Pete took Tater to the dog beach and threw the stick into the water for a while.  He LOVED that!

He was soaked and exhausted, but so, so happy. :-)

That evening was Kendalyn's last tball game, so we went into town to watch her.  She's so little, but she did a great job and it was so fun to watch her!

They don't keep score, so I have no idea who actually won, but it didn't matter.  They had a great time and so did we. :-)

Her cousins were cheering her on!

Jeff was her coach, so I had to take a picture of them together in their shirts. :-)

We went to Ihop with dad after the game and enjoyed air-conditioning and a nice hot meal.  Those girls love their Papa.

By the time we got back to our campsite, Tater was out like a light.  After a day spent fishing, chasing sticks, swimming, and more, we couldn't wake him up for anything!  Even when he was laying on MY sleeping bag!

Before we went to dad's for the night, at the end of our camping adventure, we went to the visitor's center.  They had lots of cool stuff to look at.  They had turtles and lizards and toads.

They even had a play area upstairs for the kids to enjoy.

They had fun with the puppets. :-)

They had an outdoor space with bird feeders and whatnot and we saw lots of squirrels, chipmunks, and even one very large groundhog.  It was a busy week, full of bugs, and fish, and rain!  But, we had a fun time and I'm glad we did it.  Now....I never have to do it again! ;-)