R week!!!

 I was a little tired and didn't put as many things on the chalk board this time, but the girls like the Rose shaped like an "R" and the little "r" rabbit romping over a rock to the radishes.

Oldest is the top, 7 year old is middle and the 3 year old scribbled and I wrote the R's over her scribbles.  :)

R "week" felt a little spread out, but here are the highlights.  It also feels a little out of order because it started with a birthday, but I'll post about that later.  :)

At one point I came up with making a little "teacher's helper" sign for my older girls so they could take turns helping me with the little one while I helped one of the others.  It worked out okay, but it's a work in process.  I think they feel more official with the tag on.

We read a book about a "rock walk" and so we walked around the parking lot here at the complex and the girls had fun finding different sorts of rocks.  When we got them inside they washed them.  Everyone got sick though so we didn't get a chance to take them to the nature exchange at the zoo yet.

And this was the book that inspired the rock walk.  I'd recommend this one.  :)

The pictures were interesting and gave the girls fun ideas to do with their rocks.

 Another day my oldest decided to make a giant paper plane and we spent some time outside flying it.  Talk of air flow and how the flaps on the wings changed how the plane flew so on were the main topics.

A 9 year old very happy with her plane

Sisterly love, got to capture the sweet moments!

 Another day, it had been dreary for a while and everyone was feeling a bit depressed, so I cleaned out the back of the landrover and we did our school in there!

 The cat even joined us for a while.  :)

The little one played with rocks while I did school with the older two.

We pulled out a few work box drawers and brought them out here.  It was declared the "best day ever"

The cat wasn't quite as sure.  ;)

Reading and snacks and even lunch later were enjoyed in the car!  It was like a club house to them and it's funny how much better we all felt just getting a little change of scenery.

A little random I guess, but my oldest expressed some interest in playing the piano a bit so I did a little quick lesson on reading music and she learned how to play this little scale.  And I put stickers on the C's for her too.

The craft desk in a relatively tidy state.  Lots of visual journals drying.

 It's not always easy to foster creativity and crafts and art when you live in a little apartment with 5 people and are there all the time.  The car was a relief because we got out of the house for a bit!  But it's important for me to remember why I'm putting up with mess most of the time.  Creativity is super important and the skill that can't be taught.. it can only be allowed to grow.  :)

Which means that my dinning room table is usually covered with art of some kind.

 There are always paint brushes in the little half bathroom off the dining room.

 Yarn projects are usually out and laying about somewhere

 Sewing explosions and fabric get dumped on the floor.

 And my desk area doesn't usually look cleaner then this picture above.

 Craft corners are all over the house and I know my husband gets a little stressed with the mess, but it's important to be okay with this.  I do dream of one day having some sort of craft room or at least a little more space to allow all this to happen and not as easily getting overwhelmed from all the "stuff" and everything pressing in on me.

 R week and the rainbow theme ran through St. Patrick's day.  The girls wanted to celebrate the holiday and after Christmas I start to run out of steam for doing too much for other holiday's but I did a few things.  I told them to watch out for leprechaun tricks and they played that their toys had been "Leprechaunded" and said they had to cover everything with blankets so the Leprechauns wouldn't get to their toys.  They totally freaked out the 3 year old with this talk!  But I think over all they had fun with it.  They woke up to the picture above and their cereal had green milk (Those silly leprechauns must have gotten to it!) And for dinner our mashed potatoes were green as well since I put milk in to mash them up.  Everyone was delighted.  ;)

I put rainbows on my fingernails for St. Patrick's day.  I love the sparkles! FYI these are only available for a couple more weeks - till April 15th in case anyone was wanting to get one of the "fashionably festive" designs!

We've been doing a lot of visual journaling lately and our favorite place to do this is out by the pool.  It's not as loud with the water fall under repair.  It's still pretty loud with the highway and all, but it's nice to get a change of scenery.

I brought some books out one day and red to the little one for a while during our art time as well.

My oldest especially loves doing the visual journaling outside.  She wore her rainbow dress for St. Patrick's day too.

And that's basically the end of our "R week" but I didn't talk at all about the 6 year old that turned 7!!!!  Renna was so thrilled that "R week" came at the same time as her birthday.  We decorated in Rainbow balloons!