Winter School Blahs and Life.

Our Lego club was off and running this past week. We had two families come for a total of eight kids. The free play was nice. Next week though I have a questionnaire for the parents and will make more of a formal meeting out of it. An hour goes by fast when fiddling with Lego.
One of my dear friends is having a baby shower next weekend. I had agreed to make the cake. My cakes seem to be popular around here with friends. I have plans to make a round tiered cake topped with buttercream icing. I am going to sculpt babies in pink, she's having a girl, out of fondant and place crawling all over the cake. Because the party is also going to include children I am making cake pops for the first time. I hope they will turn out as I envision them. Although I was a little disappointed that the local candy store didn't have as many 'quins' or candy sprinkle choices as I had hoped. I also am making a gift bag specially for the baby Daddy as he will attend also. Mums' the word on that until after the shower in case she is reading this.
I have put together a unit for this week to cover Littlest Pet Shop. I hope the kids will cooperate and have fun with it as well as learn somethings new. I took some pictures of our Oceanography bulletin board from our last unit which the kids help put together by coloring images. We divided the ocean into three distinct layers or zones and put twisted green construction paper on like a kelp forest. I liked it a lot and was sorry to see it go in favor of February's Valentine board.

The kids also made  a couple of beautiful dioramas for their Oceanography unit. Pictured below are images from my DD's. DS took pics of his but they turned out fuzzy. The yellow pipe cleaners poking through the top are illustrating the sun's rays in the daylight zone. I admit to helping with hanging and sculpting one or two of the salt dough creatures at the request of my daughter. I certainly can't sit by and watch them have all the fun. However the painting was all her. And she wanted to entirely sand the bottom of the box. So we mixed sand with white glue to the bottom. The green pipe cleaner in the front near the pinkish seahorse are representative of kelp or seaweed.

If you are thinking of doing a unit on life in the seas then may I suggest a couple of sites  to print out for free paper crafts. I did the living fossil Coelacanth fish with the kids help. A glue gun generally is the best way to put these together. It dries faster then waiting for white glue.

It's in an Asian language but if you click the images they will come easily enough.
Canon also has some wonderful printable paper crafts
Yamaha Motors has paper crafts too. All sorts of animals and vehicles.

Monday, Valentine's Day I am going to have a  surprise party for the kids. I got red balloons and a tablecloth to go on the new classroom desk. I have left over from years past some special napkins, cups etc. I will post pics next week when I have time.
Spring is around the corner and already I feel busier then I have in years. I am enjoying it immensely though and can't wait to see what each day brings.