Life's a Hoot

 Over Christmas break we were able to visit with lots of family in Tennessee and made a trip to the Discovery Park of America. The Kirkland family (as in Kirklands stores in the mall) made this possible in Union City- not a large place, and the museum looks like it's in the middle of nowhere. The great thing is this family was thinking about all the kids who don't live in big cities and don't get the opportunity to have such nice places available for education. It was wonderful. It was too cold to visit the outdoor areas, but they looked very large and like a lot of fun so hopefully we'll visit again in spring.

 They had a huge display of classic cards from the original Fords to military vehicles and even racecars. The kids looked so tiny in the helicopter. They had wonderful dinosaur skeletons in a beautiful sunlit area.

 One of their features was "The Tower."  We rode the elevator to the top and walked around on all sorts of see-through panels. It definitely made my knees weak, but the kids had no problem at all.

 Amongst other exhibits, connecting two levels was a steel baseball player. Kids walked through his globe? and slid down his body, through his leg. We all had a great time there.

 While at home, Chloe got her first mini flute lesson from her aunt Melody. She's talked about this forever. She's still to young to get any real sound out, but she caught onto the position pretty well, at least on piccolo. : )

 Back home, we started Owl Moon. I mentioned before I wasn't a fan so much as a kid, but my kids loved it and this time around I did too. There's so much sensory verses action, it's a nice break actually. We talked about the special experience the daughter and father had on their late night outing.
We played a game I found online and made it ourselves. I find the kids enjoy that as much as the activity sometimes. I could print many things out, but why not just add making it into the learning process? This one is called Fly By Night and the girls practiced their directions. They put their marker in the center and drew prewritten directions from the jar- "2 blocks East"  etc. The first owl to fly into the night won. They loved it and played several times.

 

 We checked out the wingspan of the Great Gray owl and learned all sorts of owl facts Hannah recorded on a sheet.  We read a couple of other really sweet fiction books featuring owls and had great chats together about the characters. Our cozy reading sessions and discussions on the couch will be my favorite memories with them I'm sure.

They both completed directions on coloring particular types of owls.

They also wrote mini-books with an owl as the main character. Chloe drew pictures for her story, which honestly was way too complicated to relay here! haha  It was something about an owl tricking some people who had come out into the snow on Christmas. I think it stole their stockings : )

We recognized that Owl Moon did not have the typical conflict as part of the plot but simply described a girl's experience. So Hannah wrote about an owl who really wanted to be married, found his owl wife, and by the end had owl grandchildren.

As you can see, some days are pajama days. The kids learned more about features of owls and 

tried picking up objects with their "talons." 

There were so many possible art projects for this book, I decided to pick several instead of just one. 

Again it was easier to just freehand rather than print off copies- and more original that way : ) Here they practiced line patterns.

 Only Hannah was interested in making this owl out of torn paper. I gave her no instruction and just a picture as a guide to see what she would do.  I think it's pretty cute.

One project I found on line had the kids create owls with secondary colors. I thought it would be good if they each did two, one with primary and one with secondary. They did a great job talking out which colors they would use and reminding themselves of which ones were in which categories.

I love how they turned out. 

(As usual, Colin did participate and made his owls all blue : )

I surprised them with this lunch one day.  It's kind of a copy, but I added some personal touches like the beef stick- Pirouette branches with blackberries and wheat thin wings. I usually see those kind of things on Pinterest and think "What mom has that kind of time on her hands?" but this one was definitely worth it- and easy. And hearing your kids laugh is always a good time.

 Next week we'll continue the same book because there are so many great lessons. We'll learn more about nocturnal animals, categorizing animals, and of course.. the moon. I'm looking forward to lots of activities.

 

 In the meantime, Colin is learning how to do "manly" things like use a screwdriver. We bought a bookshelf for the girls' bedroom and he got to work. He did a great job and got several in by himself.

 We also got a Cracker Barrel checkers set- it's pretty fun to have sitting out on the coffee table for a game anytime.

 I've had a few of my own projects- I got to be sub principal horn in a nearby orchestra for their extremely belated Christmas concert and played Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf for the first time. It's so craftily written and has many very beautiful parts. I'll love sharing it with the kids someday. Lone Star Wind Orchestra has a concert coming up soon with loads of horn parts to work on. I'm very much hoping Hannah will be able to go as she's been waiting to get to see her mom on stage.: ) Since she's handled two other long concerts very well, I think she'll really like this one.

Lastly Dax and I are starting a fitness program this month together, so wish us luck!