January

Henry began preschool a couple of weeks ago and is loving it. He especially seems to enjoy the wonderful pretend play set-ups (recently, they turned their reading loft into a bat cave and put tubes underneath so the kids could pretend to be burrowing animals!) He's very proud to show me his craft each day when he comes home and always reports what the snack was.

Here he is on his first day of preschool:


And here was his first craft, a polar bear covered with shaving cream and tissue paper.


We're still homeschooling the other three days of the week and have been working through a preschool critical thinking book. One new thing we've started is doing a simple science experiment every afternoon. Apparently I forgot to take any pictures of these, but we've been doing experiments with water--seeing how water becomes ice and steam, and seeing what kinds of substances dissolve. It's become something we both really look forward to in the afternoon.

We've also been studying "Peter and the Wolf" (both listening to the music and reading the story) to prepare for a kids' concert by the symphony. The concert was this morning and was really excellent. Members of the local ballet danced the parts, and Henry was entranced to see the story come to life. The cutest part was when the wolf was threatening Peter, Henry would crouch down between the seats and peek out of the crack between seats. Here we are ready to go to the concert. (While it may look like Henry is chewing on a medicine dropper, he is actually playing the part of the bird on flute. :) )



Henry loves his new Highlights magazine and followed the instructions to make a pizza with a face.





Other than that, Henry's imagination has taken fire. The house is constantly a disaster, but it's well worth it (mostly) to see him do so much wonderful pretending. Some recent days at our house:

Note the fishing rod (that is, the crane), the store (that is, the white shoe rack) and the construction equipment (all the chairs in the dining room.)


Here we have Henry's "drum set". My favorite part is Elizabeth's wind chime hanging from the closet door. At one point he moved the drum set and told me I needed to hammer a hook in the wall to hang the wind chime. I have to draw the line somewhere, right? :)


And oh, the craft sticks. Why did I think it was a good idea to let him play with a box of one thousand craft sticks?

Following the trail...


Still going...


Done!


And I couldn't resist including this one.


And of course, Elizabeth continues to be completely adorable. She's really playing with her hands now, and she's on the verge of sitting up. She's also begun devouring her rice cereal.