Fine Arts Night

This year Fine Arts Night was a little different. This year instead of an art gallery the kids worked together with Lincoln Elementary school to make a stop motion animation movie. They took over 10,000 pictures and pieced them one after the other to make a 15 minute movie called "The Robot and the Butterfly."
The Robot moved through the story picture after picture which made him "move". The kids took turns slightly moving flowers, birds, the Robot and Butterfly to make them appear to move. The kids even did the sound effects for the movie.
Ammon was so excited telling me what parts he was involved in.
Their art teacher is really awesome and does some really fun "out of the box" art projects with them.

Ammon's group was combined 1st and 2nd graders. They sang: "Candle on the Water", "Wonderful World" and "Haukunamatata". Ammon stood by Andrew. They were really fun to watch talking before it started.



After they had the younger kids and families go out and the older kids and families come in, all the kids came back in and sang "We Appreciate you" to their music teacher Mr. Hielman who is retiring this year. It was really sweett to see her being sung to by so many people. She has been a wonderful music teacher. Simeon and Corrine have both done choir with her.

Corrine's group was a combined 3rd and 4th grade group. They sang: She stood by her sweet friend Lily.


Corrine also sang with the Lemme Choir. They sang:

Simeon's group was a combined 5th and 6th grade group. They sang: During "We are your Child" they had a slide show of pictures of the kids.


After Simeon sang they had the kids stay up on the stage and watch thier premiere of "The Robot and The Butterfly." It was just as cute the 2nd time!

It's feeling like a library around here!

We're keeping the libraries around here busy!

Simeon was introduced to The Hunger games last December by his school librarian. He would tell me everyday about what Katniss and Peeta were doing. I decided that I should read the books to find out what he was reading and telling me about.

I fell in LOVE with the 1st book and read it in less then a day. I checked out Catching Fire for Simeon and I took it from him and read it cover to cover in a few days before giving it back to him to read. Luckily for Christmas he got his own copy of Catching Fire.

He told me he wanted to finish the series before I did. Little chance that would happen!

Beginning of December he made himself a bow and arrow, and then a quiver to hold his arrows. A few weeks ago he made this "dummy" that he used for target practice. Nearly every day he is out with Joe and/or Nick practicing on the dummy. The poor thing has been beheaded, has a dislocated shoulder and had been run through too many times to count anymore!


I finished Mockingjay before he was halfway through Catching Fire. When I get into a book, it consumes me and I want to make it last longer because I love the book, but I can't put it down.
Simeon just finished Mockingjay less then 24 hours before it was due back at the city library, and he went right to the copy of The Hunger Games he got from the school library.

Funny story-I went to the library and got a copy of The Hunger Games (even though there were 40+ holds on the book because I was told where they keep a copy of the book with another record # and this is the 2nd time I was able to walk out with the book the same day!) When Simeon got home from school he told me not to worry about getting a copy of the book because he had gotten one at school that day. We
both had checked out a copy of The Hunger Games from different librariess on the same day because we both love the book!

We are counting down until the movie comes out so we can go see it together.


One day I was at the store and saw a series of books by Cassandra Clare. It looked interesting so I wrote the info down and checked at the library if they had it. They did!! I knew from past experience that it was best if I checked every book in the series RIGHT THEN. Less then a week later I had read through 4 books around 450 pages each and I went back for the next book which is a prequel and have 2 more books in the series on hold. One doesn't even come out until May 8th! And they are going to make the books into movies.

If it wasn't for the libraries around here we'd be broke from all the books we would've bought!

New Exhibits at the Children's Museum

Rebecca and I went to the Iowa children's Museum this morning and it was empty. It was snowing so I'm guessing lots of people didn't want to go out. It was awesome having the museum almost all to ourselves.
Last week I was able to go help the museum open the train toys for the new train/ABC reading exhibit that opened this past weekend, and today we got to go play with those toys and see the new exhibit.

They have a miniature train set that in mostly in the main train exhibit room, but also goes into the 2 rooms on either side. The artist of the train set really paid attention to details. The track runs through town and has pictures and buildings just like the train really goes by. They even have a Hawkeye Express train that picks up passengers out by the mall and drops them off by the Hawkeye Stadium. It's so fun! They have all the trains and tracks out for the kids to play on, and then they have a big train for the kids to climb in.

They made some new trees for the ABC/reading part of the room that has a tunnel through one and stairs leading up to a window. Rebecca thought that was pretty cool!
Usually I stay clear of the art room, but today we went in to paint and I'm so glad we did! We used tempera cakes, which are awesome! (I bought Rebecca some this afternoon I loved them so much!) They are similar to water paints, but the colors are more vibrant. It's tempera paint dried into round disks. You wet them like water paints to paint. When your done, you let them dry out and they are ready for your next painting session. Less mess, less waste, more fun!

I loved seeing the concentration on Rebecca face as she painted. We worked on painting straight lines and then I'd help her make the legs to make an "R" her most favorite letter!!

She was so proud of her masterpiece!


We also played in their new bank exhibit. They have a cute little car next to a drive up teller window complete with working movable teller window. We played bank teller and customer for a long time.

I'm so glad we have a museum pass and can go whenever we want to. The 3 older kids are pretty bored with it, but Rebecca still loves to go and play. I can see a few more years of fun for her here.

Leaves

The leaves have started to fall all around. I LOVE fall and walking through the crunchy leaves on the sidewalk. Today on our walk Rebecca really wanted to get out and walk. When we got within a few blocks of our house she got out and walked home. Some trees were dropping their leaves, so we collected a bunch on our way home. When we got home Rebecca glued them onto a piece of paper. She was having so much fun with the glue stick and didn't want any help with it!



She was so proud of her leaves art project.


Later in the afternoon Corrine raked up a small pile of leaves for Rebecca to play it. She then posed Rebecca in the pile and asked me to take some pictures of her.

Leaves

The leaves have started to fall and Rebecca is LOVING them. On our walk home she collected a handfull of leaves. When we got home she made a leaf collage.



Then this afternoon Corrine rakes up a leaf pile and posed Rebecca in it and asked me to take her picture.