Just Holding Our Breath - First Big Fieldtrip

The talk on whether or not to take the children on a fieldtrip has come up in many discussion groups.  Some would rather not for the simple reason that it is scary to take a bunch of little ones away from the safety net of our back yards.  Some decline for the simple reason of costs associated with fieldtrips, such as; insurance rates, food, entry fees, gas.  
Then there are others like myself that love fieldtrips.  Normally in the Bay Area, we had dozens of places to take the children to, anywhere from a 5 minute drive to a local park to an hour or so drive to the zoos or museums.  Either way, we had the best times exploring our world outside of our home.  Yes, it was scary, and I often felt like I was holding my breath, trying to constantly count our little yellow shirts, but we always walked away a little more sure of ourselves and more knowledgeable of how to handle ourselves in public.  We also develop a respect for our world, not to mention, building strong relationships with our friends by helping care for each other.  
Again, there are many mixed feelings about fieldtrips, but I for one am excited at the prospect of exploring our world.  
Join me on my first Sonora fieldtrip with our little ones.  (just holding my breath)!

Pinecrest Lake & Campground

Rock climbing, we have 3 boys and 3 girls, what a great mix.

         Check out our scenery in the background.

Watch them play.

Our youngest was the first to venture a little out into the water.  Mr. A helped guide her and was ready to assist her while she found her footing inside the cool lake.

The group decided it was a blast gathering mud from shore and work together to create a mound.
The learning here far exceeds any learning we could have done at home.

You can see them here working together on the mound.  So much mud and no one to tell them no!  

I loved listening to them discussing what they were doing and how they used teamwork to decide how it could be accomplished.

It's hard to see, but in the background one of our 3 1/2 year olds was having a blast being tossed into the water.  He continued to ask to go again and again.  So, Mr. A continued tossing him and helping him get his footing each time.
See him jump into the water below and how much control he has to pop right back up! 

This is a cute picture.  The kids found a hollowed out tree and were pretending to be baby birds in a nest.  It was adorable.  I couldn't resist to have them pose for a picture, but they saw it as a bit of a distraction from their fun.  I grabbed my pic as fast as I could, then it was back to pretending.

 A little bit of rock climbing.  (God I love nature)

A little bit of tree climbing!

After sunscreen, swimming, bathroom runs, lunches had, rock and tree climbing, photo taking, playing chase, pretending and enjoying life, it was time to leave.  Back on the road we went.  The drive is normally a 35 minute drive away from our home, but with tree removal road construction, it took an hour.  Kiddos were falling asleep in van, Andy Z music was blasting and finally we arrived home one by one.  
The question I asked myself, "was it worth it?"  YES, it totally was.  More Fieldtrips coming soon to explore our world!
Here are a couple cute pics to share from home.

Getting ready for our morning stroll to the park across the street from our home.

Welcome to our two newest members of PattyKakesKidz.  Tristan and Conner.  Welcome boys!  Whoops, our group has just shifted in testosterone! ROFL.  Until our next post.
 ♥ PattyKakesKidz ♥ 

Summer Review at It's Best!

It's been a really fun week here at PattyKakesKidz.  To start, let's watch a cute video above.  The kids were exploring our vacation home and found a way to entertain themselves by riding a furniture dolly.  I know, not the safest to play on, but who am I to tell them no, LOL.

Next, we celebrated our first 5 year old in our group.  Happy Birthday Reed!

Now for some fun learning had by all.  As many who know me, summers are for fun and of course, review of the past year.  We take each day and pick something to review.  Sometimes it's colors, numbers, shapes, alphabet, position, manners, respect, and so much more.  
Check out some of their review here:

Kids gluing sun rays in order from 1-12.

 What comes next with Apples?

Following the lines!

 Match word colors!

After a week of learning, there was some misc. fun had too:

 Weeee, I'm an airplane!

Down the hill I go!

Girls make a universe together as friends!

Mr. A.  I can help you install your fan, let me help!

We are a "no gun" household.  Somehow they can always find a way to "make" a gun. LOL ROFL!

Sailing Away on a pirate ship.  

Dramatic play outdoors!

Have a great week all my PattyKakesKidz friends and family.  Until next week.

Had to share this scary bug.  Since I've moved to Sonora a year ago, there have been some really big bugs visiting me.  I'm not a big fan of bugs.

They Don't Just Build--They Create!

Preschool offers so many opportunities to learn.  This past week I wanted to let the children be creative and build 3D models of their choice.  We had lots of discussions of what they would build and how much their parents were going to love their creations.  We reviewed pictures of real buildings to see if they could make something similar.  They also spoke among themselves, being polite to pass the glue or hand over a small block that they couldn't reach.  And one by one you would hear a child say, "hey you like mine?"  then you would hear the reply, "yea, I do.  Do you like mine too?"  Each child respected each other's space while they built and even towards the end of the day, each child clearly knew not to touch their friend's creation.  Even our two year old knew how important these beautiful wooden masterpieces were to each child.   That all being said, let's take a tour of our week's preschooling:

Hi, I'm 2 years old.  I love gluing and making projects all the time.  See my cool creation I'm working on?

Thank you Miss Patty and Mr. A for letting me try all kinds of stuff.  

Keep moving along, you won't want to miss all about our creative buildings.

I'm kinda busy here as you can see.  This is very difficult work I'm doing.  I'm 3 years old.  I work hard every day on every preschool project I work on.  

Mr. A and Miss Patty always have something for us to do that is so cool.  


Keep moving along, there's more.

Hi, I'm 3 years old.  If I can just get this one little block to stay, oh great, there it goes.  

So, as I was saying, I'm 3 and I am as busy as any 3 year old can get.  

Miss Patty and Mr. A love me just the same!

Howdy there.  I love building and designing.  I often have to have some quiet time in the block area just so I can build and build and build.  This is what I love to do.  

I'm almost 5 (just a little while longer).  I will be going to kindergarten in a week or so and I know I'm going to miss Mr. A and Miss Patty so much. 

They have opened so many doors for me and let me be "just me". 

Howdy folks.  Ok, I need to start with I'm a big BIG laugher.  Everyone knows this and keeps us all smiling.

I also love love love to build and I am also going to be 5 years old.  I'm lucky though because I get to stay another year with Miss Patty and Mr. A.  

This building project was so very cool.  I love making things like this and showing my mom and dad!

Hold on a moment, now if I can just get this piece to plop right.....there!  Great, done.  

Ok, hello there everyone.  I am almost 4 years old.  I'm a big guy with a big heart.  

I love so many things in preschool, especially riding the big wheels in the front yard, or when we take them to the park.  

This project was very cool too. I hope my mom and dad like it.

Projects were left out to dry over night.  These little ones were so creative and I just loved listening to them talk about what they were doing with their friends. 

How about adding some paint now?

    

Let's document our work.

It's been a great week with these guys.  We not only spent our week building, designing, comparing, and sharing, we also did some preschool work.  Check out some of our work below:

 Well thanks for reading our blog everyone.  I hope it was fun to see the happenings of PattyKakesKidz.  Until next week.