Easter Egg Bath

Beware the late afternoon nap, especially one from a child who has not reliably taken naps since she was two; for the late afternoon nap means a groggy and unhappy child upon awakening.  She may only talk in frowns and groans for an hour and then veto to all possibilities for supper.  So you put her into the bath early, because Adeline is fussing for her bath and baths now make both girls happy.  Only your unhappy child fusses that there are eggs in her water, and your husband pats you on the back with a “Well, I thought it was a neat idea…”

Until!  The unhappy child realizes there are treats in the eggs in the bath water, and you enjoy the evening’s first sounds of laughter from your little girl.  They start as small chuckles and develop into big hilarious bouts as more and more foam sea animals emerge from their capsules.  By bath’s end, your sweet, happy child is returned to you once more.  Thank goodness for Easter egg bath!

Book Bath: Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

To make a bath inspired by Chicka Chicka Boom Boom (by Bill Martin Jr and John Archambault, illustrated by Lois Ehlert, 1989), simply dump the foam alphabet letters into the water and use a bath crayon to draw a coconut tree on the wall.  Ta da!

Aurora carefully placed the letters up the coconut tree as Dad read the story.  

The best moment was, of course, the “chicka chicka boom boom,” when they all came crashing down back into the water.  

Olbrich Botanical Gardens

As you may notice in this weekend’s photograph of Dad and the two girls in our community garden plot, winter in Wisconsin is still snowing strong.

But my girls and I are bored with winter, so occasionally we escape to the warm tropical Conservatory of the Olbrich Botanic Gardens.  In the warmer months, we will stroll the 16 acres of beautiful free gardens, but since they too are covered in snow, we have spent all recent visits in the lovely hot of the greenhouses.

Immediately upon entering, Aurora began spinning and dancing.  Round and round.  Up and down.  Back and forth.

Then she discovered, or rather rediscovered, her shadow.  “It’s back Mom!  <hee, hee, hee> Look Mom.  There is my shadow.”  Now with a partner, she really got to jumping, dancing, and running about.

She made friends with Sam, and they ran round and around the paths.  They paused only to laugh at the bright canaries singing on the surrounding branches.  Alas, Sam left.

Aurora made friends with Sophie, and they ran round and around the paths. They hopped on the boats (grown-ups might mistake them for benches) and rowed to exotic locales, like Wisconsin and South Carolina.  Alas, Sophie left.

Aurora made friends with Simon, and they ran round and around the paths.  They put their hands in the water fall and climbed up and down the stairs and climbed up and down the stairs again.  Alas, Simon left.

Aurora pretended to take naps on her boat (I was the alarm clock).  She counted and named the koi in the pond.  She pet various leaves.  She played a lovely game in which she would hide under a giant leaf and when I could not find her, she would exploded out from underneath in a big, beautiful shriek which would send her sister into huge shrieks and giggles of her own.  When she got too hot, we retreated to the garden's library.  

When we returned, Aurora sang many a song under the wisteria.

 Adeline delighted in grabbing every possible leaf/flower/etc and laughed at everything her sister did.

Aurora made friends with Sayla, and they ran round and around the paths.  They held hands together and looked for the quails that wandered about the walkways. Alas, Sayla left.

Aurora took me on a flower hunt, but, alas, it was closing time, so we left too.    

Aluminum Foil Bath

To make an Aluminum Foil Bath, simply add a few sheets of aluminum foil to the bathtub, for example, the sheets you have leftover from playing with it a few weeks earlier…

Aluminum foil.  It makes great boats for rubber duckies, good wrapping for watery present, and fine entertainment for a nice long bath.

Flops and Focus

Often when I write about how long Aurora stays with a specific activity I worry people either (A) think I am exaggerating (I am not), or (B) believe I have one of those magic children who stays playing with anything.  Actually, it takes a great deal of attention and creativity to keep a game fun for a long time.  Additionally, I have intentionally been trying to foster focus in my children.  There have been several times that I have hauled the whole crew and our equipment to the zoo only to have Aurora run through the same mud puddle for over an hour, but if that is what she wants to do that is how I want her to focus her attention and I make no attempts to lead her elsewhere.  Sometimes I feel a little punished by this philosophy, like last Friday when at the library we played the same game with a rabbit and a octopus for two hours and ten minutes:

Oh, Hi Octopus.

Hi rabbit.

Would you like to hop with me?

Yes I love to bounce.

<bouncing, bouncing>

Ouch!

Oh no! Are you okay?

I just hurt my tail/ear/arm/leg/etc.

Here I will give you a big hug.  There that feels much better, doesn’t it?

Yes, thank you so much my friend. 

Say would you like to bounce with me…

Finally, Adeline grew tired of her dinosaur and demanded to be walked around.  I cannot say I argued much.  In fact, Aurora would have stayed there all night if we had not had Space Place to go to.

So that is the focus side of thing.  The other reason that it may seem that the Aurora of my blog is playing nonstop with whatever random activity I have come up with is because I do not tend to blog about the flops.

Like the time I put her stuffed animal toy birds all around the room and had her use binoculars to find them (30 seconds).

Or when we teamed up with our neighbors and tried to look at snowflakes with magnifying glasses (2 minutes –at which time I collected the magnifying glasses because the girls were using them as spoons to eat the snow which could have been terrible since it was freezing outside and the rims were metal…)

Or pretty much any attempt at violin practice before I added the jelly beans (45 to 90 seconds).

At the end of the day, Aurora is only three!

Space Place

University of Wisconsin’s Space Place! 

Where your kids will excitedly learn about galaxies. 

Where they will immerse themselves in displays about the planets.

Where they will see satellites, examine the electromagnetic spectrum, and learn the astronomical reasons for the seasons.  UW’s Space Place is super cool.  Unfortunately, it is not often open but a couple times a month.  You have to go when they are having an event of some sort like a talk – see Aurora seated so quietly in the back row.

Or, if you get lucky like we just did, in addition to a talk, you stumble upon family fun night!  What a treat we had.  After exploring the museum, we were thoroughly entertained by a live science-comedy performance.  Who know science could be so funny?  Three-year-old Aurora now knows the term “molecular structure” and how it relates to a ball’s bouncibility!  We interacted with live animals from the zoo including a hedgehog, a foot long African giant millipede, and a reticulated python.

In a scientific discovery room manned by UW student volunteers, we examined the scales of butterflies, experimented with hydrophobic sand in water, started a test tube of seeds, used M&Ms to understand natural selection, compared the tonal qualities of different length tubes, tasted the effects of adding vinegar to heated milk, looked through prisms, completed circuits with our bodies, and created art with dye and shaving cream.

On top of all these generous educational goodies, they fed us dinner!  Lasagna, bread and lemonade.  Two hours of science-themed learning and I did not have to cook, man was I on cloud nine.  And, as if to make the night all the sweeter, Aurora asked to stay for the astronomy talk, sitting quietly and politely in the back row, occasionally lying down in my lap.  When I would ask her if it was time for us to leave, she would say that she would rather stay to learn about the stars and the planets and the phases of the moon.  

Monster Math

Monster Math!  It is a super fun game I made back in October, but never got to blog about because, well, I was super busy, you know, with the new baby and all.    

We played with it all the time back at Halloween and occasional it cycles back out into play, especially for awesome math celebrations like last week’s Pi Day. 

To play monster math, simply use felt or colored paper to cut out lots of monster eyes, horns, teeth, mouths, arms, legs and body.  Each player gets a body. 

A roll of the dice determines the number of body parts one places on their monster body.  In Aurora’s version, she rolls the dice and carefully counts the divots to determine the number of the chosen body part.  Then she announces the number she would rather have and turns the dice in her fingers until she finds that number. 

Unfortunately, there are no pictures of Aurora’s monsters, which are way, way cooler and more creative than mine, as Aurora occasionally forbids photographs.  

Pot o' Gold Bath

To prepare for today’s Saint Patrick’s Day celebrations, last night we took a bath full of Pots of Gold. 

To make a Pot of Gold bath, cut out cauldrons from black foam and raid your Connect Four game of all its’ yellow checkers.  Add a few drops of green food coloring and tad a – Pot o’ Gold bath!

For a super short while, we played a game in which Aurora would place a number of coins on the floating pots and match the corresponding digit.  But Aurora quickly created her own games.  She stayed in the water quietly playing for a long, long time.

Pi Day

March 14^th - Pi Day!  Oh how we love these cute tiny holidays. 

Practicing our skills with markers, we celebrated by writing pi in many ways:

            Pi

            3.14

       π

We honed our math skills by playing Monster Math with our neighbors. 

And of course, as with any good holiday, we celebrated with food. 

Pizza pie for lunch

and a handmade cherry pie for snack. 

Mmmm.  Pi day.  

Lakeview Library

The last time I heard the “last call” chimes at a library was college, but yesterday evening my girls and I shut down the Lakeview library.  We had three minutes to spare, but we were still the last ones out.  We had come to enjoy a story time about trains, but we use many excuses to make it to this cute, albeit slightly far-for-us library.

Introducing the Lakeview Branch of the Madison Public Library and the second featured location in our Fifty Free Things to do with Kids in Madison.  The geology museum was first, but I have only now put together this list!  

The small children’s area of the Lakeview library is so inviting and warm, it is worth the bonus driving time.  Both kids like their round rug, Aurora plays games around its alphabet border and Adeline tries to grab up the various designs with her ever developing finger skills.  Aurora plays with their wooden cars, puts on puppet shows (as seen above), and chooses the wardrobe for their felt board kitty.  Their awesome, giant fish tank has spurred many a thoughtful conversation between the three of us.

But the best part of coming to this or any library is the mountains of books.  Sometimes Aurora wants us to read a big pile or, as was the case yesterday, we read the same book over and over again.  Adeline fusses, in so much that Adeline fusses, until we give her a book of her own.  

Kitchen Bath

Our efforts to make bath time fun again are paying off.  For many weeks now there have been no tears and few protests about bathing.  And recently, when I announce to Aurora it was time to run the water, she said, “Oh!  May I have a kitchen bath?”

We ran around the kitchen gathering various measuring cups, ladles, and spoons.  I carried them upstairs, but Aurora dumped them in the water.

She created soups, pies, and cream of wheat.  She added baking soda and broccoli.  She was nice and pruney by the time she got out of the tub.  

Geology Museum

Give us a tiny university geology museum and, apparently, we can kill three hours.  Aurora was still going strong, but Adeline, who rarely voices her opinion, loudly proclaimed she was ready for a nap.    Subsequently Aurora protested our having to leave.  Ah, music to a mother’s ears – a child upset because she wants to learn more science. 

 

Most of our time was spent in the fossil room among casts of dinosaurs, casts of prehistoric reptiles, and the skeleton of the Boaz Mastodon.  We drew pictures of them in our notebook, took photographs of them and with them, and sang many a song including our pool time favorite:

I am an ichthyosaurus

swimming in the water

But when I see a pterodactyl

            Then I go….SNAP!

At the geology museum, we faced and conquered fears.  To master the cave, we held hands and walked slowly back and forth between the stalactites and stalagmites until it was no longer frightening.  Then we ran back and forth.  Our first trip to the black light room to see the fluorescence transformation was also initially deemed too scary.  We cuddled tight the first couple rounds, but after a bit we could simultaneously dance and watch the electromagnetic radiation of a wavelength strike the minerals and cause the electromagnetic radiation of another, longer, wavelength.

We pet a 1300 lbs copper nugget. 

While we poked at a meterorite, we sang

A shooting star is not a star is not a star at all

A shooting star’s a meteor that’s heading for a fall

(Thanks They Might Be Giants)

Then we sang it again.  And again.  And again.

We played games with the cases of minerals.  What is your favorite?  Can you find a pink/orange/yellow/shiny/round/sparkly/black/pointy mineral? 

The stepping stool to the grad-students-at-work observation window was Aurora’s stage.  Fossil nautiluses were her audience as she sang many more songs, mostly of the made-up-on-the-spot variety. 

And always we returned to the dinosaur.  Because as cool as all of geology is, dinosaurs are the most awesome.   

C-A-T

Aurora wrote “cat” on her magna doodle the other day.  She asked, “Mommy, is this the word cat?”  I looked up to see C-A-T plain as day on the board.  I was amazed.  I was impressed.  I ran to get my camera to capture this first un-coached writing of a word. 

Aurora grinned a big grin and scribbled out the word before I could fire off the shot.  I asked her to write it again so that I could capture this proud occasion.  Below are my attempts.

Oh well.