Before Five in a Row--Angus Lost

Despite the fact that last week we were (gasp!) without a house helper and I was responsible for putting lunch on the table each day, we had a pretty successful project week.  We studied "Angus Lost" by Marjorie Flack.  For all the books we've covered, I've taught Micah the authors' names as well.  Sorry to say that it was an unfortunate week for Ms. Flack to have a three year-old try to learn her name.

On Monday, we made a paper bag puppet version of the dog in the story.  We usually do our projects during Hudson's morning nap.  Sam was pretty sick at the beginning of the week, so all he wanted to do was sit in my lap.  We postponed project time until after nap when his spirits were a little brighter.

For our puppets, I even busted out the googly eyes that I brought back from the US.  Luckily, later in the week my friend April showed me where I can buy googly eyes here in town.  Now I don't feel pressured to rip apart their project in order to save the eyes!

I taught them how to put on a puppet show as well.  But that only lasted about 15 seconds before they decided to turn the couch cushion into a slide instead of a stage.

Then we acted out the story with random toys we have around the house.  

The goat that tries to butt Angus and the car that ran away.

Angus hiding in the cave during the snow storm (again, how handy it is to have a dryer in your living room!)

And Angus following the milk man home.

On Tuesday, Sam was so snotty and grumpy that I made him take a morning nap, leaving me with only one child.  One child?!?!  How gloriously easy!  No wonder people usually start with one instead of three in 11 months.

I snagged a grid game off this website to work on Micah's counting.  The goal is to roll a pair of dice, count the dots, and put that amount of pom-poms on the grid.  

Maybe instead of counting pom-poms, we should count how many days in a row I've worn my workout clothes.  Or how many of daddy's fleeces I steal out of his side of the closet.  That might make things interesting enough to get the kid to put 7, 8, and 9 in the right order.

On Wednesday morning, we work up to fresh snow on the ground.  Instead of going out to play, I turned my son into a cow.

We talked about the milk man in the story and watched a few clips on YouTube about where milk comes from.  Micah was convinced the man in the videos showing how to milk a cow was not a farmer as he claimed because he wasn't wearing a hat.  

The boys took turns milking each other.

Then we made our own milk wagon out of a diaper box and delivered milk boxes to the various rooms in our apartment.

On Thursday, the boys dressed up like pets and held our own obedience school.  It's a great day when you can sit back, throw a ball at your kid, tell him to fetch it, and call it an educational experience.

Micah insisted on being a cat.  I have some new eye liner coming in a package from the States soon, so I wasn't too concerned about using it for whiskers and noses.

On Friday, I was completely out of idea so I printed some activities of this website.  We did a story sequencing activity and played character memory.

I'm not sure whether it's a fault or a virtue but I will pretty much always choose playing with my kids over doing dishes.  It probably helps that I have a door to my kitchen, so I can just shut it and pretend like the mess doesn't exist.  That's pretty much how things happened last week with our house helper being gone.  Whether a cluttered or clean house, projects will go on!