Some hats are hard to be cool in:

More Costumes

The same week as Halloween, the first-grade teachers scheduled an Animal Wax Museum where they wanted each child to dress up as an animal. The idea was really a lot of fun. The execution and timing, not the best in my opinion. Each child picked an animal and researched it: what it eats, what it is eaten by, where it lives, what type of animal it is (mammal, reptile, fish, etc), I can't remember everything. They put together information boards and recorded themselves on their iPads talking about the animal. The recording was then attached to a talking picture of the animal. I don't know what programs they used, but the first-graders did this mostly themselves.

The idea of the Wax Museum was that each child, as an animal, was standing in front of their display holding an iPad. Parents could then play the video on the iPad to learn about the animal. The kids weren't supposed to talk. The main problem of this was: fifty-some first-graders in one school library, plus all the parents and other visitors who came to see it can make a fair amount of noise even when everyone is trying to be quiet. Then we are supposed to listen to the videos, but most of the kids were very quiet on their recordings. I could barely hear Ruby's, Cora's I couldn't hear at all. Every once in a while one of the videos would be loud enough to hear. I don't know that I learned much about any of the animals, but it was cute and the kids were super excited about it.

As for the timing: they planned it three days before Halloween. We didn't learn about it until the beginning of October. I didn't know what animals the girls were supposed to be until about a week and a half before the museum. So I had to come up with two more costumes at the same time I was already working on Halloween costumes. Luckily, Cora chose to be a turtle so we recycled Ruby's Halloween costume from last year, with only minor modifications. But I had to turn Ruby into a lion. My first idea was to try to use her hair somehow to make a mane. That got complicated very quickly. So, I used tulle from Lil's wedding decorations to make the mane which turned out quite well, I thought. Then made the tail and ears out of felt. It wasn't too difficult, it just took time.

One of the teachers later told me they hoped the kids would reuse the costumes for Halloween. That's why they planned it for the same time of year. My thought: if that's what they were going for they should have given a lot more notice so the kids didn't already have other costumes. My other thought: how many six-year-olds want to be told they have to be an animal for Halloween instead of a princess or super hero? Out of the thirty-four kids in the two classes I attended Halloween parties in, one reused the animal costume. The girls were mostly princesses (and most of the princesses were Elsa) and the boys were mostly super heroes or ninjas (with a rather large percentage being Spiderman). So that line of thinking didn't work so well. The other reason I was given for the museum being planned in October was that costume supplies would be more readily available at this time of year. Probably true, but they also sent home multiple notes saying this was supposed to be something fun, just use things around the house to make the costumes, don't spend any money on it. So why does it matter how available costume supplies are? I don't know.

Fun in the leaves

Lil, or more precisely, Lil's neighbor, has a very large tree that drops an amazingly large number of leaves in Lil's yard. It makes for a pain to clean up, but an awesome leaf pile. Eda had fun in it.

Jack-o-lanterns!

We put the jack-o-lanterns on our front step the morning after we carved them. That afternoon when the girls got home from school Cora burst in the door and said, "Mommy, my teeth are broken!" I was a little concerned until her next comment clarified it was jack-o-lantern teeth she was speaking of, not her own teeth. Upon inspection, it looks like we have an aspiring dentist amongst our squirrel population. 

These are the pumpkins the girls got from the pumpkin patch. Cora and Ruby went on a school trip. The rule was: no pumpkin bigger than you can carry. (With fifty-some first-graders and about ten adults, this seems like a reasonable rule.) When the girls got home that day only Ruby had a pumpkin. Cora told me, "I couldn't bring my pumpkin on the bus because it was too big for me to carry." She then informed me, "You have to pick me up tomorrow to get my pumpkin." Ray picked her and her pumpkin up from school the next day while Eda and I were at the pumpkin patch.

Cora picked an extra big pumpkin because she wanted more seeds to roast. That didn't work so well. Ruby's pumpkin had the most seeds. Eda's pumpkin had the biggest seeds. We learned that the size of the pumpkin has very little bearing on the size or number of seeds inside it.

Can you tell what we were for Halloween?

Ruby learned to crochet

a chain, at least. When Cora asked her if she was going to make it into something Ruby replied, "I'm not big enough to make things. I'm only big enough to make chains." She made a very good chain, it's almost as tall as Mommy.

3-yr-old Ingenuity

Watching these little girls try to play with the shovel was quite hilarious. If they could get on the seat, they couldn't reach the handles. If they got the handles they couldn't let it down far enough to scoop any dirt. So, they turned to teamwork. One would get on the seat, the other two would fill the shovel with their hands, then they would push the handles up to the one on the seat. The one on the seat didn't know how to dump the dirt, either, so the other two would push the dirt back out of the shovel. Then they would start all over again. It kept them occupied for quite a while.