Our Ocean Adventures

It seems kind of strange posting about an ocean theme when it's raining, cold, and fall-like outside, but better late than never!

Here are some of the crafts, games and activities we did together! 

 We made fish and sailboat cut-out cookies!  The boys helped and it was very messy, but very fun!

Here's Oliver rolling out the dough.

Here are our cookies coming out of the oven!  We used a new recipe and it turned out great!  It will be a great one for Christmas cookies!

We read the book "Somewhere in the Ocean" by Jennifer Ward and T.J. Marsh.  It's a counting book set to the tune of 'Over in the Meadow.'  And what ocean theme doesn't have some type of fishing activity?!  Here are the boys fishing in our blow up pool.  I used play golf clubs with magnets attached to string for the poles, and I made fish from some old greeting cards.  Each fish had a number on it, so they were fishing for fish and numbers!  The magnets weren't working so great, so we used the skimming net, too! 

  Oliver seemed to think splashing with his golf club was more fun than fishing!

 Getting the boys to pose for a picture and to look at the camera the same time is a challenge!

We also read an ocean alphabet book, and I was lucky enough to find this alphabet fishing game at my neighbor's 'VIPs Only Garage Sale (she was cleaning out some of her school items and let me shop!).

The boys fished for letters and then they matched them to the correct letters on the game boards.

 Here's Elliott catching a fish!

Here are a couple of pics of the boys decorating coloring pages with 'Do A Dot' paint.  What fun!

Next you'll find a few more crafts.

Jelly Fish

Elliott's is yellow, Oliver's is purple.  Jelly fish don't really have eyes, but we added one for fun. 

 Baggie Fish

We stuffed pieces of paper into a baggie, taped it and added eyes.

Elliott's Ocean Picture

He painted the water with diluted blue paint, the sand with a sponge, and the fish with 'Do A Dot' paint.  The crab is made from his hand prints and a little help from me for the mouth and claws.  I'm thinking about finding a frame for this and hanging it in his ocean room!

We had a so much fun doing all of these ocean activities!  I sure hope we can make a trip to the ocean next time! 

 Check out our Jonah and the Whale  activities!

Bowling and Baseball

Over Labor Day weekend we took the boys bowling and to a Tulsa Driller's baseball game.  Greg was able to bowl with the boys, but I forgot my socks, so I just helped corral the kiddos.  

Here are some pictures I wanted to share from our fun weekend!

Here's Oliver clapping for Elliott

His first big push to knock down some pins!

Daddy and Oliver watching the ball go down the lane.

He says, "Where's the ball?"

Where did it go?

Here's Elliott taking a turn.

You can see Oliver's stitches on his right eyebrow.

Elliott was trying so hard to wait patiently for his turn!

Sometime it takes 3 to get it down the lane!

Nice roll!!

One last roll.

This was the perfect night for a baseball game!  The weather was just beautiful!  Everyone else thought it was a great night to be out, too, because it was packed!  We had a great time sitting on the grass and watching the game (but not actually watching the game!)  Can't wait until next season - I'm hoping we'll be able to go to more games than we did this year.  If Greg actually wants to see some of the game, I think he's going to have to go sans kids!

Oliver was great at cheering on the players.

Cheese!

Elliott kept saying, "Go Team!!"

Sitting on the hill was interesting!  Our blanket kept sliding and I was so worried one of the boys was going to roll down the hill!  At one point, Oliver fell into the nice couple sitting in front of us!  Whoops!

Jonah and the Whale

At the end of August we started a min-unit in our house on oceans.  I though it was more than appropriate to begin the unit learning about Jonah and the Whale.  We read a short book that I found at Mardel's about Jonah and we also tried to watch the Veggie Tale's version of the story on youtube.  Unfortunately we only saw a small portion of it because we were having technical difficulties.  I'm still hoping we can pick up a copy somewhere.  

I found this idea for the whale somewhere on line.  I can't remember where, or I would post the site.  You won't see Oliver doing this craft because it was during his morning nap time.

I made a person figure out of pipe cleaners to act as Jonah.

Elliott put Jonah in a paper bag that was partially stuffed with newspapers.  This bag would soon be turned into a whale.

 We closed the bag and tied it with a piece of yarn.  Elliott painted the whale blue and I helped to fill in the blank spots. 

After it was dry we added fins, wiggly eyes, a mouth, and a spout.  Here's Elliott practicing his scissors skills while he cuts the paper for the spout.  When he was finished I rolled the paper, cut a hole in the top of the whale, inserted the spout and taped it down. 

 Here's the finished product.  Such a cute little whale!

The Jonah we put in this whale does not come out.  However, we made another Jonah from pipe cleaners for Elliott to pretend play with.

Noodles From Scratch

Elliott has a book called "Noodles From Scratch."  Instead of making noodles, I thought we could do some activities with the noodles we already had at home.  Some of this didn't turn out exactly how I thought, and I think that was due to the noodles being "allergy friendly" for us.  The noodles taste great and we can't tell the difference when eating them, but I guess crafts are a different story.  The boys still had fun and I'm sure there was plenty of learning going on, regardless of the finished product!

First we put some vinegar, water and food dye in a bag, then we added noodles.  Elliott counted 10 at a time as we were adding them to the bag.

I had the boys shake up the bags and we let the noodles sit in the water/vinegar mixture for a few minutes.

After they sat in the baggies, we poured them onto paper towels to let them dry.  Here's the green...

 

...the red that, looks purplish/pink...

...and the blue, that ended up looking more like green.

After the noodles dried we attempted to make necklaces with them, however, the hole in our noodles were too skinny for our yarn, and I didn't have any other string that would work for this purpose.  Instead, I printed off a big letter N for each of them and had the boys glue some noodles onto the letters.  Here's their work...

Unconditional Love

I was driving home from the park this afternoon with my two sweet boys.  Elliott was reading a book and Oliver was just hanging out being Oliver...probably trying to take his shoes and socks off!.  Out of the back seat I hear from Elliott, "Mommy, I love you. I love you just the way you are."  So sweet!!!

I'm so glad to hear him say that - not for my sake, but for his!  Shows me he's been paying attention when I tell him that same thing!  More than anything I want my kids to know that God, their Mommy and their Daddy love them just the way they are, no matter what.  It doesn't matter how many fits they throw, how many messes they make, how many soccer goals they score, what clothes they wear, what choices they make today, tomorrow, or 20 years from now.  I will always love them.  It's so important for them to know that.

Frozen Fruit

This activity was done a couple of weeks ago when it was still super hot outside. The boys and I put some fruit in an ice cube tray, filled the tray with water, and put it in the freezer.  Later that day we took it outside to see what would happen. 

Our ingredients:

 Here's Elliott adding some fruit....

and here's Oliver adding some fruit.

 Oliver liked eating the fruit after he put it in the tray!

Elliott was carefully pouring water into the tray.

Here's Oliver eating more fruit!!

Elliott wanted to know how to get the ice out of the tray.

It was the perfect treat on a hot day!