Norah's Birthday

Norah's 5th birthday was at Paul Mesner Puppets for an Anansi the Spider show.  I used to read lots of Anansi books with my students when we studied Africa.  So it was fun to see the puppet Anansi act out the stories.  Olive laughed a lot!

Teaching Every Day

I have a confession.  I have another blog.  It is called teachingeverday.com.  Yep, I even purchased a domain name.  And I haven't mentioned it before because, well, I'm not sure why.  Probably because I didn't know if it would actually work out. I still don't.

Okay, so I've been doing *this* blog for over five years.  But this is just taking pictures of my kids and writing about what we do on the weekends.  A scrapbook for family and friends.  It isn't even a public blog.

Here's my idea for Teaching Every Day.  I love teaching and kids....and since I'm at home teaching my own kids....why not teach other parents how to teach their kids?  I think there is a lot of learning in the everyday.  Hannah isn't going to preschool this year, but that doesn't mean she isn't learning.  We do math problems with laundry.  We talk about shapes and symmetry with blocks.  We read for at least 30 minutes EVERY DAY, write letters to family, make our own books, and put on puppet shows.

When I was a teacher, parents used to ask me all the time what they could do at home to supplement their child's education.  Sure, you can do workbooks.  But there are plenty of ways to work learning into fun activities....or make not-so-fun activities more fun.  And since I was doing these activities anyway with my kids, why not blog about for other parents?  I love talking about teaching stuff and parenting stuff...and so teachingeveryday.com was born.

As I said before...I'm not sure what I'm doing with it.  It is on Wordpress instead of Blogger, so it has been a steep learning curve for me.  I'm not really happy with the blog design, but I've been reluctant to put any money into it (beyond the $7 for a domain name).  I have been posting very sporadically since August.  I feel like I'm gaining momentum now, though, and I will post more regularly.  And hopefully I'll figure out how to make it prettier.  And maybe even put some ads* on it.

So please check out teachingeveryday.com.  It mainly has tips for teaching kids, but there are also posts about my new stay-at-home lifestyle.  Some posts are identical to ones on House of Kerrs.  Some have the same pictures, but different content....like the Puppet Theater on House of Kerrs vs. Teaching Every Day. ...or Snow Paint here vs. there.  House of Kerrs will mostly be pictures of what we did.  Teaching Every Day will be more explanation and different ideas for learning.

Another big difference is I'm not using the girls' names on Teaching Every Day.  I feel like it is a good idea since it is a public blog.  I refer to them as Big Sis and Little Sis.  So if you comment on Teaching Every Day, please don't use their real names.  Maybe this will change in the future, but right now I just want to give them a little privacy.

*Note: You may have noticed I put ads on House of Kerrs.  I don't expect to make any real money because it isn't even a public blog.  I am just trying them out since I eventually want ads on my other blog.

Chinese New Year

We went to the Chinese New Year celebration at the art gallery again this year.  We didn't see the Lion Dance because the dancers were off schedule. This year I reserved (free!) tickets to the Lily Cai Chinese dance performance.  I love watching dancers and I am so glad that I can share that with my girls.  During the performance I was wondering what I would do if I had boys....probably drag them to Chinese dancers, too. :)  It was the first time Olive sat and watched a live performance like that.  The dances with giant streamers held her interest, but they were broken up by Lily Cai explaining the traditions and dynasties behind the dance...so a bit much for a two-year-old. Here's an example of some of the dances we saw.

Hannah wanted to pose

Then Olive wanted to pose

As Seen on Pinterest: Snow Paint

More snow fun!  Snow paint is water with food coloring in a squirt bottle or spray bottle.  We found squirt bottles are easier for little hands.

Snow Day!

Yesterday was our first big snowfall of the winter.  We got about 10 inches.  School was canceled..if any of us went to school. :)  We got to watch the snow fall all day long.  We also made popcorn and watched Toy Story for the first time (Hannah declared it too scary), read books about snow, ate snow ice cream, went outside twice, then once more with Steve to go sledding.  Olive enjoyed sledding down our sidewalk this year, but we didn't know how she would feel about the big hill.  She said it was fun and asked to go several times!  We have another adventure girl!  Hannah is wearing ski goggles.  She thought that was really cool.

Hannah in a Box

Sitting in a fabric box is still a favorite pastime.  

Puppet Theater

We had a large box leftover from a recent online order.  Boxes, are kid gold, right?  You can do anything with a cardboard box!  We decided on a puppet theater.  I cut a rectangle in the top half.  Then I took it to the garage and the girls painted it....pink, of course.  Okay, no judgments.  I know this is a far cry from the adorable homemade puppet theaters on Pinterest.  But my kids are happy with it...so I'm happy with it.  After all, this is a KID project.

After the pink dried, I reinforced the seam with some butterfly duct tape (come on- everyone has that around the house, right?) and also covered the edges of the rectangle.  Then more painting...purple this time!

The girls love it because they made it themselves.  I love it because it is cheap, easy, and I won't feel bad about using it for a few weeks (or however long they are interested in it) and throwing it out.  

As a bonus, the girls discovered their theater doubles as a playhouse with the cut-out becoming a door!

The Girlie Show

The girls put on "shows" for us daily.  This one is a winter fairy show.  Also, two points for anyone who gets the title of this post.

Transcript
Hannah:  Ladies and gentlemen, the show is starting.
Olive:  Ladies and gentlemen, the show is starting.  Rock and roll music!
Hannah:  No, it's not rock and roll music.
(Olive puts on dress up shoes that make noise)
Hannah:  Olive, I can't hear!  I can't hear, Olive, with your tapping noise.  Sorry, you'll have to take those off or sit.  Don't record at her!

Peekaboo Bowl

Steve's Holiday Party

I drove straight back from Columbia to go to Steve's holiday party.  His company always has theirs in January, you know, to avoid the holidays.  This year Steve helped plan the Casino Night theme, buy prizes, and decorate. It reminded me of Project Prom that we had in high school...but with better prizes.  The Baileys won a blender and outdoor fire pit.  Steve and I ended up with a foot massager (which the girls love) and a ping pong paddle.

Our view from the party

Of course since Steve brought our dress up stuff from home to have another "photo booth"

This reminds me that I never mentioned my holiday party.  I threw a party for all the stay-at-home moms in our house.  No, I didn't.  We went to the teacher party.  It was amazing.  We divided into teams and drove around Prairie Village collecting things (holiday ornament from a store, pinecone from a park, etc.)  It ended at Diane's house.  So much fun!!  And our team won!