Snow, snow, snow!

My apologies for the scarcity of posts last week. I've lost the cable that connects camera to computer, so though I have lots of pictures, I have no way of showing them to you. If it doesn't turn up in the next day or two, I'll have to cave and buy another. Bah.

In the meantime, a call for assistance: I have a craft planned for this week or next which requires a wide-mouth glass jar. A short, squat 500-mL jar would work best. A little smaller would be all right, but not much larger. If you could all send one or two in this week, I would be very grateful.

This past week, in keeping with our snow theme, we made paper snowflakes, white playdough, and collage snowmen. We made seats and nests in the snow outside, caught snowflakes on our mittens, and tried to make snowballs. The latter was not hugely successful, given how cold and dry the snow was, but the kids were perfectly satisfied with the snow-puffs and snow-lumps they accumulated on their mittens.

We tried catching snowflakes on black paper. The idea was to get a good look at the form of a snowflake. Instead, we all learned that snowflakes melt very quickly when you breathe all over them!

And finally, courtesy of the city, we got to see snow being pushed into windrows by graders and sidewalk ploughs, churned into chunks and spat out through a tube (by the chunking, churning, snow-spewing machine), and trundled away in dump trucks. VEEEERY exciting!

Happy New Year!

I'm back! You can call this my new year's resolution, if you wish -- though I won't: A surer recipe for back-sliding and inevitable failure I've never known -- but it is my intention to be more focussed and conscientious with the blog. (Yes, I know what they say about good intentions. Hush, now.)

Hence the post! Aren't you all so excited?

Welcome back, everyone. Here is our roster for the new year:

Astrid -- she's, ummm... 20 months, I think, and is here five days a week.
Eliana -- as we all know, is FOUR, and come half-days, three days a week.
Milan -- two and a half, three full days a week.
Owen -- two and a half, five days.
Willa -- 12 months (right? maybe? has there been a birthday yet?) and, as of today, full-time.

The theme for this month -- yes! more focus and not-a-resolution! -- is SNOW.

To that end, we'll have a variety of snow-related crafts and activities, indoors and out. Today, for example, we will be making more playdough. Our old stuff is getting a wee bit revolting. This batch will be uncoloured and will have teeny silver sparkles in it, so it will look just like...

SNOW!

And, with snow-playdough, you can make snowmen and snowballs and snow forts and igloos... And that's just one item on my fun and creative and, yes, even educational, list.

We'll see how far down it I get...