Superhero night

For a fun addition to our superhero theme, I created Superhero night. We started off the night with a special dinner. I made batman biscuits (boy that huge wilton cookie cutter set has come in handy), superman soup, captain america shields and spiderman sundaes.  Now things always look better in my head but this was for the boys and they thought it was awesome. It's a good thing they are too young for pinterest or they'd see all the super awesome stuff those moms are doing!

After dinner, the assignment was to create your own superhero. Everyone (Mr. Fun-hater included) had to come up with their own persona, powers and create a costume. Then we took pictures and Bob created special badges to be given out when they passed their test. While bob worked on those, the boys watched a couple superhero shows.

Here are the superheroes and their profiles:
Dawson: Captain America-Able to eat entire body weight in a single sitting, Stronger than all two year olds the world over, A will as strong as stone

Ollie: Super Dream Creature Man- Blow fire like a dragon, fly, shield he can fling and knock people down and shield comes right back,super strong when lifting concrete, change into any super hero

Me: Super Mama- Caffeine gives her super strength, Hugs that melt anyenemy, x-ray vision makes delicious treats, wrangle several villians at once


 Bob: Super Dev Man- Shoots conditional expressions from eyes, wrap enemies in closures, super duper bitwise operator kick, immediate function chop

Following the shows, it was time for the obstacle course. I'm thankful for the circular layout of our house. It made it easy to set this up. We have balance beams so those were included and the rest was around the house stuff. I think we did the course 30 times. They loved every minute.

The whole night was a success. Ollie just tonight asked if we could have another superhero night. It was worth the effort!

 Until next time, it's supermama signing off. Happy playing to all and to all a good night!

superheroes!

My house has taken on a while new life. The boys have recently become completely infatuated with superheroes--x-men, avengers, batman, spiderman, teenage mutant ninja turtles. It doesn't matter as long as they have a super power. I decided to put this new interest to work and developed my lessons around superheroes. We did some super science lessons, super math, super reading and super fun activities. Lucky for me, there are people who have already created some great printables that we were able to use. Look here and here for those.

The kids love science experiments. I'm really focusing on 3 parts of the scientific method- problem, hypothesis and conclusion. I just want my kids to start thinking scientifically and developing ideas. I like inquiry based learning so it's really great to watch them experiment to make discoveries.  One of the activities was really simple. We simply cut a bar of ivory soap into 4 pieces. We stuck one piece on a plate and placed in the microwave. The kids stood perched watching it. It was really neat. They were jumping up and down hollering. We did it four times and then they played with it. The crumbly mess was everywhere but Ollie asked an interesting question, "What happens when we put it back into the microwave?" So we did and it did the same thing again even though it started in a different form.

We also made a sparkly explosion. This experiment is all over the internet. It was just a vase, some food coloring, some glitter, baking soda and vinegar. The kids made their predictions and we took turns adding different components. Even Nora was fascinated.

I also made a discovery box about magnets. Each boy received a magnet (just a strong one off the fridge) and they shared a box of items to test. I included plastic, wood, paper, fabric, a coin and metal. Dawson was especially fascinated. Finding out magnets had super powers was pretty awesome.

One of the things the kids enjoyed the most was was capes. I kept thinking, "I really must go to hobby lobby and buy some fabric to make capes but I really hate to drag everyone there and I really don't want to spend money." So I took an old sheet and cut them out. I also debated staying up late and sewing and whatnot but in the end sleep won and I decided to let them have just plain-old-unfinished-capes. Oh the horror! haha. I gave the boys paint and they went to town painting there very own cape. SO.MUCH. FUN!!

 We did telling time, counting, sorting, patterns, measurement. We read superhero books. We played games. We learned a lot. We even had a superhero night. I'll blog about that in another post. Homeschooling is the best!