Pandas, and Other Things We Did This Week

Bamboo Paintings

Making a panda mask with paper plates and black paper.

Pandas in bamboo.

Can you spot the well camouflaged panda in this picture? 

Inside the greenhouse.

Panda lunch. Rice ball decorated with nori and vegan cheese and a pea.

Violet had hers with cucumbers and Penelope had avocados with hers. 

We finally did our calendar for March.

Some vegetable prints.

Rainbow water color.

More rainbows.

Open gym.

Violet walking on the "balancing bean".

Pen getting a lesson from an older girl.

They both wore their tutus to gym.

We tried a new Chinese dish.

Lots of chopstick practice around here lately.

We got MORE snow. Violet is showing Itty Bitty the snow.

Tissue paper rainbows.

By the end Violet was tired of scrunching up her tissue paper squares.

Ta da!

Pudding finger paint.

Violet ate a lot of it.

And painted with a lot of it too.

We finally made an upside down snowgirl! We named her Upsidedown  Ivy.

I love this picture!

Penelope's "friendship hands" she made in the snow.

Violet watching Penelope clean all the snow off the car for me with the broom.

Pen finishing up her panda lapbook .

We made gluten free chocolate playdough.

I gave them old cupcake papers, sparkles and candles so they could play cupcakes and birthday parties.

It kept them busy for a long time.

Pen showing her Daddy the lapbook.

One more trip to the sledding hill.

Violet and her daddy.

Always happiest outside, like her mama.

We learned a whole lot about pandas this week. I always thought they were cute, but now I think they are one of my favorite animals. We recorded info we found while reading through piles of books about them, and put together a lapbook at the end of the week. We also made some panda crafts, including the masks in the pictures. We watched part of a documentary on China on Netflix - just the part about pandas. We also watched a lot of videos of panda kindergarten, something I never knew about. It is one of the ways the Chinese are trying to save the pandas by raising babies in captivity. The movies are too precious, what endearing animals these creatures are!

We took a trip to Blithewold to visit the bamboo forest. The girls brought their panda masks so they could play panda there. I took some pictures of Pen when she was deep in the bamboo wearing her mask and she was able to see how well their black and white color helps them be almost invisible in the bamboo. And while we were there we went into the greenhouse for a bit. It was so magical to be surrounded by blooms and green things, it was hard to leave the warmth and bright beauty in there.

We made lots of rainbows too, and did an experiment where we shone light through a glass to make a real rainbow. We got a bunch of snow, which bothered me greatly but thrilled the kids. I eventually got over my disgust and we went out and embraced what was hopefully the last snow of winter. We built our upside down snow girl and a fort and rolled some crazy giant snowballs. We all went sledding together and had a bunch of fun, and we tried a new Chinese dish in our quest to find something gluten free, vegan, and acceptable to most people to bring to international night to share.