Nemo - The Blizzard of 2013

On Friday, school was canceled and everyone across the state "battened down the hatches" and ran out for bread and milk in preparation for Nemo, the blizzard of 2013.  

Speaking of bread and milk, did you see the You Tube video that went viral about getting bread and milk before a snow storm?  Too funny!

Back to Nemo, I don't remember other blizzards having names.  I'm sure they did, but I just don't remember.  It must be the fact that this one shares a name with that silly orange clown fish, and so it is just memorable.

The snow started in the morning, but it didn't begin to accumulate until the afternoon.  Governor Patrick declared a state of emergency around 4:00 PM and banned all traffic from the roadways due to the high winds and limited visibility.  The snow was coming down at a good rate and the winds were strong, but with all of the hype, I have to say that I expected it to be worse than it was!  I'm not complaining though!  AND, I was not outside, so maybe it just seemed like it wasn't too bad!

Around 5:00 PM on Friday 

Reagan and Kelly walked to North with Tom shortly after 5:00.  They said it was very windy!

Reagan at North Elementary

Here is a video of Reagan and Kelly at North.  You can hear the wind whipping!

I really like this video of Reagan being silly dancing out in the blizzard.  She is too much!

Kate was so amazed.  She looked out at the snow for quite a while.  She can't pronounce the "s", so she says "no" for snow.

One last video!  I took this one just before 9:00 PM.  It was so windy; I was certain we would lose power!

 This morning, I woke up to find this!  We were happy and fortunate to still have power; many people were not so lucky.  

Reagan and Collin with Max and Jack in the Finlaws' yard.

Tomorrow will be a great day for sledding!

Hurricane Sandy

We were fortunate that Hurricane Sandy was just an annoyance around here.  The worst that happened to us is a tree branch fell on our fence.

School was closed for two days and we stayed busy.  Here is a little bit of what we did:

Reagan used a kit to carve her pumpkin.  It is supposed to be a cat wearing a witch hat.  Not sure we will use a kit agaiin.

Collin came up with his own design, drew it on paper and then on the pumpkin, and I helped him carve it.

This was the first time we have ever carved pumpkins; usually, we just paint and decorate them.  The benefit of carving is that we had pumpkin seeds to roast!  I roasted them in butter and salt and the kids thought they tasted like popcorn.

They also built a fort, watched Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and spent time with Grandma.

Kate was happy to have so much time with her siblings; she loves all of them so much.

Kate and Reagan both have fevers today.  Kate's fever started last night and Reagan woke up with one this morning.  They are both right around 100.  When Reagan woke up this morning, she said her head felt "overweight"; I couldn't help laughing at that!  I feel so sad for her because her class is having a Halloween party today and I was going to help in the class.  We even made mini pumpkin chocolate chip muffins for the class.

Luckily, Collin was happy to deliver the muffins to Reagan's class.  I know how excited she was about it, bummer.  She is still hoping to be better tonight so that she can do a little trick or treating.

Rain Art

We have had so much beautiful weather here (not complaining at all; I'm loving it) that I have seriously been waiting and waiting to do this activity.  When it started to rain a few days ago, I quickly gathered the materials (I was afraid it wouldn't last long) and put my kids to work.  I gave them watercolor pencils and some watercolor paper and they set to work creating their own art.

Then, I told them that we would go outside and let the rain help us create art by changing the drawings a bit.  C wanted no part of this and he quickly disappeared with his drawing.  R loved the idea, of course.

She stood out in the rain for a few minutes watching it fall on her drawing.  Then she used a paint brush to blend the colors with the rain water.

This is a fun way to create art.  We love the watercolor pencils too; ours are made by Alex and I recommend them for kids!  Stay tuned for another fun art project with watercolor pencils!

Temperature Investigation

We are reading and learning about the weather right now, and I thought it was important to know a little bit about how we measure temperatures.  We bought an outdoor thermometer (they are only about $2, unless you buy the digital variety but I wanted a good old fashioned thermometer) and examined it a bit.

I asked questions:

• What do you think the red line means?
• What are the numbers on the side?
• Which way will the red line move if the temperature gets hotter/colder?
• Our thermometer has numbers in twenty degree increments (on the Fahrenheit side), so I took this opportunity to count by 10s with R and ask her what numbers fill in the blanks on the thermometer

Then we proceeded with a Sid the Science Kid experiment.  We filled one bowl with ice and put the thermometer in the bowl.  R correctly predicted that the temperature would go down.  She observed how cold the ice felt and enjoyed watching the red line move.

Then we filled a bowl with warm oatmeal.  I'm not sure why they use oatmeal on the show (the website description of the experiment lists warm water as the test), but R insisted on doing it exactly like Sid and we happened to have a packet of expired instant oatmeal so we used it in the name of science!  R loved squishing the oatmeal between her fingers (she is so different from C!) and observed how warm it felt.  She correctly predicted that the temperature of the oatmeal was higher than the temperature of the room.

R had fun moving the thermometer back and forth between the two bowls and observing the change in temperature.  We did not track the temperatures; we just noted whether they went up or down.  The big thrill was watching the red line move! 




If you would like to try some fun science experiments with your kids and don't really know what to do, check out what other bloggers have done with their kids by visiting Science Sunday at Adventures in Mommydom.

Storm Clouds

We are reading a few books about thunder and lightning right now, so we made our own storm clouds.

I cut out four cloud shapes to make two stuffed clouds (make sure the clouds are all the same shape so that you can put them together later), and mixed a little black paint with a few drops of white paint.  C and R painted the clouds.

We stapled around the edges of the clouds, leaving an opening for stuffing.  C and R filled them with cotton balls, and we stapled them closed.

I cut lightning bolt shapes out of cereal boxes, and C and R painted them with gold glitter paint.  Then, we stapled the bolts to the clouds.

Once completed, run around the house making loud boom/crack noises just like thunder and lightning.

One of the books we enjoyed reading this week is Thunder Boomer by Shutta Crum.  This is a cute book about a summer thunder storm, complete with colorful illustrations and fun sound effects.


To see more book projects/story stretchers and book related art, check out stArt at A Mommy's Adventures.

Sid the Science Kid - Weather

We are studying weather this week, and so is Sid the Science Kid.  Honestly, this just happened to fall into place for me.  I love it when that happens.  I had planned a week of weather study and then I found out that Sid the Science Kid is all about weather this week too!  Hooray! 

This week, we will be following Sid's lead and making observations about:  rain, how sunblock works, temperature, and wind power.  To read about the experiments we will be conducting, click here.  We are also reading a few weather books.  Stay tuned for more details! 

It's warm outside

We have been so lucky to have beautiful weather in the 60's this weekend. There were a few things I meant to do with the kids, but we threw it all out the window and we are just spending time outside enjoying the weather while it lasts.

I do want to mention that right now we are reading, over and over again, The Night Before St. Patrick's Day by Natasha Wing. This book has given us a lot of ideas for St. Patrick's Day projects and we are currently working on leprechaun traps. I will be posting them soon.

Also, if you read my earlier post about the book, What a Wonderful World you should know that C and R are still in love with that book and now sing the song constantly. It is so sweet. R always asks why the babies are crying.