A Fabulous and Free Saturday in San Antonio!

Evenin' y'all!

Today was a great day. It was the first Saturday in ages that we had that was purely for family. Nothing to be done. Just the five of us enjoying our town! The best part, except for lunch and parking, the whole day was free! Thanks PBS!

It started bright and early with breakfast tacos a very healthy breakfast and a trip to the San Antonio Children's Museum. Our local PBS station was hosting a back to school bash with a special appearance by Peg + Cat! We do not watch much tv but Peg + Cat is one of our favorites along with Duck Dynasty and anything to do with fixin' up old cars! 

We solved the problem so everything is awesome problem solved!

Quick fishing break!

Rolling doh into numbers. Great practice!

Observing stalactites. 

Driving a front end loader and pushing the buttons was the highlight for the girls. 

Lego building. You then load it onto a conveyer and drop it from a height to see if your structure could survive the fall. None of ours could.

This one is my favorite! It's our whole family! Daddy, Mommy, PopPop, Baby Cakes, and Tinker. 

...yes, PopPop has bigger hands than Mommy...she didn't let me forget about it all day!

Finding fossils

Leaving on a Imagin-air Airlines

Pilot future?

Tie a piece of fabric onto the loom. Its been building for years. Very cool!

Step back into time and visit a Victorian Lounge. The look on their faces was priceless!

ALWAYS time for a quick tea party with my girl. 

The snake loved Cakes and was very interested in her!

And wouldn't you know it! The museums are all connecting over the Matisse exhibit in town at the San Antonio Museum of Art and Henri Matisse made an appearance. It was so perfect to have studied him all week and then to be able to show Cakes an actual picture of him with his silvery beard and love of cats. It was a wonderful way to wrap up that lesson for the week! (Next two weeks is Monet! I can't wait)

We then went to the Buckhorn museum and the Original Mexican Restaurant (that's really what its called) which was soooo delicious! Then we got to walk around the beautiful River Walk and saw the Alamo. All the best parts of our beautiful downtown. Living in the same place your whole life can quite often make you blind to the beauty that surrounds you. Sometimes a staycation really is the best way to go!

Buckhorn Museum

The Original Mexican Restaurant

Welcome to Downtown San Antonio

The Alamo

Such a glorious, albeit crazy hot, day!

X Marks the Spot- Day 4

Missed a day? Check out our other days X Marks the Spot: Day 1



Today, since we finished all we were gonna do of the weekly curriculum, we took advantage of the artist study included in the GLE curriculum. This week was Henri Matisse!

The San Antonio Museum of Art is hosting the Henri Matisse exhibit! I was so excited to be able to take Baby Cakes there and see the actual art! Little did I know they were charging 25.00! just for me to get into the museum and into the Matisse exhibit. Baby Cakes is only 3!! We decided it was not a good way to spend my alotted spending money for the week! Oh well!

We hit the central library instead and loaded up on some good stuff. Then, I even was able to find a book about Matisse written for kiddos!

We read it once yesterday and then again today so she was pretty familiar with the story today. Then, we gathered our materials and sat down to create like Matisse!

First: Jazz

Now we shall paint some sheets of paper!

Then, with scissors in hand, cut dancing shapes!

I made the windows on top while Cakes was creating her shapes. The mirror the ones in the book!

We had a lovely time being Henri Matisse today before we left to go pick up sister Pop Pop for some quality time before she starts back to school!

Tomorrow will be a special day too! Stay tuned!!

Sincerely, Sara

X Marks the Spot: Day 3

X Marks the Spot- Day 3

Todays life skills was practicing sharing toys. Baby Cakes is already very good at sharing with Tinker and decided she wanted to learn how to feed Tinker her cereal. What a good skill to learn! She was such a great helper!

A few weeks ago I went to Lakeshore Learning here in town and laminated a whole bunch of worksheets so we could use them for future kiddos! so we worked on a few!

Xx Do-A-Dot Letter by Confessions of a Homeschooler

When it was lunch time, Baby Cakes helped me make her sammich. "I'm in charge of the turkey!" She loves to help make lunch! I went into the restroom after we made it and came out to find this: 

She's made herself a pleasant place to sit at the table. She's such a big girl!

X Marks the Spot- Day 2                                                          X Marks the Spot- Day 4

X Marks the Spot- Day 2

This morning we made crepes for the first time! They came out pretty good! Mae chose Nutella and then we sprinkled powdered sugar on. Delish!

For her schooling today we took it easy (it was grocery getting day) so she watched What's in the Bible First 5 Minutes and What's in the Bible: Genesis

She opted for the gun range ear muffs over her ear buds because they held them inside as well as shielded her from the "terribly loud" vacuum. We also did laundry! 

Today's life skill was making the bed. I showed her how to do it then she did it. She likes to have it made now- going back again to the age of order. 

Simple day= lots of play!

Sincerely,

Sara

X Marks the Spot- Day 1! First Day of Pre-School!!              X Marks the Spot- Day 3

X Marks the Spot- Day 1! First Day of Pre-School!!

**This post does include affiliate links**

X Marks the Spot- Day 2

X Marks the Spot- Day 3

X Marks the Spot- Day 4

No, I don't have one of those cutesy pictures of her first day of Pre-School because we've been busy, you know, doing school! :-) But it will happen this weekend! Better late than never I suppose.

However, I do have pictures of our activities for the day!

We chose God's Little Explorers: A-Z Adventures in God's Word and World for Preschoolers in addition to Before Five In A Row. God's Little Explorers is a 28 week pre-school curriculum that goes through the bible in chronological order and hits on most major bible points as well as all the letters (wonderfully in depth), numbers, shapes, and life skills among other things. Its so beautiful and fun to plan because of all the lovely colors and design. Best part: Its FREE!!!! There's also a lovely paid package that has everything you need in one put together pdf file (easy to send to your printer of choice and have printed in shiny color) for only 17.00! (It's on sale right now!)

This week is "X marks the Spot" because "God's Word is a Treasure".

I hid this little "treasure chest" of school supplies in my room underneath the sand colored sheets (convenient!!) and drew a map of our house on a piece of paper. The paper ended up being used for scissor practice so I do not have a picture of that. I drew our couches and giant rocks, the dining table as a cave, and the hallway as a river. The sand dunes had a red x marked with those pencils on the side and she was so excited to have a new bible! The Read and Learn Bible is what is suggested in the G.L.E curriculum and is full of beautiful pictures on every page as well as quality writing perfect for the little ones. 

We made this treasure map we will use throughout the year beginning with letter x and ending with the bible! It was fun and Baby Cakes spent a lot of the rest of the day walking around with one hand over her eye saying "Arrgh!" 

Next up was cutting practice using her brand new scissors. They are Fiskars Pre-School Spring Action Scissors and they open right back up so she focuses on squeezing them shut not having to open them back up. It helps her have success! 

 Don't you love her little piles? I've read about the age in which children start to desire order in their environment- I believe this is the time.

This is the face of a focused cutter!

I also set up this book basket by the suggestion of the curriculum. We just happened to have all the books on the list because all three of them are also in Before Five In A Row!! (I have requested the next two weeks from the library though-cant be all this easy!)

We had a lovely first day of school looking through the bible and finding the old and new testaments. Scissor skills are fun! Lets see what happens tomorrow!!

Sincerely,

Sara

**This post does include affiliate links for your convenience. Our family gets a small percentage of anything you purchase through the links at no additional cost to you! Thanks for contributing**