i brought our little wooden van from home for the week.  there were quite a few doll house people and animals getting rides.

then we moved it to our paint box and used it lever style.

eventually we added paint…known as “lava” since we were big into volcanoes this week!

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we also had our own van with chairs as van seats, fabric strips as seat belts, diaper bags loaded up, car seats installed (i kept turning the “carseats” backwards but they would get turned back…), a paper plate and rhythm stick steering wheel mounted on our ironing board.  it was a busy place!

and just like some real babies, this baby was brought to circle time still in her carseat.

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by mid week most kids in the classes knew that we had to mix vinegar with baking soda to make our volcanoes erupt.  but by looking at the bottles it wasn’t clear which was vinegar and which was water…so, we had a smell-test:

closing your eyes can help focus on the smell.

then we made the volcanoes ERUPT!!!  over and over and over again.

there was some ear covering in anticipation…

and by the end of the week mr rob and i had perfected our technique…we almost hit the ceiling!

yeah, volcano time!!

or if you decide to write “tea t” but you don’t leave a space, then you’ve written “teat”  and that’s a little funny.

each child got a tea bag, snipped off the top, used those little fingers to pull out pinches of tea to sprinkle on the glue T shape.

as i’ve said before, we don’t usually limit the number of kids at a certain area. but oh. my. this flax seed table situation needed something. it was really hard for it to remain constructive (i.e.  in the table). thanks to my friend and co-worker, we emptied the whole thing out only to put it all back within a half hour. i reevaluated my goal (for this to be a calming experience) and determined limiting the number of participants might be the best bet.

so we did.

the big flax seed 2 reminds you.  the flax seed label on the chairs remind you.

there is a sign up board if you want a turn.

ahhhhh, there has been some wonderfully relaxing play!

water down a gutter is oh, so much fun!!

and after checking the weather, we headed outside for another gutter!

just as much fun!