More Firefighter Stuff

I forgot to add something to my post about our firefighter day at school.  Everett and Ashley made their own fire trucks!  It was not as fun as painting a box would be, but it is a lot smaller to store and I didn't have the right kind of paints anyway.

I knew they could draw a fire truck.  They draw vehicles all the time.  But could they cut one out of paper?  

I guess they can!  It was fun to see them figure out what shapes they needed, and yes, I did give a little input.  Poor Ashley couldn't find her little preschool-sized scissors and was stuck with big ones.  I helped her with the wheels but she did everything else on her own.  Everett got down to business, as usual.

I thought they turned out pretty cute so I wanted to save them electronically (my track record for papers is not great).

Halloween

Here is a glut of pictures for a glut of candy on a glut of a holiday.  Presenting: the Johnson Superheroes (and their dog)!!!

William wasn't too keen on having the dog costume hood up until I showed him what he looked like in the mirror and said, "Look, William is a dog!"  This boy loves dogs and was very excited. 

Everett and Ashley gathered quite a collection of candy.  William didn't walk up to very many doors so he only had a few pieces.

He was pretty excited about it, though.  He never gets candy!

Ashley was thrilled to be Supergirl.  

We ran an errand in the car today, with both kids dressed in their full superhero gear, and Ashley informed me that Supergirl does not ride in cars; she only flies.  Well, then.

(Mr. Tough Guy, sticking his chest out and all)

Everett has been dreaming of his Wolverine costume for a long time.  I didn't find one I liked for a price I liked so I made this one from scratch.  I wanted it to be separates so he can wear it around whenever he wants.

It was pretty funny while we were trick-or-treating to watch Everett try to grab candy and put it in his bag with those dowel-claws of his.  Mostly he found a way to be successful but he was very slow.

I would not have gone through all the effort of making Everett this costume if I didn't think he will wear it all the time.  There is a chance the novelty will wear off faster than I expect but I think he will get a lot of use out of it.  If not, maybe I'll make Everett be Wolverine again next year!

Spoooooky

Last Monday for Family Night, we carved pumpkins.  The kids were ecstatic!  Ashley wanted to do Sleeping Beauty and Everett wanted a halloween bat, but I convinced them to be satisfied with faces.  As they get older and can carve a pumpkin on their own, and they still want to come up with something elaborate, more power to them.

The pumpkins are pretty simple but they do the trick.  Can you tell that Everett loved the scary aspect of his design?

We've lit them enough times that the five inch candle has burned completely down.  We'll put a fresh one in there tonight before we go trick-or-treating.  Happy Halloween, everyone!

Hero School: Firefighters

During our "real heroes" week at school, the kids and I also talked about firefighters.  Ashley especially enjoyed this one and announced several times that she wants to be a firefighter when she grows up.  Maybe she will!

We read some books (of course, because I can't not read books) about firefighters and fire stations and fire trucks.

Then we had a relay race.  It was really fun!  It began with one child laying on the couch, pretending to be a sleeping firefighter.  The other two people suddenly made an alarm sound and the firefighter bolted over to her firefighter gear, threw it on, and jumped in the fire truck (huggies box).  

(The fire trucks where we live are actually blue and white, but who's counting?)

Then we all ran upstairs to a burning house, which was actually our dining room table.  But the real tragedy was that stuffed animals were trapped inside and needed to be rescued!  Firefighters enter and exit burning buildings safely, and the only safe route was under a row of chairs.

Upon rescue, the animals needed to "stop, drop, and roll."

Whew!  The rescue is complete and no one is on fire.  Success!

After our speedy activity was all played out, we practiced our stops, drops, and rolls.  I had never talked about this with my kids before.  I asked them what they would do if their clothes caught on fire and they replied, "I would call the fire fighters!"

Well, not quite.  So we practiced.  I put felt scraps (representing fire) all over their clothes and had them roll on the carpet until they were all off.  This could have worked great, but the felt didn't stick as well as the internet said it would because Everett and Ashley were wearing regular cotton tops.  But I do think they got the point and hopefully if they ever need to remember this tactic, they will.

We also practiced putting out fires, because what's the fun of being a firefighter for a day if you can't spray any water?

Chalk flames on our shed door and spray bottles made for a pretty fun activity.

We all had a good time.  Poor William gets a little left out but he mostly has fun watching from my lap.

Police Academy

Since Everett and Ashley are going to be superheros for Halloween, I thought this week for preschool we would talk about real heroes in our community.  

Yesterday we talked about Police Officers.  It was really fun!  The kids had a great time.  We began with some books we got at the library, and then we made paper hats and badges.  It is too confusing to call everyone in the house "Officer Johnson" so we went with "Officer (First Name)."

Everett and Ashley had great fun decorating these.

They both felt very tough.  "I am very, very strong!" Ashley kept announcing.  

First we practiced being traffic cops.  Two police officers sat on the fireplace in their (pretend) squad car while another person "drove" around the main floor of our house.  As soon as that person started running, the police officers turned on their sirens and pursued.  Once the offending speeder was pulled over, the police officers wrote him a ticket with his name and the dollar fine he had to pay:

"Everett

6"

I wish we only had to pay six dollars for a speeding ticket!  After a caution from the police officer about driving more carefully, the driver went on his way.  We all took turns and we had a great time.  The kids even wrote up a ticket for Joel after he got home.

The favorite game of the day was our "lost babies" game.  One of us would pretend to be a police officer and the other two would be distraught parents who had lost their baby.  The parents described the baby to the officer on duty and the nice officer rescued the baby.  I got this idea from the internet, but since this game is intended for an entire class of children and there are only three of us, we used stuffed animals for the lost babies.

It was fun to see Everett and Ashley act the part of a worried parent.

And I loved this game for a preschool lesson because it is great for little minds to come up with a way to describe one teddy bear out of many without telling the police officer exactly which one it was.

We also did fingerprinting.  Did anyone else enjoy doing this in school?  All you do is rub the graphite of your pencil in a thick layer on a piece of paper.  Then you rub your finger in it and press a piece of transparent tape over the tip of your finger, and voila!  Instant fingerprint.  Save it on a white piece of paper and you'll be able to clearly see the lines in your very own fingerprint.

You can also dust for fingerprints on glass objects with baby powder.  Who knew?  Well, apparently the internet did because that is where I got the idea.  You have to have a delicate hand to actually be able to dust a fingerprint without ruining it, so I adapted the activity to suit preschool-level coordination by putting a little vaseline on my fingers before I made the fingerprints on a dark bowl.  This made the baby powder stick much better.  Everett and Ashley enjoyed seeing the fingerprints appear.

I don't want to leave out our little William.  This shadow of mine spends most of our preschool sessions on my lap.

And yes, he frequently sucks his thumb.  Cute!

Conversations with Everett and Ashley

A few nights ago during our nightly scripture reading we read the story about Captain Moroni and Zarahemnah.  It was definitely a story that kept Everett's interest.  Battles, a tough hero, and cutting off someone's hair?  Yep.  It is Everett's kind of story.  So when it was over, I was interested in seeing what made the biggest impression on him.

"What did we learn from this story?" I asked an open-ended question but I wanted to see what he would come up with.
"That guy cut off his hair!!!"  Everett raised his arm up, mimicking the act of raising the cut scalp on a sword. "It was so cool!  Can Wolverine cut off people's hair?"

Everett compares everything we do to Wolverine's abilities.  Can you guess what he has been asking to be for Halloween for months?

And Ashley is going to be Supergirl.  I was a little surprised--I thought she might want to be something more girly, but like Everett she is actually quite taken with superheroes.

She still has her girly moments, though.  

Joel teased Ashley one night about giving her a haircut (which she definitely needs).

"Should we cut your hair off to your ears?  How about short like mine?"

"NO!" Ashley was insistent and offended.

"How come?" Joel asked.

"Because then I wouldn't be beautiful anymore."  Ashley's voice was timid and serious.

"Do you have to have long hair to be beautiful?" 

Ashley nodded.

"Well, I have short hair.  Am I beautiful?"

"No."

"Your cat doesn't have long hair," I couldn't help butting in.  Ashley treasures this stuffed cat and I was interested in seeing what she had to say.

"But it has nice fuzzies!"  Ashley was not dissuaded.

I don't know where Ashley gets the idea that long hair makes a person beautiful.  This is a girl whose favorite movies are of the tough-girl variety, like Bolt or Mulan.  She also loves watching Spiderman with her brother.  I know I have long hair but I never talk about it with anyone, let alone with her.  I know lots of little girls with very cute short haircuts and I would never want Ashley to develop a complex or give anyone else one by telling someone with a cute bob that short hair is not beautiful.

What a funny girl.  Hopefully she will grow out of this one.  Right now I correct her but I don't make a big deal out of it.  

But she is our Ashley and we sure do love her.  Everett and Ashley truly are best friends.  They even have made it an official arrangement.  We are blessed to have both of them in our family.

Everett's Story

As I said in the post below about Ashley's story, we wrote stories for preschool one day.  This is Everett's.  He was anxious to write the story but not so keen on illustrating it.  But he trucked on and drew it all out in pen before hastily coloring it in.  At one point I said in surprise, "Hey Everett, you spent so much time drawing those pictures.  Are you sure you want to just scribble over them?"  He looked up at me and said, "Oh, sorry Mom."  Then kept right on scribbling.  I laughed pretty hard at that.  What a fun boy!