Preschool Corner--New York Style

My lovely husband had a dear friend from high school call him up last week and tell him that he would be in NY for business...and asked if we could meet up. Sure enough, Ryan magically got leave and we managed a mini vacation!

I packed four file folder games, two are "old favorites" that Kaelyn can do in a flash (Hot and Cold items sort, and Mammals/Reptiles and Birds sorting) and two are concepts that she needs work on (matching words with their numbers and matching capital and lower case letters..the last one is more of a sensory overload issue than a knowledge issue).  So, we did Preschool week on the road. To see what other families are up to click here! If you are interested, it's a great free resource (just join up) at File Folder Fun. I really should visit their site and make some more...these games are GREAT for travel!

 

(this is an old picture, but that's the file folder)

While in CT (right outside of NY), we went to this AWESOME children's museum! The girls had a blast there! We visited the "rainforest" portion and it amused Kaelyn to no end that Gorilla's lived in nests. (Because Kaelyn loves to pull all the blankets off the bed and make a nest to sleep in...like on Dinosaur Train....anyone else have a floor sleeper?)

The girls had fun in the shopping center scanning the bananas and bringing them back to feed the babies! We spent a large amount of our time in that area because we could talk about the Magic School Bus Episode that we watched recently since they had a faux bromeliad that provided a mini ecosystem in a tree! You could also build a bridge! (Kaelyn thought it was great fun and Anna loved breaking it so that she could start again!)

After this we spent a large amount of time in the body section, matching the brain and other organs to their appropriate spots and helping people by driving the ambulance! (This was really nice because Kaelyn is developing these strange fears of things...like falling off the Earth, or into a crack in the Earth, or her Heart falling. We were able to show her why it wouldn't fall out. Is anyone else having similar fears creep up into their three year olds minds?)

Anna and Daddy visited the toddler zone after some water play and  worked on some climbing skills

While Kaelyn and I visited the construction zone to build an awesome arch. She put all the blocks in the appropriate order for as long as she could, and then I had to assist.

(baby bump!)

Kaelyn has been struggling with her listening skills recently (Anyone else having this problem or been there and have any suggestions?? We've started playing directions games, and it's not a lack of her understanding positional phrases or anything...just a lack of using her ears/eyes/common sense).

The next museum we visited was the Hall of Science Museum in Queens NY (yes we are adventerous souls!)

This museum wasn't on Kaelyn's level but had a lot of interesting things that have me dieing to take her back when she is 10! She still enjoyed a lot of the exhibits....

She loved trying to catch rocks with the arm of the deep sea submarine, watching ice comets zoom across the table, programming the rover, and building molecules!

All in all it was a very busy but fun family vacation! So nice to finally get to spend some time with one of my husband's good friends...and I hope that we can make a family vacation together in the near future!