Post Office Field Trip

We got to go on a fun field trip today at the post office! I've never been behind the counter before...so this was a first for all of us! :)

We all got to go in the back room where they opened up the giant rolling door and showed us where the big mail truck backs in and turned on the conveyor belt to show us how they move the mail along. Joshua's favorite part was when he got his hand stamped. :) The man showed them all the different stamps they use on the mail for different reasons and let the kids pick one to have stamped on their hands.

Some of the kids had a chance to sort the mail and they told us what they do when the mail comes here to a wrong address. They gave the kids a ride on one of the carts they use to move the big packages around...and showed them how every package that comes through gets x-rayed. Joy said that was her favorite part.  :)

Some of the kids got to shred some old mail and others got to go through the steps of mailing and package...

Of course, this is the military mailroom...I'm sure in the regular post office things look a little different, but the kids sure enjoyed seeing it all! 

They even made each of the kids a little goodie bag with stickers that looked like postage stamps, a pencil, balloons, candy and different mailing forms and address labels. The kids loved it! So can you guess what we played throughout the rest of the day?

The kiddos spent lots of time making mail! They wrote each other letters and enjoyed using the special items from their goodie bags. :)

Joy liked filling out the different mailing forms and labels that the post office gave her. They even wrote little notes on them that explained what each of the spaces was for like, "Who is it from?", "Who is it to?", "What's in the box?"....

We designed some of our own postage stamps...(Mommy helped Faith a little, but only where she told me too!)

We talked a little bit about how much it costs to mail a letter and a package and about how most of the time it is determined by weight. Then we got out our little math scale and weighed some of our 'mail' that we had made. 

Living overseas, we always use the flat rate boxes and the kids are familiar with these. So I explained to them how they are different than mailing a regular box and how it's really nice that it costs the same no matter how much it weighs!

Joy helped me make a little blue mailbox for our play mail and we learned an easy little song that the kids sang while they 'mailed' their letters. It was called 'The Mail Carrier's Song', to the tune of 'Row Your Boat'...

"Write, write, write your cards,

And lots of letters too. 

I will bring them to your friends, 

And they will write back soon!"

Later on after using all of our stamp stickers and mailing our letters, Joshua volunteered to be the mailman and deliver them to everyone. :) He emptied out the mailbox and loaded up his backpack which was his 'mail bag' for the day.

He LOVED delivering the mail to each of the girls and sorting through to see what was for himself!

He's the cutest mailman I've ever seen....  :)

They were excited to find letters in there that they didn't write to each other! :) Mommy snuck some in the mailbox for each one of them and included a sweet treat in the envelope. I think we'll definitely be playing mail again soon!

Read Across America & Dr. Seuss's Birthday!

Today was Read Across America day AND Dr. Seuss's birthday! Two great reasons to have a little extra fun with our books. :)

This morning, before I even told the kids what today was and what we were going to do, I found them all huddled together enjoying a book that Joy was reading aloud to the other kids...SO COOL! I think it is great that already they have such a love for books!

They were so excited when they found out that today was going to be a special day!

We pulled out all of our Dr. Seuss books to read and realized that some of them are missing....hmmm....maybe in storage somewhere back in the States? But we still had many of them here to enjoy! (Fun fact about the Adams family....Mr. Adams use to dress up as the Cat in The Hat, make appearances and read 'his' book at kids birthday parties! That was back in our youth pastoring days. :) We were kind of sad that he doesn't have it here with him in S.Korea...that would have been SO much fun!)

The crew was excited to pull out their Dr. Seuss characters that they got along with a few new books this Christmas!

I think between Joy and myself, we read every one of them aloud today! We did some of our other school work and then it was time for lunch.....We had Green Eggs and Ham of course!

Well, it was technically Green Eggs and Bacon...but just a fun and yummy! :)

Everyone took turns cracking eggs and then Faithy stirred as Joy and Joshua added the blue food coloring. I made them guess and figure out what we needed to add to the yellow eggs to make them green. They got it pretty quickly.  :)

I think they turned out so pretty! After dumping our usual applesauce all over them... (I know some people think that is strange, but it's how I've always eaten my eggs for as long as I can remember...must be a Churchill thing!)....Joshua was SO surprised that they tasted the same as yellow eggs!

Joy gave me the thumbs up and a dramatic, "Say! I like them! I like green eggs and ham!"

And then there was Faith. She was pretty hesitant to try them and sat there for several minutes making the most disgusted faces at her plate! :) But after seeing her siblings enjoying them, she decided to give them a try...

Though she continued to eat them until her plate was almost empty, she repeatedly said, "I do not like green eggs and ham, I do not like them Sam I am!" With a scowl of course! I kept telling her, "It sure looks like you are enjoying them, they're almost gone!" But she insisted, "Nope. I do not like green eggs and ham." :) It was a very fun lunch!

We colored some Cat in the Hat hats and did some writing projects. I asked the kiddos what they would tell Horton if they were a little WHO on his clover. Joy said that she would "Tell him to calm down because her world keeps going out of control every time he jumps!" Joshua told me he would tell him to "Get me somewhere safe! And fast!" We did some practice rhyming words and making up silly rhyming sentences. Then each of the kids told me which Dr. Seuss book was their very favorite and what they liked best about it.

We read some interesting facts about the real Dr. Seuss and his life and answered Joy's questions about his books having three different names for the author. I explained to her that Dr. Seuss, Theodor Geisel and Theo Lesieg were all the same person, he just used different names when he wrote the different books. To which she replied..."Oh, it's kind of like the Trinity." (She said it so matter of fact as if she already understood the Trinity and it made perfect sense to her. :) I love how how her brain works! And I got a good chuckle out of that one too! )  :)

We continued our Read Across America (and South Korea...Joshua corrected me!) and Dr. Seuss's birthday celebration with an adorable snack that we made!

It's a sugar cookie on the bottom and 3 mini chocolate cupcakes stacked on top of each other to make The Cat in The Hat's hat. :) We had some friends over to enjoy them with us, but by the time I thought about taking pictures, they had already devoured most of it so I don't have any pictures of the feast, but they were yummy!

Then we ended our day by watching the 'Horton Hears a Who' movie!

It was an all around awesome day at the Adamses! :)

End of the Month Kid Picks...

When we changed over our calendar this morning Joy reminded me that we had to put pictures up for Grandma's and Grandpa's of their 'Favorite Things' from February like we did back in January. It was all her idea to do it in the first place, so it didn't surprise me that she remembered! So here they are...

When I asked Joy what her most favorite thing that she did or made in February was, she said, "Discovering Mommy's old books!" She has now read BOTH of Shel Silverstein's 'Where the Sidewalk Ends' and 'A Light in the Attic' from cover to cover! They've been on our shelf for years and I've pulled them out every now and then and read the kids one of my favorite silly poems or rhymes, but we've never read them extensively. So my hungry little reader, searching for something new to read came across these and devoured them both in the last week.  :)

Whenever we took a break from school time, Joshua would run off to play and Joy would pick up one of these books and curl up in the big green chair. She read many of them aloud to me and it brought back fun memories of when I was first given them....

She loved reading the notes inside from my Mom and Dad and asked me if next time I get her a book, if I would please write her a note it in because she thinks it will be more special if I do. :) She's right, I LOVE going back and reading the notes in my books that I've been given as gifts and I was able to pull a few off the shelf and show her some notes in ones she's already been given from grandparents. That made her happy.  :) 

Hearing her giggle as she read through and enjoyed the silly pictures was so sweet. It made me want to run over every time and see which one she was reading at that moment! :)

She got to the end of the second book and saw a picture with a description of another one of Shel Silverstein's books, 'The Giving Tree', and asked me where it was! We don't have that one yet, but I'm thinking it's going to have to go on the list.  :)

Joshua's favorite thing this month was very sweet. He uses workboxes for some of his school day. He loves to see ahead of time what he gets to do and enjoys seeing what's still left when he's accomplished something. Even when 'school time' is over, he likes me to fill his boxes with things to do just because he thinks it's fun. Well, sometimes I run out of ideas for things for him to do to place in the box, so every so many box fillings, I'll stick a note inside one with directions for something to do. It may say "20 min. computer game time!" or "Bring Mom a book to read to you!" or "Hey Big Brother! Please read to Samuel for 15 minutes!" So guess what his favorite thing was this month...

After the timer went off he hollered, "Mom, can we keep reading?!" Of course I wasn't going to stop that! Most of the time, he's not actually reading, but just looking through the books and talking about the story and pictures, but Samuel doesn't care one bit and just LOVES this time with Joshua!

The next day, Joshua asked me if I could put that note in his workbox again! :) Of course I said YES!
I tried to sneak a pic without being too obvious but it's pretty dark...

I'm praying that they'll continue to love reading together for a long, long time!  :)  It's SO SWEET!

Faith Elaina said that "Drawing people was her only favorite thing."  :)  And her people sure are cute!

Of course Samuel can't tell me what his favorite thing is yet, but if he could, I think he'd definitely say reading books with his big brother and playing with the piano!