Mr. and Mrs. Wadsworth: Planes, Trains, Automobiles...and Boats!

What better adventure could a boy ask for then a whole week of learning about things that GO! When we picked up our books on Monday Ezra was ecstatic to see that they were all about his favorite things...cars, trains, trucks, bicycles, boats, trains, and airplanes.

Our first craft was another dollar store find. This little wooden kit came with paints but I didn't want to risk staining things so I attempted to have him paint with his watercolors...

It didn't work so well...so I opened the tiny pots of paint, and took off his shirt...

which led to whole new way of doing art....ohh well...at least it all washed off in the bath!

In the end, his little boat came together quite nicely. He was so surprised to see it all glued together after nap time. I think he just thought we were painting little wooden pieces. =)

Next, we did another "cut out" picture. He loved banging down the scenery so much last week I thought we'd get a little crazy this week and add clouds. I cut the sun from a foam square this time and he LOVED smashing it into place over and over. =)

After adding about a million stickers (planes, trains, boats, and a giant car...but I think a soccer ball got on there too somehow)

He sat back, analyzed where things were placed, and then decided he was done.

This craft wins the prize of "favorite craft of the week". Whenever we had visitors over, he would run to his little art gallery corner and with a loud intake of breath, sigh "ohhhhhhhhhhh" and point until they noticed it. Then he told them the story of cars, boats, trains.....etc.

Ezra's favorite library book this week was "frieght train" so I decided to re-create it using a shapes project. I was a little worried that he would have a hard time following all of my directions...

but I think the THOUSANDS of times that he's looked at that book helped him to understand what I was trying to help him create. =) We talked about each shape while I pointed to the round-about area they should go. He's such a cute little parrot, he spent the activity time saying "skare, circool,ty angle.." Look at how big that smile is!

When we were doing putting things in place (glue dots!! I'm telling you Mommies...GLUE DOTS!) he thought it could use a little color, so out came the crayons and markers.

Isn't that a cute "shapes" train? =)

This week was SUPER hot (a totally random heat wave pushed our town into the 100's! It was nuts!) So for our last craft Ezra wasn't feeling like doing much...or wearing much. HA! Thanks to the new printer that Mimi sent (THANK YOU!!!) He and I looked at some fun airplane coloring pages online. Once he spotted the one he liked we printed it out (which he thought was pretty incredible!)...

colored it with crayons...and of course markers...and mounted them on construction paper.

Airplanes HAVE to fly...so hanging them from the ceiling was the only thing that seemed right. When a breeze finally did pick up and blew through our apartment, Ezra stood underneath them laughing and saying "woosh" as they were tossed about.

Field trip Friday was officially moved to Saturday this week, in honor of having Daddy join in the fun! We found a SWEET parking space within blocks of our destination (that NEVER happens, fate must have been on our side)

When Ezra caught a glimpse of this view from his posh little seat on my back he YELLED as loud as he could! He was soooo happy! I've never been to the Hyde Street Pier, so I was excited too. It was fun to be in such a touristy area of town...I felt like we were on vacation.

We didn't have time to enjoy all of the boats so we chose the biggest one, the Balclutha, to climb aboard and explore.

Once on deck, Ezra was off! I'm not kidding, he was like a kitten on catnip! You should have seen him running everywhere...

trying to explore EVERYTHING!

Luckily Daddy man was right behind him, making sure he didn't fall into the bay...or get into too much mischief.

The ship's bell was his all time favorite place to hang out...he was so excited to sit and RING, RING the heavy iron clapper inside the bell and nobody told him, "no no no".

After exploring both sides of the deck we decided to head down into the many levels of the ships hold...

I was blown away by how much room the ship had...I mean I'm sure it was crowded when all the men were aboard, but honestly....it was HUGE!!

The park management had set up small viewing areas in different parts of the hold where documentaries about the ship's history were playing. Ezra sat still for about 2 minutes of each one...but from the snippets that I was able to grab this ship has a pretty awesome past!

Ezra was done playing in the shadows and decided to climb back on deck... but I was becoming more and more distracted by the memories and stories of the past that came wafting out of every beam and plank of this ship...the history teacher in me got a bit distracted...

I started following farther and farther behind the boys, actually looking at my surroundings, and reading signs....can you believe this tiny kitchen was used for everyone on board?

After realizing that we were almost out of time (the park was closing) I tried to find the boys...but where could they be?....

At the bell of course! =)

Oh how I love these boys!

The park rangers gently herded us all off the boat..it was time to head home...

Ezra was pretty upset that we weren't going to visit the tug boat....

and the steam ferry...

...but then we found out that our tickets are good for 7 days! Wooo hooo! What a deal. I think Ezra and I will try to head back sometime this week and see if we can't squeeze in some more maritime adventures. =)