octopus

Arts with some crafts

| poppypeach

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Yes, we can be bigger together, and it was such a big week of amazing art and time with incredible talented children! My friend, a ceramic artist, volunteers with our school and made this beautiful display of student work inspired by the book BIG by Coleen Paratore.

In addition to the ceramic works here are a few of my faves at the show – at tribal mask made in the 3D class, a dragon made in the materials class and a picture on wood in the photography class. Of course, there was so much more art I loved, but I was too busy chatting with friends and socialising to get more pics!

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Thursday was the second arts focus class, and our amazing class of lots of enthusiastic sewers made some beautiful octo-pie from yarn.

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This talented 5th grader made a super cool cat hat out of fleece that I will feature in the art show.

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Another of young student made her octopus with help braiding from a 5th grader.

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This is an extra project made by a 5th grader who chose to be in sewing – I am so happy to see such creative and talented sewers ready to work with a needle.

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In my kinder class, the kids are working on ideas for a dollhouse and this is what they came up with for the kids working with blocks, and they have included their little dolls in the scene too. This is a wonderful way to explore architecture.

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These two rascals enjoyed chicken time on Monday with the yin and yang chickens Luna and Snowflake.

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And I am counting the time until my oven is fixed – the heating element broke last Thursday, and since then I have been trying to get it fixed when some clowns said they would charge $400 to fix it when the part alone is $70 now that is extortion. So my hubby said he could fix it for me though let’s see how that unfolds, till then I have to be creative with the sandwich grill as I used that to grill the fish for Taco Tuesday today.

Anyway here is our delicious wild salmon rice bowl from Monday night as I wanted something easy for a Monday and a rice cooker is an excellent option of cooking while making something else – like the crispy salmon skin and salad.

 

A piece a week – Some photography at the Cal Academy of Sciences for Missy’s (early) birthday celebration and an Infinity Scarf commission

| poppypeach
Over the weekend it was time to celebrate Missy’s 7th (early) birthday at the California Academy of Sciences. We have opted a couple of times instead of parties a friend can join one of our kids out for a fun experience. We are members of the Cal Academy so we can take a family as well as a little friend.
We spent the whole day at the Academy starting at the Planetarium with their new show Habitat Earth before lunch – which is a good idea as some of the fly overs in the animation make me giddy! Lunch is always good at the Academy though this time there is renovations that I forgotten about so it was Vegetarian burgers on the grill for me. The Rainforest was after lunch and that is always so hot but well worth it and we saw plenty of frogs, butterflies and birds. Down to the aquarium is my favorite and there is plenty to see with the fish feeding and the colorful tropical fish. The baby lion fish was the girls favorite. 
We finished our day with some hands on interaction at the naturalist center upstairs with an owl pellet for the kids to dissect and see what the owl had eaten for dinner!
Baby Lionfish – super cute with its parents
Checking out an exhibit
The birthday girl ready to go! 

A special pastry – since I have not made a cake yet!!

Hey Yellow bird!

Hello glass frog and it’s friends in the Bromeliad

Another cute frog
Loving the aquarium

Coconut octopus from the Philippines – on the run!!

And a friend from my Feldenkrais class loved my infinity scarf so much she wanted me to make one for her. I found this striped sweater fabric and lined it with stretch purple fabric and it is now ready to go to it’s new owner!

An upcycled sweater is now a scarf

NaBloPoMo – Day 30 – Day out to Half Moon Bay

| poppypeach
Today was a trip to take our new car for a spin so a friend suggested we head on over to Lemos farm to check out the pony rides and the farm. That was very cool hanging out with the ponies and riding the train through the ghost town of cut outs! The highlight of the farm for the kiddos was seeing the cats and the kittens – I think I should charge my kids $5 to pat the cats at home 🙂

Afterwards we went to Fitzgerald Marine Reserve and braved the cold for a look into the tide pools. We saw lots of seals and the highlight was an octopus that my friend saw with his first time out to the tide pools – the octopus even wandered out and it is all on video so that was very exciting for everyone! This is the last post of the month and I have to say it has been a very exciting month and now it is a countdown to the New Year!

Mama kitty cat and her kittens 

She’s got a ticket to ride and she don’t care! 

Day out to San Francisco and a trip to the Aquarium of the Bay

| poppypeach
As a silent auction prize from school we bought tickets to the Aquarium of the Bay at Pier 39. Honestly I am not a fan of Pier 39, there are too many people and not enough good places to eat. Anyway we decided to be tourists of a day and met some Aussie friends of ours at the Aquarium and decided to explore a little bit more away from the tourist traps at Pier 39. Of course the little ones loved the Aquarium, it is small but fits in a lot of information about taking care of the ocean and its creatures. The Giant Pacific Octopus came out and it was a wonderful site to see, the kids of course enjoyed the tropical fish and the starfish in the touch pool. The tunnel of rays and sharks is a lot of fun to wander through and they have an a new exhibit of river otters that we found had climbed a tree in their enclosure to watch the passers by.

My favorite creature of the Aquarium the Giant Pacific Octopus

As the aquarium excitement wore off and we had seen all the exhibits twice, we took a walk to the Musee Mecanique – The Mechanical Museum. Here you can take a bunch of quarters and play old arcade games like my favorite Galaxian and the like or even check out the dioramas from back in the day. A wonderful way to see what people enjoyed playing before everything went computerized. Be warned that Laughing Sal can be a bit freaky – she is huge, I had seen her before at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk.

Love the artwork on this game – an original stand up game!