pin the nose on the narwhal

it was about 1145 monday night and i was getting stuff ready for wee school--i had tuesday's stuff ready, but not friday's.  1145 is waaaaaay past our bedtime, and we'd both had pretty exhausting days, one of those days where the to-do list just keeps multiplying.  so here's how the conversation went down, and the evolution of the game "pin the nose on the narwhal" (if you ever see this for sale in target or something, just remember, you know where you saw it first...):

i had the brilliant idea that we could play pin the nose on the _______, but i didn't know what in the world we could pin the nose on!  i ran in to david and said, "hey, what are some things that start with N that we could pin its nose on?!"

"ummmmm, nightcrawlers." 

"nightcrawlers?  you mean like zombies?  you know these kids are 2 and 3, right?!"

"no, nightcrawlers are worms."

"worms?  i don't think one could successfully pin a nose on a worm.  do they even have noses?  what about a newt?  do they have a big enough nose to pin on?"

"yeah, that might work."

"what about a nebulous?!  that would be awesome!  pin the nebulous in the cell!"

"wait, don't you mean nebula?"

"no, nebula is plural.  a cell only has one nebulous."

"a cell?  like in your body?  isn't that a..."

  "oh, wait, that's a nucleus...hmmmmm....isn't there such thing as a narwhal?"

"i think it's called norwhal."

"no, i'm pretty sure it's narwhal.  you know, like pirates searching for gold and naaaaarrrrrwhals."

[david googling narwhals for evidence]

"oh yeah, you're right.  it's narwhal."

[clicking on a you tube video]

"whoa!  look at those things!  that's crazy!  how was that evolutionarily beneficial?!"

and then, just for some extra laughs:

pretty sure the first one is my all-time favorite.  i am always and forever going to picture a bike-peddling unicorn hooked up to a breathing apparatus inside of a narwhal...and, i admit, the second one is kind of gory.  it was way funnier at 1230 in the morning for some reason...

so.....it was mine and max's turn to host wee school this week, and boy did we have fun!  we did the letter N, and the first day we talked about nests and numbers.  we read "the best nest" by p.d. eastman and talked about the sorts of things birds find to build their nests.  leaves, hay, straws, man hair, horse hair (ha ha--love this book!), etc.     

then we went outside and gathered our own supplies to build nests for baby birds.  we found leaves, soft grass, dryer lint, etc., and the kids pointed where they wanted me to hot glue gun their soft nest supplies (not trash...ha ha) on their nest.  we colored a little baby bird and stuck him in his happy home!

next we played the number game.  we worked with numbers 1-10, and had to count the items on the cards and match them with the correct number puzzle piece.  these kiddos did really well with their math skills and number recognition!

on day 2 we talked about Noses!  i asked them if they knew a body part that started with the letter N, and we cycled through a few things (belly button?  no... ears?  no... mouth?  no...) before we all agreed Nose started with the letter N.  this part was pretty hilarious--i asked the kids what we use our noses for, the very first response:  "we pick them!"  

"very good!  we can!  what else can we do?"

 " we sneeze!"

  "that's right!  how about this?" (i make a sniffing noise)  

"we smell!"

so we decided to test our sense of smell--close your eyes!  you can't look, you just have to guess what's in the bag based on what you smell!  cinnamon and vanilla were a little hard--they knew they knew the smell, but not what it was called, and they didn't know the name peppermint, but knew the extract smelled like a candy cane.  and they all guessed orange and banana right away!

then we played the matching smells game--we had to glue pictures of things that smelled yummy or yucky on the right side of the paper.

then we read "the nose book" by al perkins and saw all sorts of different kinds of noses on all sorts of different animals.  we found an odd looking animal called a narwhal, and watched a national geographic clip about them so we could see what kind of nose they have.

then we played pin the nose on the narwhal!  wouldn't you?!