Preschooling: Week 1, Letter A

Our first week of preschooling was  raging success, if I do say so myself!  Logan actually had so much fun that she began to ask to do school activities whenever we had a free moment.  

I probably went a little overboard on the laminating this week.  There were some activities that it was really helpful to have laminated and others that we could have done without.  I'll definitely make note of this for future weeks.  

Thankfully, she was only bored with the color activity.  She knows all of her colors and actually knows their different shades, too, so having to identify the colors was a little below her skill level.  I'll probably leave those out of future weeks or adapt them so they're a little more on her level.

She loved the letter tracing activity.  We purchased some dry erase crayons for her to use with these and they were a big hit.  I'm so glad I don't have to deal with the mess of the actual dry erase markers and these are such a great solution.

The culminating activity every week is creating an art project to go in her ABC binder.  This week she made an alligator A.  I did the cutting but she put all the glue and pasted each thing on the paper all by herself.  

She also really loved the number recognition game.  She laid out all of the numbers and I called one out at a time.  She found the number, jumped on it and then picked it up and put it to the side.  

The main  book we'll be reading throughout the course is "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom."  It's a great alphabet book.  We made our own Chicka Chicka Boom Boom tree and put it on our wall.  We'll be adding letters to it every week.  This week, obviously, we added the letter A!

The one thing this week that I wish I had done was go to the library and get the recommended reading books.  There's a great list of books for each letter that comes with the curriculum and I had every intention of getting over to the library to pick some up this week and just failed to get there.  So, next week, I'll make sure to go out of my way to get the books.  We did read a lot, but I'd like to have some more reading that's integrated with what letter we're studying for the week.  

Quick Update

There's not a whole lot going on around our house right now.  Daddy is really busy with school/work/Army so we've been finding ways to keep entertained.  I found some old toys that were in the kids' closet and Brody attached himself to the Mickey Mouse.  He calls him, "key! key!" and has started to sleep with him nightly now.  It's really sweet.

The kids are growing like weeds.  Brody still looks like a baby to me, but every little ounce of toddler I used to see in my little girl is no longer there.  She's all little girl now.  It's such a bittersweet feeling to watch your kids grow up.  

It's also really hard to get any pictures of Logan, anymore.  She doesn't see the need to look at the camera and smile--she thinks it's silly and unnecessary.  That's why I have so many more pictures of her brother, who still cooperates.

I'm sure he'll hit this time, too, so I'm going to enjoy the sweet little smiles for now.

And every once and a while with Brody I get a glimpse of little boy and less baby...like in this picture:

Can't we just freeze time for a little while?  Do they really have to get bigger?

Preschooling: Prepping the Curriculum

Today was a big day in our house!  We've officially started preschooling (pre-school + homeschooling= preschooling).  We've dabbled in preschool activities here and there in the last year, but it was time to start something a little more routine.  I've been researching different preschool curriculums for the last several months, and really just stumbled on the one that we've started using last week.  I had intended to go a completely different direction when I found this one--just by reading a blog post the girl who creates the curriculum had written.

I'm planning on blogging through our preschooling experience to keep records of what works, what doesn't and to keep track of what different things Logan is learning each week.  I'll label the posts Preschooling: ------- so that if you're not interested, you can just scroll on down.  Though, I will promise to post pictures of the cute preschooler in action, so you may just want to follow along for those.  

My first post is going to about the planning/choosing the curriculum.  I've decided to use the Pre-K curriculum over at Confessions of a Homeschooler.   I have pretty extensively researched homeschooling preschool curriculums (I'd love to be a resource for you if you're looking for one) and this one fit all of our needs and our budget.  Things I was looking for: something that fit in easily with our daily schedule, something that covered all subject area, something that fit in our budget, something fun, something that didn't have a lot of workbook work, and something that was easy to follow.  I also really wanted something that had some sort of Biblical curriculum-- this has a verse of the week included, however, I'm looking at creating more of my own curriculum for this area because we really don't like the idea of straight Bible memorization without any context.  More on that in further posts.  I love that the curriculum comes from someone who blogs about it because I have the added benefit of being able to reference her posts when I may have a question/etc.  She also is easy to contact if I have questions/need advice.  

Now, she has most of her printables available free on her blog.  She also offers to send them all to you, plus several extras, if you purchase the curriculum for $10.  Let me tell you--it's totally worth every penny.  Along with having all of the things you need in a couple of files, she also includes detailed lesson plans for the entire 26 week curriculum.  Everything is laid out plain and clear for me so all I have to do is follow along.  It wouldn't be hard for me to come up with lesson plans, I'm a teacher, so it really is second nature to me, BUT I also have two young children and to be able to take that out of the equation makes things so much easier.

So, I set the printer up and went to town.  I also borrowed a laminating machine and did quite a bit of laminating. I'd like to be able to keep a lot of the activities so that we can review them or even so I can use them in the future.  Aren't they pretty?

I've only got two weeks worth curriculum printed and set up to go.  My plan is to always stay 2-3 weeks ahead.  I bought this nice little file organizer and set it up for each week so that I can keep them all in one small area.

I will mention that the first 15 minutes of cutting laminated activities is a bit of a stress reliever, but after that it's a little torturous and reminds me of the hours and hours I spent slaving over the melted plastic when I taught first grade.  The memories aren't great.  These brownies were absolutely 100% necessary to my sanity during the two hours I spent cutting, sorting and filing two weeks worth of activities.  They are incredible (1 cookie dough square, 1 Reese's cup and a dollop of brownie mix and you'll never eat plain brownies again...ever).

Today we started our first week and so far, it's gone very well.  We're enthusiastic and excited about this new adventure!  I'll try and post weekly updates sometime on Fridays.  But don't hold me to that.  Remember, I have two small children.  Happy Monday!

Nana and Papa Visit!

We were so, so excited to have Nana and Papa visit us last week!  We hadn't seen them in almost a whole year and they hadn't been to our house in 2 years.  It was so fun to have them around!

It was a little chilly one morning but that didn't stop Logan from watching from her "perch" on the porch to see when they were going to arrive.  She picked out a nice, eclectic outfit to keep her warm.

She was always so excited when she saw them coming up the hill!

Brody loved the extra attention, too.  Though, he spent nearly the entire week cutting a tooth so he was not the happiest camper a lot of the time.

We did a lot of shopping and got to visit daddy at work while they were here, but Logan says her favorite part of them  being here was playing with them in her living room.

It's such a blessing that both of our families love our children so much and that our kids get to see and spend time with them.  Although, we do wish we could be closer, we really appreciate that both sets make an effort to come and see us or help us get out to see them!

Both kids looking at the camera, but no smiles:

Brody smiles:

Logan smiles:

Can't get them both to do it at the same time.  Oh, well! 

Resurrection Buns

Logan and I made resurrection buns this year!  We rolled marshmallows in butter and coconut crystals (you could use white sugar but we're moving away from refined sugars), and then wrapped them in crescent rolls.

We talked about how Jesus was crucified and they wrapped him and laid him in a tomb, just like we wrapped our marshmallows up in the rolls.

Brody didn't seem as amused as Logan was...

After they baked and cooled Logan opened them up to see that the marshmallow was no longer there!  Of course, we know it's because it melted, but to her it was a great visual representation of an empty tomb.  We read the story of Christ's resurrection (in the big picture story bible--fantastic) and ate our special treats.

We thanked God for the empty tomb, yesterday.  

And because this is my last Easter themed post, I didn't really have anywhere else to throw these two photos:

Conversations with my THREE year old!

I've been meaning to get some of these up here, I share most of them on facebook but I want to make sure to get them in the blog so I have record of them!  I'm trying to get my blog printed into books (by year) and these posts are just priceless.

Yesterday, my handheld mixer bit the dust.  Actually, it was just the actual beaters that broke.  When it happened, Logan came in and asked if she could take the broken one with her to make it feel better (she's very into playing Dr. right now).  When I asked what she was going to do, she replied, "Well, I'll listen to it's heartbeep (yes, heartbeep), then I'll take it's blood pump (blood pressure), then I'll give it a teeny shot and it should feel much better."

Logan's bath was less than warm one night and when I told her it was not cold, it was lukewarm, her response was, "First, I don't see Luke anywhere. Second, this is not warm."  

Logan loves to shop.  She pretends all the time that she's going to the store.  One day she asked Mike to go "shopping" with her in her room, which she said was Target. When I asked if she could just shop in the living room and pretend it was target, she looked at me, incredulously, and said, "I cannot shop here. This is Walmart." Well duh, of course I knew that.

Speaking of Walmart....I think it's pretty known that it's not my favorite place in the world.  I don't like the crowded aisle's, it never feels quite clean enough and if I don't want to go through self checkout, I have to wait way too long in the ONE line that's open.  Logan knows this, too, and on the rare occasion that I do go to Walmart to shop, she likes to proclaim "This is just NOT our favorite place.  You don't like walmart, do you mommy?"  Usually this happens just as some employee is walking by.  I want to crawl under a rock every single time. 

When Logan pretends to grocery shop, she likes to carry her "coupons" and look for the sale items.  One morning she was "scanning" her items and exclaimed, "WOW! 40?!  That's way too expensive.  Guess I'll have to put that back and wait for it to go on sale.  (audible sigh)"  

We're not sure where she came up with this, but every once and a while, when you try and get into her room she'll say, "You'll need some money to get in here, please."  

I took Logan to see The Lorax on opening weekend.  We had a fun little girls night.   However, Logan isn't able to say "Lorax" so she kept telling people we were going to see "Your A**."  Yeah.  Try and explain that one to people.


Tonight I walked into Logan's room and she asked, "Hey mommy, will you please leave the hall light on tonight?  I think it will encourage me to stay in my room all night."  To which I responded, "Did you just say encourage?"  And she replied, "Yes, I did!  Will you?"

And for kicks, a few Loganisms: 

Muddles (mud puddles) 

water fodels (waterfalls)

 tause (pause)

  re-room (living room) --this one's been around since she was 16 months old.

 mathis (math)

Number L (number 7)

 She called Miami your-ami for a long, long time until she realized she loves it there, and now calls it OUR-ami (not mine, not yours, but ours). 
Dr. Chuggington (Dr. Covington, her pediatrician)
Re-di-ur-ee-us (ridiculous)

Easter Sunday!

Happy Easter!  We were so excited to celebrate the risen savior today, but we really celebrate His goodness everyday.

We went to the seminary after church, today, to take our "traditional" Easter/spring pictures.

Logan is desperate to get her little brother to walk.  I think she wants to be able to chase him around, so, she's taken to helping him move along.

Logan wanted to play in the fountain.

Brody spent some time flying.

And we got some good sibling shots.

Did some more flying.

And running.

And just being cute.

Then we tried for some family pictures.

It was hard to get everyone to cooperate.

After we got home we had some goodies waiting for us!  We've made it a tradition to get the kids a fun pair of shoes every year for their baskets and this year we got them each a pair of crocs.

They were a hit!!  (And yes, Logan's croc's have Belle and Aurora in them)

Here we are in 2010:

2011:

And we did actually get a good picture in 2012:

Hope your holiday was wonderful!