Preschool In Review: Week 1

So, today we officially finished week one of our in home preschool. Logan loves it. The second Brody gets put in bed she's asking to do "some school now." I've had to come up with several extra activities that go along with our weekly themes because I only intended it to be 30 minutes or so a day!

Here she is gluing squares onto a piece of paper. Practicing fine motor skills, her shape of the week, picking out her color of the week...and sticking her fingers together (just kidding).

I'm using lapbooks with her to help her really understand concepts and be able to review them constantly. I used these a LOT when I was teaching. You take a file folder and glue important pieces of units into them so you can review them. I've had kids do book reports like this, learn to take notes like this, etc. They are wonderful! This way, we can keep all of her weekly units in a portfolio box and go through them regularly so she doesn't forget past weeks.

Here's our lapbook for the week:

(rough picture) But we learned big and little A, about the square shape, the color red, about cows, the number one, apples and we learned Genesis 1:1. Logan went through and scribbled under underlined all of the A's.

She was SO proud of herself, as are we! She's a fantastic little learner and we're ready to dive into week two starting Monday!

Happy 4th!

It's a few days late, but better late than never, right?

We had a fantastic 4th of July! It was the first day Mike's been free from work and school since January so we planned to just enjoy it as a family.

We picked up a little splash pool to set on our porch for those crazy hot afternoons. Brody loves it...Logan is fickle about it. Some days she's crazy about it and others she says she doesn't like swimming at all. This better change since next week we head off to swimming lessons and she'll have no choice but to swim.

These pictures weren't from the fourth, but he just looks so sweet in his baseball pj's I had to throw them in:

Back to the fourth. We went shopping in the morning, came home, rested and then had a BBQ with some friends from church. Nothing major, no fireworks (started way past bedtimes), but we enjoyed a quiet day together.

Proof that when you've got two only one will cooperate for a picture at a time. Never together.

This little girl is growing up way too fast. She's really gone from a baby faced toddler to a little girl in the last year!

Preschool

I admit it...the teacher in me couldn't take it another day and so I've decided to start doing some more structured preschool activities with Logan. Actually, the girl thrives on structured activities and behaves better, sleeps better and even eats better when we've got a schedule going. She's got her alphabet down, recognizes most capital letters, can count to 10 by herself and can count from 4 down backwards, spells her name, recognizes her brother's name, knows her colors, several shapes, etc. Anyway, all this to say I think she's ready and I'm going to really let her take the lead on this one and jump right in!

(here she is doing just that)

I looked into different curriculums and kind of put together my own from a compilation of several ideas. We're going to go through a different letter/number/animal/shape/color each week and learn them really well. The letter we'll learn both upper and lower case so she can recognize them all the time.

We've talked about how we're going to have special mommy and Logan time while baby brother naps in the morning. This made her so excited! Not that we haven't had special alone time while he naps, already, anyway...but now that it's got a fancy name (preschool...or pee school in Loganese) it's much more exciting.

Today we worked on the letter A(a) and also colored our animal of the week, a cow. I'm not going to push to hard to have animals that start with the letter we're learning since we're just doing letter recognition. Once we've got the letters down we'll get into a unit with letter sounds and then we'll learn animals with those letters. She was thrilled to get to use the glue sticks that we picked up at Target yesterday!

Brody woke up just as we were finishing. He wants to know when it's his turn to have special mommy time. How about when you're going through growth spurts and waking me up five times a night, bud? ;)

Then daddy came home from his final and we all shouted hip-hip-horray because he's D-O-N-E for the summer!

Brody is loving the attention from daddy. He looks SO BIG to me in this picture!

Happy weekend!

Conversations With My 2 Year Old

Last week, we were in the pool and I was swinging Logan's head back and forth in the water. I said, "Look, Logan, you have little mermaid hair!" She smiled, tilted her head back and said, "Look, Mommy, I have Belle hair!" Then dipped back in and came up and said, "Look, Mommy, I got Tow Mater hair!"

While talking to my sister, Logan stopped the conversation by clapping her hands and saying, "Wow! You have teeth!"

Anyone else with a second baby have an older child who wants to nurse the younger one? I mean, come on! Logan frequently proclaims, "I can help you feed him, mommy! I got milk, I do, I can help."

Logan found something on a seatbelt that looks like a little button (like one you'd push to make something play, etc.) Yesterday, we were singing the alphabet to help pass time and Logan started pushing it over and over. I asked what she was doing and she replied, "I'm turning it down mom." So, I asked, "What are you turning down?" She said, "Your voice, mom."

While we were in Miami, the kids shared a room with me. Logan did NOT like going to bed by herself and if I was really tired, I'd just lay down and go to sleep with her. She's now gotten in the habit of asking, "mom, you tired? yeah? you tired? you probably need to sleep."

A few, new, cute, Loganisms:

My _____ hurts, so hurts, bad, mommy. (not sure where she got this phrase...maybe from, it hurts so bad?) Tonight she came out of her room and said, "My finger hurts, mommy, so hurts bad. I got a hang nail." I laughed because I thought surely she didn't know what she was talking about....but she did. She actually had a hang nail. Growing up too fast.

She calls Brody "doodlebub" It's a combination of the nicknames that Mike and I use for him. I call him doodlebug and Mike calls him bubs (we're not sure where he came up with it).

Sorry for the super random photos today...it's just whatever was on my camera tonight. :) I caught the Brody shots this afternoon when he woke about an hour early from his nap and his sister was still sleeping. Such sweet times with my baby.

Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day, Daddy!

Even though we're far away right now, we want you to know how proud of you we are for working so hard while we've been gone. We know it's been rough to be away from us (I mean, really? How can you not miss these precious faces?), but we really appreciate the time that we've had down in Florida.

This year, you're daddy to TWO babies! You are an incredible father and we love you so, so much.

We can't wait to see you soon!

And a special Happy Father's Day to Granddaddy, Papa and Uncle Jeremy, too!

My favorite article on daddyhood so far is Denis Rainey's interview process for dating his daughters, it is fantastic and we'll definitely be referencing it when our daughter(s) get ready to start dating. How uncomfortable you must make the young man, but what a great perspective to give them, as well.

Brody Giggles

This sweet monkey has been grunting when you tickle him for weeks just trying to get a giggle out, and today, he finally got it! So stinkin' cute!

Ear Piercing!

Logan got in touch with her Cuban roots today when we took her to get her ears pierced. It's usually done when the girls are infants, but we decided to wait a while and let her decide on her own to get them done. Now, I know two is an early age for someone to make this kind of decision, but since being in Miami, she's asked many times to get her "ears perced." When she first started asking, I explained that they'd be putting earrings in her ears and that it would hurt more than getting shots. She responded, "It hurt a lil bit? It's otay. I want my ear perced." So we headed out this morning to do it!

All ready to go!

Watching the lady at the jewelry store pull out the earrings she helped pick (a sweet little pair of pearl studs).

Getting her little ears marked. I realized how obsessive I am with symmetry about the third time I made the lady wipe off the marks and put them back on. They're going to be there for her whole life, gotta get it perfect, right?

Getting ready.

Here we go!

And the finished product.

She was happy as a clam...as soon as we got a frosty in her little belly. :)