Adam’s Preschool Year: 2011-2012

It’s official, I am home-preschooling (my own word) Adam this Fall!  I have been agonizing over when, what, and how to give Adam a preschool year.  The thought of putting him in a preschool outside of my home has crossed my mind, but only for the social aspect.  Adam is extremely social and of all the things I know I can give him, socialization is the only one I’m struggling with at the moment.  He is just now starting to be interested in playing with friends in the neighborhood so I think if I make a conscious effort to have him play with kids sometimes, he’ll be fine.  He is also going to take a tumbling class once a week so he’ll have that time to be silly with other 3-5 year olds (as if being silly for 2 hours in his church class isn’t enough silliness….bless his teachers).  I guess my only other concern is the overall experience of preschool.  I taught in a preschool for one semester in college and loved it.  I loved all the centers that the kids could choose from.  I loved the creativity of dress-up, play kitchens, art projects, sensory tables, listening stations, the list could go on.  That being said, he still has 1 more year after this before he can start Kindergarten, so a formal preschool isn’t out of the question for next year.

Anyway….I AM excited about having him home!  Maybe it’s my over-protective-motherness, but I can’t bear to leave him yet.  He’s still just a 3 year old!  So here are my plans for the year!  Much thought, research, and praying has gone into compiling this and I’m finally feeling GOOD about it all.  And to me, that is the answer that I’m doing the right thing.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m exhausted just thinking about implementing it, but I have to put aside my selfishness because I know that this is what my son needs.  Structure.  Routine.  Guidance.  Pre-planned activities.  Knowing Mommy is going to sit and focus on him.  So, without further ado, here it is:

CORE

Letter of the Week Preschool Curriculum by Erica at Confessions of a Homeschooler.

I love Erica.  She only charges $10 to download the entire curriculum and let me tell you, it is a TON of stuff.  It is all roughly the same from week-to-week so I am planning in 4 week chunks to make sure that we’re rotating through the activities.  She also has a K4 Expansion that I may consider getting down the road if I feel Adam needs a little more “umph”. 

To go along with the letter theme of the week, we will read the corresponding book from,
AlphaTales Box Set: A Set of 26 Irresistible Animal That Build Phonemic Awareness and Teach Each Letter of the Alphabet


They are silly and kind of pointless stories, but it gives lots of practice saying the sounds and hunting for the letters on the page.  I bought this with the money my sweet Grandparents gave me to buy Christmas presents for my kids with.  My Mom makes fun of me that I buy boring and practical things.  It’s true.  But I wanted these books and they aren’t cheap.  Thank you Grandma!

We will also read the corresponding poem from the e-book ABC Poem of the Week from Scholastic Teaching Resources.

I have planned a few weeks throughout the year to take a break from Letter of the Week and do a fun Preschool Pack by Jolanthe at Homeschool Creations and Carisa at 1+1+1=1. The Pirate one will be the first of several.

PHONICS

Hooked on Phonics: Learn to Read Pre-K

I bought this program a year ago when it was on sale.  I’m a bit undecided about it.  There is another program I am interested in, but since I already have this (and since Adam already knows all of the initial 26 sounds) we’re just going to plow through this.  The rhyming portions will be the most beneficial.  As well as needing to circle things and draw lines in the workbook.

Of course there will be lots of reading during the week as well.  Based on him knowing all his letters and sounds, he could be ready to learn to read, but I’m just feeling like it isn’t time yet.  So maybe after we finish the 2 workbooks in the HOP Pre-K level, I’ll think about starting something else.  He does play Starfall.com and games on the iPad, plus watches The Talking Words Factory so he’s beginning to grasp the idea of sounding out words a little bit.

HANDWRITING

Handwriting Without Tears: Get Set For School Pre-K

We started a little bit of this a few months ago.  But I wanted to hold off so that we could do one letter each week as we work through LOTW.  I am so excited about this program!  It’s very hands on and I’m rotating each week whether he makes letters with play-doh, uses the Stamp & See Screen (magna-doodle), uses wet sponges and/or chalk on a slate, or practices writing in sand, pudding, shaving cream, etc.  One day we’ll do one of these multisensory things along with a workbook page and the other day we’ll use the wood pieces to create the letter.  I hope he learns to write this year!

SPANISH

Little Pim DVDs, CD, and Flashcards

I researched Spanish programs a lot.  I’ve read a couple books in the past, as well as being engaged in teaching my babies sign language, and the fact that children can acquire a second language so much easier in the first 6 years of life is just too big of a deal to pass up.  We tried out a program called Speekee and while Adam loved it, I hated it!  The only thing I liked was that they spoke in conversations.  Other than that, the puppets and actors freaked me out.  I finally stumbled across Little Pim and we love it!  Abby especially!  She squeals with delight and yells, “Pih!” (she’s not putting the ending sound on her words yet) whenever it comes on.  There are 6 DVDs in the collection and each DVD is broken down into 7, 5 minute sections.  There are cute animations and video of children and adults.  It’s strictly vocabulary which is my only complaint.  But, the reason I like it is that it exposes the sounds of the Spanish language to my kids.  When Adam counts in Spanish, he is already using the correct accent that I have to remind myself to use rather than the ‘gringo’ version.  Especially in babies, if you expose them to the distinct sounds of a language, their brains will retain those sounds and make it easier for them to sound native when they later learn the language.  As opposed to their brains dropping all the sounds they come wired to hear, except for the ones made in their native language.   Anyway, we will watch these DVDs (along with our Baby Signing Time DVDs, Signing Time episodes on the DVR, and the Leap Frog DVDs) a couple times a week during the times when I need a break to do the dishes or just for some semi-quietness. :)

The LOTW curriculum also includes a few word flashcards for each letter.  I am also using her English color flashcards as Spanish flashcards and other number games will be done in Spanish.  I also have a couple other music CDs to listen too.

Along with all that, I bought this, The Usborne Book of Everyday Words in Spanish book at my homeschool convention for really cheap because they no longer print this version.  It has awesome pictures that I think are done in clay with TONS of vocabulary.  My plan is to pull this out every week and just have fun looking at it and naming objects.

ART

I am planning art or crafts at least once a week.  Sometimes it is based around our weekly theme, and sometimes I pull ideas from these two books.

First Art: Art Experiences for Toddlers and Twos


Preschool Art: It’s the Process Not the Product!

SCIENCE and SENSORY

I am also planning one science or sensory experience each week (or a drama/pretend experience if my brain will kick into creativity once in a while).  I picked up this book at my homeschool convention.  Some of the things are too advanced for Adam, but some are easy and fun for him.  Along with this book, I am pulling ideas off the internet for fun science-y things.

The Usborne Big Book of Science Things to Make and Do

Carisa at 1+1+1=1 has some great sensory ideas including sensory bins which I plan to incorporate into an individual letter theme, a preschool pack, or with the seasons/holidays.  The first sensory bin I did was for the 4th of July and they absolutely loved it.  The first one I have planned for this school year is for our Pirate theme (Preschool Pack) that we’ll do in mid-September.  I’m really excited about it!  I think to fill up time before then, I’ll just do colored pasta and different measuring tools/cups, etc.

I have really been inspired by John Bowman who is creating the Montessori Minute posts on 1+1+1=1 and I have been reading his eBook called Montessori at Home!: The Complete Guide to Doing Montessori Early Learning Activities at Home.  I think I might create a separate blog post about this (or combine it with a Tot School planning post for Abby) but for now, as I continue reading Bowman’s book, I’m going to try and incorporate Montessori ideas and materials for Adam.

So there you have it.  I think that’s all of it!  It looks like a lot of stuff to do doesn’t it?  I’ll post a picture of our little school area I have set up and more about Abby’s Tot School in another post.  We are scheduled to start school on August 29th (much to Adam’s dismay) so that gives me a week and a half to get myself ready to tackle all of this.  In the mean time, I’m pulling stuff out of storage for the kids to do because they are driving me crazy!  Apparently Adam can only handle a couple of months of unstructured play before he goes insane on me. :) 

This is my first link-up to the Preschool Corner over at www.homeshcoolcreations.blogspot.com!  Yippee!

Abigail at 18 Months

Our little Miss Abigail turned 18 months old yesterday!  I took her to the doctor today and here are her stats:

31 inches – 50th percentile
20 lbs. 12 oz. – 10th percentile

According to today, she’s only gained 10 oz. in 3 months, but when I took her in a few weeks ago for a suspected ear infection, she weighed 21 lbs. 2 oz.  Maybe she had a super soggy diaper then?  She’s stayed steady at 50th percentile for height, but dropped from 15th to 10th percentile in weight based on this morning’s weigh in.  I have skinny kids.  I’m jealous of them.

At 18 months old, Abby is one big ball of energy!  She is fun, happy, grumpy, silly, stubborn, shy….all in one day! :)  She absolutely adores her brother and the two of them have lots of fun together.

I finally bought her a new car seat a few weeks ago and she loves it!  Every time we get into the car she pats her car seat and says, “sea, sea!”.  Before I put away the baby seat she thought it was pretty funny to climb in it.

She is a total girl and LOVES dressing up!  My Mom brought her this hula skirt and lei from Hawaii and she loves to wear them around the house.

My Mom also bought her this tutu skirt (I’m sensing a theme here) which she also requests to wear quite frequently.  We call them her “pretties” (and that really includes her other normal skirts and dresses which she loves wearing) and she’ll lift her skirts up and say, “pi-tee”.

Hats, necklaces, bracelets and sashes are also fun to wear.  And lest you think we are encouraging her to be obsessed with her beauty…..we equally encourage book smarts.

It doesn’t have to be girly….she’s perfectly happy to wear superhero capes and walk around with “Toy Story” backpacks and “Cars” rolling suitcases.

She still signs, but has replaced most of them with words.  Her speech isn’t as clear as Adam’s was at this age, but she has definite sounds for words but usually leaves off the ending sounds (cah for car, dah-dah for dog-dog, etc.)

Here she is signing “all done” with a panicked look on her face when Brother was going to fast in the Princess Jeep at Grandma and Grandpa Great’s house.

Here are some random pictures from the past couple of weeks.

Playing in my new IKEA shelves as I was assembling them….right before she pulled it down on herself.  Yup, gonna screw those babies to the wall.

Posing on top of Nana and Papa’s table.

More posing.

Having fun with Play-doh.

She’s an iPad pro.  She frequently finds my iPad, wakes it up, slides the bar on the welcome screen, and then goes from whatever webpage I was looking at, to the main menu, to her favorite game, and then starts playing.

Recent hairstyles.
Her hair is just long enough to pull into a pony tail, although the sides come out almost immediately.  I love how her hair curls naturally at the bottom.  With just a little water and hairspray, she’s good to go.

And last but not least, this video was taken about a month ago.  Her favorite book is “Moo, Baa, La La La” by Sandra Boynton.  She knows it by heart!

Just 6 more months and our Sissy will be 2 years old!  I’m not as reluctant to have her leave her babyhood as I was with Adam.  I think it’s mostly because I’m exited to see her grow into a kid and watch her and Adam’s friendship blossom as they begin really starting to play and imagine together.  My best friend was my little brother and we played endlessly together and I can’t wait to watch my kids do the same thing!

“PrayerWalk”–book review

I received the book, “PrayerWalk” by Janet Holm McHenry to review from WaterBrook Multnomah’s Blogging for Books program.

From the back cover:

Challenge your body.   Feed your spirit.   Change the world.
Ask any Christian woman about her most recent New Year’s resolutions, and you’ll likely find that “exercise regularly” and “pray more” were at the top of her list. We all long to look and feel our best, to live actively and healthfully. More than that, we desire to connect intimately with our God. Yet physical health and spiritual growth often take a backseat to the urgent demands of grocery shopping and bill paying, time with family and friends, and long hours at the office.

It’s Time to Exercise Your Prayer Life.
Three years ago, author Janet Holm McHenry suffered from depression, weight gain, and exhaustion. Then she began a prayerwalk routine that not only transformed her life but also profoundly impacted the lives of those around her.
Learn how you, too, can set out on a journey to increased energy, better health, and greater joy—and experience a rich, full prayer ministry that will have a lasting impact on your loved ones and community—in PrayerWalk.

This book is geared towards the evangelical-type of Christian and being LDS (a Mormon) this style of prayer is a bit foreign to me.  But that doesn’t mean I don’t value it.  In fact, I’m, intrigued by it and am taking bits and pieces of it and applying it to my own prayer-life.

What intrigued me the most from this book is the idea that you can combine 2 “to-do” items in your day into 1.  I want to start walking every morning.  I was my thinnest in college and it wasn’t because I was eating healthy!  It was because I was walking to and from and on campus every day, for probably an hour total each day.  Research shows that simply walking 30 minutes a day can greatly increase your health.  And walking 60 minutes a day can shed weight rather quickly.  So, I’m going to start!  I probably won’t pray the entire time, but this book has inspired me to hit the pavement and to spend some time in prayer and mediation.  What a great way to start the day.

I’ll admit, I skimmed a lot of this book.  And it took me a couple of months to get through it amidst reading other books that were more interesting.  I would give this book 2.5 stars.

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.

New York, New York!

Nat surprised me with a trip to New York for my birthday!  We saw Wicked and Spider-man and did some sightseeing.  It was so much fun being by ourselves…minus the millions of people around us. :)  This was Nat’s fist time in New York and my second time.  I went with my Mom in the summer of 2003, just a few weeks before Nat and I met!

Our hotel was half a block away from Radio City Music Hall

As soon as we got to the hotel and dropped off our bags, we hit the town to find some good old New York City pizza.  Yum!  We first just ordered one slice each and a drink and wound up going back for seconds!

Our first day was filled with a Subway ride down to Battery Park and a ferry to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.

Lower Manhattan.
The tallest building you see on the left is the Freedom Tower that is under construction.

This is my picture taken in July 2003 of the skyline.
The Freedom Tower is on the very right and the Empire State Building is on the very right.

She’s breathtaking

This is the original torch.  It started out as solid copper (well, not solid inside, but the outside was copper sheeting) and went through several designs when they decided they wanted to light it from within.  They decided in 1984 to re-do the torch and stop lighting it so the new torch is made of copper sheeting with a gold leaf coating which is why it’s gold colored and not green like the rest of the statue.
They only offer a few tickets to the crown every day so we were only able to get tickets to the top of the pedestal.  This is looking up into the statue from the pedestal level.

A view from the pedestal.  It was fun going up there because in 2003, they weren’t doing any tours of the crown or pedestal when I was there.

Ellis Island
Why did they have to build that ugly steel and glass contraption?  I suppose it would keep people dry during rain, but it seriously takes away from the awesome façade of the main building on Ellis Island.

The main hall where the immigrants sat in rows and rows of wooden benches.  Nat and I both love history so we got the audio tours for both the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.  Yes, we looked like total dorks.

Cool tile work all the way around the floor where doors used to be.

Just a few pictures of the exterior

From Battery Park we walked the 2 or so blocks up to Ground Zero.  It was a completely different experience than when I went in July of 2003.  It was very much a whole in the ground.

There was a walkway with walls filled with pictures and memorials of those who died.  And you could look down and see where the subway was beneath the complex.

Now, in July 2011, everything is closed off and there are construction workers and security people everywhere.  You aren’t allowed to go up to the fence and look in.
They are working on several buildings, including the Freedom Tower.

On the way back to our hotel, we encountered a fire in the Subway.  And were trapped first on the platform, then on a Subway car, then on the platform again, then back on a car, until finally leaving.  Why is it that they turn the A/C off in the cars when you are trapped inside of them?  And who’s bright idea was it to build a tunnel in the ground with the only air flow being small grates at street level?  Yuck.

That night we saw Wicked!  It was awesome and I teared-up at every song just because I couldn’t believe I was really there, seeing it on Broadway!

Our second day began with breakfast at Ellen’s Stardust Diner where the waiters take turns singing to you!  They are all aspiring Broadway actors and have a pretty good track record of servers making it on Broadway.

We decided to be geeky tourists (again) and do a bus tour of both Downtown and Uptown.  It was actually really fun and informative!  We got off in Greenwich Village and Chinatown to walk around and explore.  We should’ve gotten off in SoHo but I knew I’d just want to shop!

I took far too many pictures of buildings.  But they are cool!

Empire State Building

Nat watching a basketball game in Greenwich Village

We were stopped at light at one point and the tour guide was talking about some on the left side of the bus.  My gaze drifted to the right of the bus and this is what I saw out of the corner of me eye….(look up on the top of the building in the foreground.)

This was peeking from behind the building.

New York City LDS Temple
We had talked about finding it but didn’t really have time so I was so excited that we drove right past it!

Our second night we saw Spider-Man.  It was very different, but cool.
After the show, we hit Times Square!  We did some shopping and just had fun being out with millions of people.

Our hotel was right next to Rockefeller Center so on our way back from Times Square we walked around and checked out 30 Rock (the building, not the show)and the NBC studio.  They were prepping the plaza for the Journey concert that the Today Show was doing in the morning.  The next morning we got to listen to Journey warming up from outside our hotel window!

I had really wanted to go to the “Top of the Rock” because I hear it’s a better view and much less crowded than the Empire State Building, but we ran out of time.

There was SO much more we could’ve done and we definitely want to go back someday.  Thanks sweetie for a wonderful birthday present!