First Park Day of the Season

Last Friday was a glorious Spring day!  It was in the mid 60’s and we had a great time at the park.  Sadly, today it’s in the 30’s and snowing.  Gotta love Utah.

This was Abby’s first trip to the park as a “big kid” and she was in heaven!  My timid boy was constantly wanting my near him and my fearless girl was running like a mad woman in all directions.  I was exhausted trying to keep up with her!

She did LOTS of climbing

And lots of sliding.  She even went down by herself!

Adam on a “rollercoaster”

They were both so happy to be out digging and getting dirty

Look at how big she looks!  I swear she will walk for miles if I let her.  She just happily clomps around with no real regard to where I am or who’s in her way.

The park was really crowded so we didn’t get to swing but if this Mother Nature ever decides it really is Spring, we’ll be back.  This is also the “duck park”, as we call it, and I have a feeling Abby will love the ducks!

And so it Begins….the Chore Chart!

I decided that at 3 1/4 years old, Adam was old enough for a chore chart!  I can remember many a chore chart or system instituted by my parents that lasted oh, all of 3 weeks.  However, they tried.  And I did learn that importance of work along the way.

I fantasize about the day when my kids are old enough to actually contribute to the running of this house.  What a glorious day that will be!  So I figure if I start really young, maybe, just maybe, I can minimize the griping and whining and flat out refusing that I know is probably inevitable when it comes to doing chores.  Not to mention, I figured it was time Adam learned how to do a few things on his own.

I got the idea for this chart from Confessions of a Homeschooler (I know, big surprise….but I LOVE her site!).  She had cards you could download but I wanted to customize them so I made them all myself and then laminated them.  I bought this pocket chart from Amazon and although it’s bulky, it is double-sided so I can use it for a bunch of other little learning activities, or even put Abby’s chore chart on the back in a few years.

There is a “Morning” line and an “Evening” line and when Adam has completed a chore, he flips the card over.  At the end of the night, if he’s done every chore, then he puts a sticker on his “Reward” card.  Once he fills up 6 squares, he gets to choose something from his prize box that is full of dollar store items.  There are also some “Saturday Extras” like washing windows, dusting, sweeping, folding laundry, etc. and I think I’ll have him choose 2 of those to do while we are cleaning the house on Saturdays.  Of course all his chores always get done because they are things like ‘get dressed’ and ‘brush your teeth’ but it’s a start right?

He also has a “I Stayed Dry All Day!” card that I keep turning over until the end of the day.  If he’s kept his underwear completely dry, he gets a Dum-Dum after breakfast the next day.  It worked for the first time yesterday!  He normally doesn’t have full-blown accidents, but his undies are usually damp all day and I want him to learn to not wait so long to go to the bathroom.

As most 3-year olds would be, he is really exited about it and can’t wait to do his chores every day.  I don’t know how long the enthusiasm will last, but I really want to teach him the value of working together as a family to keep our home tidy and clean so that the Spirit can be here with us.

The only draw back to this is that it takes 3 times as long for him to get ready in the morning! :)

My Sunshine

I was changing Abby’s diaper in her room today while Adam was apparently playing in my room.  Through the baby monitor he heard me singing the song, “You Are My Sunshine” to Abby.  When I came out of her room we had this conversation:

Adam: “Mom, am I your sunshine?”
Me:  (laughing) “Yes, Adam you are my sunshine”
Adam:  “Do I make you happy?”
Me:  “Yep, you make me happy!”
Adam: “When skies are gray?”

How blessed I am to have such a cute little guy to brighten my days!

Abby’s Eyes….(and me bearing my soul)

Abby’s eyes are a mystery to me.  Some times they look blue/grey.  Sometimes they just look grey.  But on St. Patrick’s Day, when she was wearing green, they looked a little green!  That shouldn’t surprise me because Nat’s eyes look green when he wears green. 
If you look closely, she has brown flecks in her eyes which is kind of cool!

There’s no mistaking this boy’s eye color! 
Sometimes I wish Abby got the blue eyes too.  I feel horrible about that and I don’t want her growing up being envious of her brother so I will be conscious of how I talk about it.  Sometimes when the light hits Adam just right, his eyes are gorgeous and I feel bad that I don’t feel that way about Abby.  I want to erase that last paragraph because I sound like a horribly petty mother!  While I’m being honest, are there any other moms out there who compare their kids without meaning to or wanting to?  I always figured I’ve love each of my children exactly the same and I’d never compare them, but it’s hard!  They are different.  How can I expect to love them the same?  Sometimes I feel like my first love was Adam (aside from Nat of course, but a child is different) so I’m learning to love someone else for who they are.  For instance, Abby is being defiant lately and I’m having a hard time because Adam is rarely that way, even during “the terrible twos” so she is driving me crazy and I don’t like the fact that I don’t like her some times.  She’s only 13 months old for goodness sake!  I think having an abnormally good natured child, (for the most part, he definitely has his moments!!), first has caused me to feel resentful towards a more fiesty, independent child.  And really, I have no idea who Abby is yet.  But that scares me.  What if I don’t like my own child?  What if I’m forever comparing her to her brother?  Why on earth am I verbalizing this to my family and friends?? :)

This post really was going to just be about Abby’s eyes….I have no idea where all the deep-seeded feelings came from!  Maybe because she has started yelling and screaming and throwing fits and I find myself wanting to lock myself in my room to get away from the sound.  Or the realization this morning that if she doesn’t want to take a cup of milk from me, she WILL NOT do it.  Until I leave the cup on the coffee table for her to sip at as she sees fit.  Then she will drink the stinkin’ cup of milk.  But because I want her to?  No way.  Or maybe because a very dear friend has a 3 year old who scares the living daylight out of me because I see her struggle almost daily to handle her and I’m so scared that that will be my future.

Any words of wisdom?  Please??  In the meantime, I will go to bed and hope that tomorrow will be better.  We’re going to a little “Bug Bash” play date so that should be fun!

A SMALL Taste of Spring

I love this picture!

Last Friday was kind of warm outside so the reward for behaving in the chapel while I practiced the organ was that Adam could ride his bike around the church for a while.  Abby loved walking!  She did a full lap and then I pushed her in the stroller for a while and then she did another lap and a half!  She thought the trees were pretty neat and would squeal and shriek and point at them as we walked.

I handed her this stick and she carried it around for a long time.

After dinner we took a walk around our neighborhood and played on the playground for the first in months.  Adam was in heaven!

She was so funny trying to climb up the slide. 
She was yelling when she wasn’t getting anywhere on the slippery slide!

I am more than ready for Spring to be here!

Tot School–“The Big Green Pocketbook”

- Adam is 39 months old -

This week for Tot School we had so much fun reading “The Big Green Pocketbook” by Candice Ransom.  It’s a really cute story about a girl who goes on a bus with her mom to town and all the things she collects along the way.  I used the Before Five in a Row manual and Homeschool Share for activity ideas.

Adam matched crayon cards to their names and then briefly colored a picture.  I worked a little bit with him on proper crayon grip.

We worked on patterns, sorting, and counting with ice cream scoops.  I would “order” something like “2 scoops of vanilla, one scoop of strawberry, and one scoop of chocolate” and he would make it for me.

I purposely chose this book to do during the week of St. Patrick’s Day.  We did all these green activities on that day….although I was on holiday burnout and didn’t really tell him what day it was, why he was wearing green, or why he was doing green things!

He chose between different green markers, crayons, and pencils and colored “Three Green Things” and glued them into the book.

We used blue and yellow food coloring to make green water and then used droppers to drop the water onto coffee filters.

I really liked the art aspect of this project, but he was really into playing with the water.  He spent over 30 minutes using the dropper to transfer water and then pouring it back and forth.

The finished filters.
I think these would make lovely Easter egg decorations so I’m planning on doing this again for Easter.

One of our favorite activities was using this green pocketbook printout from Homeschool Share to use during our reading and to play with afterward.  He recreated the story and played with these cards for several days!

In the story, the little girl types her name in big letters and then in little letters so I helped Adam type his name, then cut them out and paste them into this little book.

The highlight of the week was taking a bus to the library on Saturday!  It was freezing and really windy so it wasn’t the best idea but I was being stubborn and had already told Adam about the bus ride so we did it anyway!  Thankfully there was a bus route that was close to our house that went close the library so we only had about 5 minutes walking time to the bus stop and then from the stop to the library.  On a normal Spring day the walking would have been quite pleasant…not this day.  Oh well.  Adam still had a BLAST!

At the Bus Stop

Riding the Bus!

For other activities, Adam did 2 pages in his Kumon: Let’s Color! book….reluctantly.
We “played” Candy Land a few times
(it’ll be so fun when he actually wants to play by the rules)
And he and Abby watched some Baby Signing Time and Little Pim together.
Little Pim is a set of Spanish DVDs for young children and remind me of the Baby Signing Time DVDs.  I am looking into purchasing some Little Pim DVDs but was able to get the first DVD from Netflix.  I can also get the the next 2 (out of 6) so we’ll continue ‘reviewing’ them until I can decide if they are worth buying.  I really feel strongly that early foreign language exposure is so important and can only help later on when they are ready to actually learn the language.  Hence why we love signing with our babies!

We started our new Handwriting Without Tears Pre-K curriculum this week and Adam is really liking it!  Before even picking up a crayon or pencil, you start with Multisensory Lessons.  These lessons use Wood Pieces, Roll-a-Dough letters, a Stamp & See Screen (like a Magnadoodle) and songs and movements.  The idea is to have fun learning the terms and movements of writing before actually writing which is perfect for Adam because he’s lacking in fine motor skills (as far as holding a crayon and drawing) because he just doesn’t want to.

This week we used the Wood Pieces to learn the terms Big Line, Little Line, Big Curve, and Little Curve (which is the terminology that HWT uses when instructing letter formation).  Both Adam and Abby had a lot of fun, especially with the song where you tap the pieces together, wave them around, etc.

My plan for Handwriting Without Tears is to work on each letter as it corresponds to our Letter of the Week curriculum from Confessions of a Homeschooler that we’ll hopefully start in a few weeks.  I don’t care if Adam learns how to physically write each letter right now, but we will use a lot of different mediums to practice the formation so that when he is able to write with a crayon, he’ll be on his way to writing legibly!

Whew….I talk a lot!  The point of these posts is mainly to document our learning time together so I apologize that they are so long!  I can’t even fit Abby’s Tot School on here so she’ll have a separate post.

I HIGHLY recommend the blog 1+1+1=1 for moms of toddlers and preschoolers.  She has so much information and so many great ideas!

Teeny Tot School–Week 4

- Abby is 13 months old -

My baby girl has seemed to transform before my eyes into a toddler!  She walks, runs, laughs, plays, babbles, signs, and throws fits!  She has developed quite the temper and I’m not sure what to do about it.  She yells if Adam so much as touches what she’s playing with.  She yells if something she wants is stuck or out of reach.  She throws herself onto the floor when she’s really mad.  Heaven help me! :)

This week for Tot School I gave her some pipe cleaners and containers to put them into/take them out of.  Unfortunately, I neglected to realize that pipe cleaners bend really easily so she had a hard time putting them in the bottles which frustrated her.

“I think I can get one-last-drop of juice out!”

We played with her Laugh & Learn Piggy Bank.

If I have it turned exactly right, she can put the coins in one right after the other.

Clapping for herself

One of her favorite places to play is in the corner against the couch.  This is Adam’s toy spot but she loves to sit there and play with everything.

She enjoyed watching some Baby Signing Time and Little Pim (Spanish) on the couch with her brother a few times during the week.  Her attention span is about 5 minutes but she comes back on and off throughout the movie.  She loves to sign ‘baby’ during the BST theme song and especially loves when the doll and bear come on.

Ahhh…my bookworm!

I started our Handwriting Without Tears curriculum with Adam this week and she has loved joining in when we sing and follow along with some of the songs.

Sadly, Abby’s Tot School tends to take a backseat to Adam’s but I’m trying to find a new routine now that she doesn’t nap in the morning.  And frankly, she’s perfectly happy to play with whatever toy she comes across anyway!  She is much more independent than Adam was….is.  He needs my full attention SO much more than she does.  Maybe because she has no choice and is used to him commanding nearly every ounce of my time?  That is all the more reason to carve out some one-on-one time with her!

Check out 1+1+1=1 for other blogs that participate in Tot School!