Valentines Day 2014

     Some events are just too long to fit in a Facebook post.

     Valentine's Day this year started Wednesday. I took the girls to the store to pick out some cheap little Valentines to give to their friends and distribute among our immediate family. In the afternoon we worked on these delicious/addicting frosted pretzels.

     Wednesday night rolled around and the girls and I were off to our usual Girls in Action and Mission Friends meetings. About five minutes before the Valentines were to be handed out I actually started reading Aubree's....

     Probably should have paid more attention at the store and encouraged her to pick something other than Monster High themed cards. You have not experienced awkward until you walk into church and you are pulling aside all of the moms of your kid's five year old friends to try to explain away these gruesome pictures and phrases like, "You bring out the beast in me." I think we'll stick with homemade next year.



These dolls are seriously weird!

     Earlier that day we made Valentines boxes. The girls worked on theirs while I taped a chicken on an egg carton and called it a day. Raulee went with a Super Hero theme and it actually turned out pretty cute.

It has a cape! She likes to fly this around like a super hero instead of paying attention to what you're telling her to do.

     Since my husband is usually a good sport about participating, but I don't expect him to sit down and do a craft, I texted him, "What do you want the theme of your Valentines box to be?" to which he replied, "Silence." So I threw this together for him.


Shh.

     Thursday we had to drop off my mother-in-law at the airport in Austin so we went down early to check out the popular South Congress Avenue. We ate lunch at a place called The Snack Bar (a little too vegan-y/healthy for me, but enjoyable nonetheless) and wandered up and down the street. We made a pretty long pit stop at the Big Top candy shop where Grandma bought us ice cream and I bought my husband a Jalepeno truffle among other things. Nothing says I love you like a chocolate that gives you indigestion.

HEARTburn. Get it? ...

     Friday morning rolled around. THE BIG DAY. Gino must have known it was a holiday because he created an especially lovely message in his diaper when he woke up.

     I honestly hadn't planned anything special for breakfast but when I got up I figured heart pancakes wouldn't be too hard to pull off. Since my husband worked late, I gathered pancakes, bacon, and coffee on a tray for him and then bombarded him with food and his Silence Box full of love from his family. To which he responded, "....I thought Valentine's Day was tomorrow."

     (Lol)

     Eventually, the girls and I opened our Valentines boxes. Aubree and I read each and every card with care while Raulee literally dumped hers out, ate a piece of candy, put all the cards back in without opening or looking at them, and went off to play. I got a pretty awesome variety of Valentines from my husband with similarly hilarious comments them such as this:

     We even gave a few Valentines to baby Gino for him to chew on. All in all, we've had a pretty fun couple of days around here.

Happy Valentines Day!!

 

SKILLS--Candle making

     In an attempt at being thrifty this year I decided to make some Christmas presents. One of these ventures involved making candles. It was seriously much easier than I expected. Melt some wax.....

     Stir in some heavenly aromas, yada, yada, yada, YOU HAVE HOMEMADE CANDLES!

     Only two problems with this scenario.

     Problem one: My pregnant stomach was disgusted by all of the festive fragrances flying around for days afterwards. I still can't stand the smell of any of the four kinds I made.

     Problem two: The second problem was not discovered until the next day when we had to CALL THE LANDLORD because our sink was clogged. After a lot of trips in and out and banging around he discovered a "bar of soap" stuck in the pipe. Yes, a bar of soap. Definitely not a wad of wax from some idiot making these candles you see everywhere.

    

SKILLS--Looking Old

This was my Halloween costume for a fall festival this year. My husband did not enjoy it.

 

Christmas 2012

     Uhhhhhhhh.....forgot I had a blog I guess? I've been so busy! Homeschooling, babysitting, and my own classes have sucked up every spare moment of time that I'm not cooking, cleaning, or collapsing from exhaustion. That's right--I've got a fourteen week old fetus who's only mission in life at this point is to make me fall asleep when I sit down.

     Anyways. Christmas!

     Christmas Eve Eve was spent driving around looking at Christmas lights and drinking hot chocolate. We saw some amazing houses!! My favorite featured just about every Christmas character from classic holiday movies--it was nuts! Here's part of it:

Only had to go through seventy blurry photos to find that one....

     Then my husband prepared an amazing dinner on Christmas Eve after which we read stories by the fire and watched a movie. Everyone also got to open one present. I mistakenly opened socks and the girls opened matching pajamas. They had only asked to get my husband one thing: footie pajamas. After searching everywhere (even online) and not finding anything satisfactory, I'd told them we'd have to wait to get them for his birthday. Then, on a last second Target trip, we spotted some!! He wore them most of the evening and peeled them off after the girls went to bed.

     I'm not sure if it was my compressed bladder protesting or my excitement for the kids reactions but I woke up at 4am, 5:30am, and finally at 6am and then patiently waited for the kids to wake up. They chose Christmas morning to sleep in until 7:00.

     Aubree only asked for one thing this year: a Barbie that looked like a queen. Santa delivered.

    
     Raulee only asked for "a snow globe that played a song" and recieved one from her grandparents. After all of the presents were opened we discovered a note in the tree:

Weird.

 

So we all ran outside and you'll never guess what was on the roof!

Well played, Santa.

 

Pure joy:

     The rest of our Christmas was spent just like any other:  crashing bikes into the house, beating eachother up with the girls' new boxing gloves, and eating way, way too many meatballs. (Or maybe that was just me.)

Kindergarten Today--Living Things Journal

      Today started per usual with Calendar Time and review. Before we really got going I gave Aubree a little "spelling pre-test" and she spelled "the, "a," and "of" correctly--it's important to me to monitor what they're actually absorbing to determine a pace.
      We played a game for math that they LOVED which consisted of me holding up a number (we're doing one to ten recognition) and them doing that number of an activity. I started with things like jumping jacks and somersaults and progressed to touching your nose, touching your partner's nose, etc. It dissolved into giggles pretty quickly after that.
      Eventually, we got to science and I got to introduce something I've been excited about since I thought of it: Living Things Journals.

      In my overactive imagination, I pictured these being a fun and interesting way to include art, hand writing, and animal and plant classification in science and it turns out--it worked perfectly!! I got these little composition books at Walmart for a dollar apiece. They're hard-backed because I plan on them encountering quite a bit of wear and tear. Being in and around the Arizona terrain on almost a weekly basis gives us oppurtunities see all kinds of wildlife so I'd like the girls to document what we come across. Since we are still talking about pets, I asked them to draw a picture of our dog.

Raulee's:



      Then, without even explaining the concept of the Living Things Journals, Aubree asked to go outside and look for more animals to draw! It's like this kid can read my mind... She rushed outside and found a few birds and a butterfly and began comparing and contrasting them. It seriously could not have gone more perfectly.

      If you can't tell-I'm nerdily excited about these... I am also impressed, on a daily basis, how much more my girls WANT to learn. This is something I read about, but I thought it was too good to be true. I am allowing them to dictate a little more in our activities if they are interested in doing so. So far, I'm having a very good experience and couldn't be happier.

Kindergarten Today

      We started today after I laid the little man I babysit down. (He's about four months old and gets a solid nap in the morning and afternoon.)  We've been beginning with Calendar Time which consists of adding the new day, counting all of the days previously put on the calendar, and checking the weather. Then we review our sight words of the week. This week is "the," "a," and "of." Last week I got the book "Th" at the library which shows an array of "th" words (including "the") in sentences on each page so I read it and allowed Aubree to read each instance of "the."

      In math we're learning to identify the numerals one through ten and the actual words one through ten, so we started by writing our numbers (again) on our dry erase boards.

      Last week, I taught them how to play "War" with dominoes. The only dominoes I have are cardboard, so we switched to the actual game of War with playing cards and they loved it. Today we played again after they finished their numbers.

      Science this week is about pets. I began talking about our dog, but they were interested in hearing about other kinds of pets. When fish was mentioned, Aubree expressed that she'd like to cut a fish open to look inside. I found this link after a search on google:
http://library.thinkquest.org/05aug/00548/DissectionGame.html
which takes you to a great interactive dissection of a salmon. You first identify it's fins and jaw, then slice open the bottom with a scapel. Once inside you remove each organ, scoop out eggs, and even blow up the swim bladder to later remove. I think it was simple yet very interesting.

      At this time, the baby woke up so I quickly drew pictures of the fish for the kids to color. I drew a whole salmon with eyes, fins, etc for Raulee and then drew the dissected fish with labels for Aubree to color. She requested that I use dotted lines to outline each organ. While she colored I explained what each organ did and what role the organ played in human bodies (if applicable.) That wrapped up our morning session.

      After I pick up their friend from half-day preschool we eat lunch and lay down for an hour. Today I let them all go outside when they got up. Their friend does a new letter each week so I've been able to focus on that during the week with my girls, too. I prepared a "Butterfly with Buttons " snack (because the letter this week is "B") while they were playing. It really looked super lame but they liked it enough to eat it. I used graham crackers for wings, a piece of apple for the bodies and antenna, and stuck raisins on with a dab of frosting for eyes, buttons, and to decorate the end of each wing. After they ate they each did their "B" alphabet page where they trace the letter and circle all of the right letters in a line. When they finished we made butterflies with a piece of cardstock and two pipe cleaners each. I cut out three little butterfly bodies while they were snacking and taped on the wings of one while the others colored. Very simple.

      While they were finishing up coloring, I read them our Bible story for today which was Genesis 1:1-25. It covers creation up to the sixth day. Convenient for me because last week their friend chose a movie called "The Reef" and today we have time to watch it. When I finished reading, I reviewed which days what was created and segueyed into the fish movie--ha. Everything can be tied together if you're determined enough...!

        As you can see, Raulee generally tags along in our activites at her level.

"Mom! How do you spell 'puke?' I already got the 'P!'" Encouraging Reading

      While sitting on my couch the other day I got this question shouted from the other room: "Mom! How do you spell 'puke?' I already got the 'P!'" While some may have pondered the query I didn't even flinch. Both of my children (ages 3 and 4) have begun hurling words at me from all corners of the house. Both of my children spend a great deal of time writing nonsense babble and delight in my jarbled attempts at "reading" their creations. Both of my children love books.
      I think, in part, I am blessed with curious, intellegent little children, but I have strategically done a few things to ensure that they view books (and learning from them) as a fun AND necessary part of everyday life.

1. MAKE SURE THEY CAN'T GET AWAY FROM THEM.

      Make sure they can't get away from books. In my perfect world there would be cute little bookshelves lining every room of my house with enticing stories carefully placed on book stands so that the attention of every little passing person would be captured instantly by vibrant pictures on every cover. I seriously think I would be okay with this scenario, but since this is not the definition of my husband's perfect world we have come up with some compromises. Even if you do not own a single bookshelf you can find places to keep books accessible to your young children. An easy one for me is on the ledge of the bay window in our "office."

      We do have a bookshelf in their playroom, but I have serious issues with only being able to see the spine of the books. (They can't see by the tiny words on the spine--that they can't yet read--whether they'd be interested in picking it up or not.) Any sort of shelf or ledge where you can perch even one book is beneficial. In order to trick your children into picking up books, however, a little more creativity goes a long way. You can line books up against a wall on the floor, next to their bed, and yes, even in the restroom. Little people go "number two" just like the rest of us. Generally when we are going anywhere in the car I'll also allow them to pick a book to take. The more you expose them to books the more success you will have in perking their interest.

2. MAKE THEM "READ" BEFORE THEY CAN READ.

     What is the point of looking at all of these books when you can't read them? Aside from the obvious (allowing them to create stories uses their imagination and increases sequencing skills) it simply makes them WANT to learn how to read. I read books to Raulee. Raulee 'reads' books to me. Aubree 'reads' books to Raulee. Everybody reads or 'reads' to everyone else. While I am reading with Aubree I will pick one word that occurs several times and allow her to read that word every time it comes up. At this point she knows about twenty words by sight and I make sure she is allowed to read those if they arise. When we see common signs (Stop, etc.) I ask them to read them. While reading recipes or other pertinent information I ask them to 'read' the ingredients. They spell the words to me and I sound them out with them. Another tactic we've used recently is allowing them time to 'read' after I read them their bedtime story. We give them fifteen minutes at the end of the night to 'read' whatever they wish. Both girls sit on their beds and tell stories that correspond to whatever pictures they're seeing.

3. MAKE THEM UNDERSTAND THAT BOOKS ARE USEFUL.

      Being exposed to a variety of books is crucial, in my opinion, to creating a love of learning. Allow your children to watch you utilize books. Do you use a recipe book in the kitchen? Do you enjoy fictional novels that help you relax? Do you or your significant other subscribe to a magazine that you actually find useful? The internet has all but killed the necessity for actual paper books these days, but I encourage you to find and use books while your children watch in order to show them that books are important to you.
      Books are useful in other ways for young children. I have found countless books at the library that I know will make my children think about themselves and their surroundings. We have read many books on manners, soccer, fathers, relationships with siblings and parents, and where we live or have lived. Giving them stories or factual books that they can relate to really opens their eyes as to what they can gain from a book. It opens up the oppurtunities to have serious talks about issues they may be facing. Silly stories that make no sense are also great, but I like to get at least three or four books a week that they can apply to their own lives.

4. PRAISE ANYTHING THEY WRITE. EVEN IF IT'S "FPVX2R."

      As previously mentioned, my kids love to write random letters together and have me read them. They have begun to understand that what they are writing has an actual meaning. Aside from these writing exercises (which they obviously don't see as work) I encourage them to write what they are drawing. I patiently spell any word they want whenever they want me to. Even if it's 'puke' on a picture of a monster puking. At their age, sitting down at a table and writing A, a, B, b on dotted lines is not valuable in my opinion. Raulee still writes the same twelve letters over and over. And I let her. She's learning. She's progressing at her own pace.


      Aside from these things we do other games like naming something that starts with each letter of the alphabet or they name which letter I draw. etc. And I allow them to read anywhere they feel like reading even if it's the kitchen floor.

      There is no perfect formula for teaching your child to read, but enthusiam about books and encouragement no matter how fast they're progressing can spark a child's interest and open the door to a world of books.