We just spent the majority of last week in Lynden with Bill's parents and siblings. There was so much snow our car was stuck in the driveway so we got taxied around town by everyone with 4-wheel-drive. It was pretty fun, Caley had fun playing big girl toys and frosting cookies with cousin Teija who's 5, and her other cousins.

Caley, what was your favorite part about going to Nana's house?

"I like sleeping on the couch. I like playing at those people's [Teija's] houses."

Making snack time funner

Funner isn't a word. I know that, but it's still funner to use than "more fun."

For nearly two weeks we were stuck at our house because of the snow. I was starting to go crazy keeping everybody entertained and happy, without resorting to having the TV on all day. One idea I had was to serve the girls snack with toothpicks. When I was a kid, my mom did this all the time. My brother and I would sit at the little table and she'd serve us snack on pretty trays with toothpicks.  So far we've done cheese, bread, and bananas. Caley and Amelia loved this (and so did Daddy).

Homemade toys

I like making toys and activities out of things we already have, rather than spending unnecessary money. The latest addition is the box of lids. I got the idea from Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. The girls love the lids! Amelia likes to dump out the bucket and put them back in or through the hole in the top of the bucket. Caley likes to stack them. These are great for sorting, matching by color, size or shape, counting, or anything else you can imagine. We've accumulated at least 25 lids in less than 2 weeks and because we buy 2 gallons of milk a week that have the same lid, there are already several that match. The other day we polished off a bottle of vodka (after several months, we're not boozers!) and I chose not to include that lid in the bunch. It just makes things easier. I don't want Caley to tell her friends, "Oh yeah, well MY mom lets me play with vodka lids!"

Snow Day!

It's been like a Winter Wonderland in our neighborhood the last few days. Sunday we stayed home from church and took a walk down our street in the snow. Monday and Tuesday were relatively normal, then Wednesday and today it's been dumping more white everywhere. Daddy worked from home yesterday so we got to play in the snow because it was very packable.

Caley, what was your favorite part about today (Wednesday)?

"Lots of stuff and going in the snow and making a house. That was my favorite. And going outside to make a snowman. That was my fun part."

A different kind of school

Mommy here. We've been doing a different kind of school this month. In addition to our usual weekly routine which includes playgroup and storytime, we've been doing going to the children's museum and doing various service projects, for lack of a better description. But on Mondays and Fridays, our usual home days when we do "school," we haven't been doing the reading book. Read this entry on our family blog, and you'll see that we've drastically cut down on Caley's TV time. Instead, Caley's learning how to keep herself busy by reading books, playing with toys, or coloring. And I'm learning how to take time to read with her more regularly and just slow life down a bit. 

In 2009, we'll put projects and the reading book back into her school schedule. But TV won't be in the schedule like it was a few months ago. This month Caley has been learning to not need TV and movies as much, because now they're more of a novelty!

It's Christmas time...

"So I get to eat candy!" 

That's what Caley's been saying all day today. I think it's because I told her she couldn't eat the gingerbread house until it's Christmas. And since we decorated the house and tree today I guess that means it's Christmas. 

We did some fun and easy projects today that worked on cutting, cutting on a line, patterning, gross motor skills and eye-hand coordination. 

I got this idea from MommyLife. I used dry pasta and spread it around outside the circle and showed her how to sweep it in. And even though I made a  big circle and told her the pasta just has to be in the circle, she made it all into a little pile.

Next we made a Christmas chain. I originally just wanted to make a Christmas decoration but then realized it would be a perfect opportunity for her to practice cutting on a line (or crooked line) and patterning. Red, white, green, red, white, green, red, white, ___? I helped with chaining them together, but Caley did a lot of good work too! Later she proudly displayed it on her bedroom wall.

I was taking pictures of Caley doing her project and she said, "Take a picture of Amelia!" So here she is.  Isn't she cute?!! :)

Merry Christmas! Hopefully we'll do more fun learning activities and maybe Caley will post something herself soon! Mommy's being a blog hog.

Caley's Thanksgiving with her friends

Check out Caley's Thanksgiving over at our family blog!

More fun school days

We've been more sporadic with school days the last few weeks, but we have still be doing some fun activities. Caley is getting better at recognizing letters and sounds, and in her reading book yesterday she read, "See me read"!! We are still learning about Thanksgiving and this week we are having a playgroup Thanksgiving "dinner" and the kids are going to help make some of the food. It should be a lot of fun. Caley is also loving her church preschool on Sundays and Wednesday nights. She always asks, "Mommy are you going to be in my class?" I'm there on Wednesday nights. Last week the big kids came in and washed the preschool kids feet! Caley thought that was pretty neat, which was a huge surprise to me, I thought she'd freak out for sure! 

Here are some fun things we've been doing:

Marshmallow toothpick creations--Caley mostly just loaded a toothpick with 5 marshmallows and called it good.

Learning about money with the money book--I had her match real coins to the ones pictured.

A turkey box! We got the instructions from this website. Ours doesn't look like the picture shows, but who cares?! She helped cut out the tailfeathers and colored a few (Amelia helped). Then she had me write the names of some people she loves: Amelia, Mommy, Daddy, Papa, Grama, Nana, Grampa, Fiona, Lenora, Olivia, Joy, Chris, just to name a few.

Happy Thanksgiving!

November Fun!

It's November! Caley is going to learn about God's blessings and provisions and Thanksgiving in playgroup so I wanted to do some activities to reinforce what she's learning. The last few days we've been making pilgrim hats from styrofoam cups and reading some Thanksgiving stories. I got the "recipe" for the craft from here and changed a few things (pipe cleaners for the buckle). Of course ours aren't as pretty as the picture on that website, but it was still fun to make hats!

I'm sure the little Pilgrim girls wore pink on their hats (and ate hot dogs)!

Amelia wouldn't let me take a picture with a hat on her head. But she did do this at lunch today:

I made this Pumpkin face for playgroup a while ago and finally pulled it out for the kids to play with. The best part is that it was part of Caley's "school" today. Gross motor skills, following directions, and sharing are important for her to learn. Plus she had a blast and so did Amelia! Bonus!

After throwing the beanbags the normal way, I suggested she try some other ways like from far away, from behind, or on her head like above. Then I pulled out the Home Depot paint sticks and she chopsticked the bags into the face. I was surprised at how well she did this! She didn't get frustrated and concentrated quite well. 

An unplanned lesson

Part of Caley's school is just the everyday things we do. I know that every other mom does these things with their kids, but I *try* to look at everyday things as an essential part of her (and Amelia's!) education. The Monday/Friday "school" days are just a dedicated time we do for teaching reading explicitly. Amelia often sits in her high chair while Caley and I do her reading book. She usually eats a snack or looks at a book. She was looking at Caley's reading book recently and pointed to the letters and made a noise, like she was reading it too! 

So part of school on Monday was that Caley made her first sandwich (thanks for the idea Tamara)! It was her favorite, peanut butter and honey.

Another part of school on Monday, or rather just a reason to get out of the house, we went to the Mukilteo Lighthouse playground. I set the girls lunch, including the sandwich in a plastic bag, on a picnic table, walked away to play with Amelia, and some CROWS started pecking at it! Darn crows! And dumb Mommy... 

There were some holes in the sandwich bag, which meant we had to throw it away because birds could carry disease. It was so sad! Caley's first sandwich and she lost it to the crows. Sorry sweetie...maybe next time. Monday's lesson was one in dissappointment. You can't teach that in "school" on Mondays and Fridays at the kitchen table.

Caley sounding out some words...

with Mom's help, but nevertheless she's making great progress! Enjoy!



By the way, Bill can say words like silver, candle, and meat loaf! We'll be updating our "Billy's Classroom" blog soon with that video!

Potato Prints and Printing

Last week we did potato prints because I (Mommy) had a bunch of extra potatoes that were going to go bad. Although I forgot that some letters would be backwards when printed (give me a break, I went to public school!). Nevertheless, Caley was able to identify a few of the letters and even spelled (with my help) "sat" and "star."


We've also been practicing printing letters. By putting the worksheet pages in a plastic sleeve and using a wipe-off marker, the pages can be used and re-used infinitely! Here Caley practices "Rr."

Today I went Mommy's work (Wonderland Developmental Center) and I played. My favorite was playing in the balls. Then we went to Playland and I watched 2 movies at Playland.

I had to stop at WDC for a few minutes so the kids played in the classroom and motor room and had a blast. There was a wood box with colored McDonald's balls and a slide going into it. That was Amelia's favorite too. Caley showed some awesome motor skills rolling on the foam pads and swinging in the swing. Not that motor skills are necessarily a problem, but she's usually very timid with those things and is coming out of her shell. Amelia's a little more fearless.

What we've done

This is Mom. Caley's sleeping right now otherwise she'd be updating you. I just wanted to post some pictures, etc of what we've done in school so far. From about March-June of this year I tried to do "school" with Caley a few times a week. We would do free choice reading, a few workbook pages and then a game or puzzle or art. We started "Teach Your Child To Read..." in April sometime and moved really slowly, usually doing half a lesson and repeating the lessons at least two times (on a different day). For a while I was very strict about sitting in the mud room for school because there is a counter. Then I started to let her choose if she wanted to sit on the couch in the green room or the brown living room. I found it kind of hard to sit next to her and keep her occupied. I forgot she was only a new three-year-old.

This fall so far it's been much more relaxed. She's having a lot more fun. I have been giving her choices like where she wants to sit and recently she's wanted to sit on the floor in the living room on her yellow blankie. It's worked best to sit across from her, especially for her reading book. Games and projects she has been doing at the kitchen table, because Amelia is all over everything if it's within reach.

I attend Montessori school in Wyoming as a preschooler and have always loved the Montessori philosophy of "A child's work is his play." This has helped me so far this fall. I'm less strict and hopefully less controlling over what she will do at school. Really it's made me more intentional about teaching her throughout the week. She'll see a letter she's learned in her reading book and yell, "Mom I see a 'mmm' and 'ssss'!" It's also giving her a good repertoire of activities to do when she's bored or just says, "I want to watch a movie." She's seemed more likely to do crafts instead of wanting to watch TV.

I also think that even if we didn't do "school" this way, Caley would learn what she needs to know. She'd learn how to play appropriately and eventually would learn her letters and sounds. A lot of this "school" is really for me, to be thinking in the teacher mindset, that Mom and Dad are her first teachers.

This wasn't a project, or part of school at all, but she's just silly like that!