Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope you are all feasting away today with family and friends, and enjoying life’s many blessings!  Fill your tummies with good food and your hearts with happiness. :)

A photo of our finished Thanksgiving Tree:                        (Forgive the rotten exposure.  It looks better in real life.)

M wanted to place our leaves on the tree with our lists facing outwards, which made me wonder, why did we bother decorating them?  ;)  But the littlest person usually gets their way about this type of thing, so this year we have white leaves on our tree.

Each night for the past week we’ve written things for which we are thankful on leaves, and then tacked them to the tree. 

I thought you might enjoy M’s top 7 things he is thankful for this year:

• Our house
• Our farm and apple trees
• Mommy
• Christmas
• Food
• Cupcakes, and Mommy, and Cake
• Fish and Fishing for Fish (he has never gone fishing, by the way, but why get hung up on details?)

There is a glaring omission here, isn’t there?  ;)  Why did Mommy end up on the list two times (and what is the “Mommy” in between cupcakes and cake all about??), but no mention of Daddy?  I giggle about this, mainly because I am not Daddy.  I’m sure the thought of Daddy was in there somewhere.  I think next year perhaps we will list our thanks for two weeks – to give us time to make sure everything is covered, and no feelings are hurt. 

Just for the record, I did put Daddy on the very first of my leaves, and he is very loved.

Now, I’m off to stake out a place for my post-dinner nap. ;)

 

Happy Thanksgiving! :)

Our Thankfulness Tree

Last year we began a very sweet tradition – during the 7 days before Thanksgiving we each write (well, M dictates) one thing we are thankful for on a paper leaf every evening. 

We talk about the things for which we are thankful during our dinner, then afterwards we pin the leaves to our felt tree.  By the time Thanksgiving rolls around our tree is looking beautiful and festive, and we are in a thankful frame of mind.

Thanksgiving is a hard time for me – several years ago, when we were wanting a baby so very badly, I found out I was pregnant on Thanksgiving morning.  It was also the 10 year anniversary of our first date.  It began as a wonderful, wonderful day.  But unfortunately the day ended in a traumatic fashion in the emergency room with almost no hope of a viable pregnancy (although hope is exactly what I held onto).  After the long weekend I went to my doctor for a follow up exam and found that I had, in fact, lost the baby.  I still miss that baby.  I still love that baby.  I am still thankful for that baby and the other babies we had for such a short time, and I’m especially thankful for the baby we were able to hold onto, who now makes Thanksgiving a little bit brighter again. :) 

{Remember, please, that holidays are not easy and happy times for everyone, and make sure to count all your blessings!}

Our leaves for this year, cut from fall-themed scrapbook paper:Really, don’t they resemble little mice lying on the floor?

Our felt tree, tacked onto the flannelboard and ready to go:

This was cut from a pattern I drew and enlarged; if you are interested, you can download the felt tree pattern here.

Have a beautiful day! :)

Learning by Heart – Week 6

“The mother’s heart is the child’s schoolroom”
– Henry Ward Beecher

I meant to post this a couple of weeks ago, but computer problems delayed me a bit.  Just thought I should explain why there are Halloween pictures at the end. :)

M is 4 years old 

 

SHELF ACTIVITIES:

Well, the hit of the week was dropping colored water:This is how I had it set up for him (we were doing letter F things this week).  M loved this activity so much, it merited its own post, here.  If you’d like to keep your child busy for hours, go read it. ;)  Ok, I can’t promise that your child will be as into this as mine was, but I definitely say give it a try!

Mini peg board and marbles, for fine motor skills:The idea was to place pegs in the peg board, then use the tongs to place a marble on top of each peg; turns out it was too difficult to get the marbles on the pegs with the tongs, so M used his fingers.  The marbles are all a clear, light blue.  When they are placed on the colored pegs, look at what happens to them: They change colors!  And, you can’t see this in the photo, but there are tiny air bubbles in some of the marbles that make them *sparkle* on top of the pegs.  Very, very cool.  We were fascinated by this (I really didn’t know this would happen!).

Sand art pictures, which are always a hit, good for fine motor skill development, and so simple for me to prep:  The yellow pages have shapes on them that you can’t quite see in the photo.  Various sections peel off and reveal sticky cardboard, which the child then fills in with the colored sand.

Apple Basket Game, for counting and fine motor skills: To play this, we separated out the apples into two groups of ten.  We took turns rolling the die, then used the tongs to grab the apple stems and place that many apples back into the basket.  Whoever got all of their apples into the basket first won.  We played this once, then M was not interested in it again.  This basket and set of apples was given to me, and I’d sure like to come up with some interesting things to do with it.  Ideas??

Mr. Turkey Heads: These were used with cutouts of Mr. Potato Head parts (pic below, before they were cut out), and M loved making them! We did something similar with Mr. Pumpkin Heads for Halloween and M had been begging to do some more.

Fuse Beads, for fine motor skills, and fun ;)  :                       Another airplane, besides the 5 he’s already made.

M continues to love using his fuse beads to create things.  We are being overrun with plastic bead creations here.  And recently he discovered that they make small glow in the dark fuse beads (biggie beads are pictured above, small ones below).  That’s right – glow in the dark.  Can you even imagine how glorious a 4 year old boy thinks this is?  So, he’s been busy with these babies quite a bit:And yours truly has been kept busy ironing these little buggers.  I’m ready to put them away!

New F and G objects for our phonics box:

   football, fish, frog, flowers, flag, giraffe, guitar, girl, gorilla, elephant, and cake.  (Hee hee, I’m not sure how elephant and cake got in there!)

By the way, if you are interested in finding miniature objects a great place to look is at the decorative buttons at Michael’s.  I found some very cool things there!  (But, oh, how I wish a Hobby Lobby was nearby!)

Lowercase f letter craft, a frog on a log with his leg dangling down:

The letter crafts have officially lost M’s interest.  This was the only one of 4 that he did this week.  Ah well, we may pick them up again some time.  For now we’ll take a break, and focus on other ways to sharpen letter knowledge. 

As a little aside here, it is easy to get discouraged when he is not interested in something I planned; BUT I am trying, trying, trying to remember that there’s no need to learn it all now.  Simply exposing him several times to various skills is all he needs academically at this point (quite honestly, academics in general aren’t really necessary at this age.  This should all be just for fun!).  Even more importantly, he needs patience, love, and for me to listen to him with a mother’s heart.  If we accomplish nothing that I’ve planned, but we did snuggle and read books together, then we had a successful day!

Polishing Pennies with vinegar and salt (from The Wonder Years), a little science, a little practical life work:This was another big hit and he worked on these pennies for over an hour!  Some he let soak in the vinegar, some he cleaned with q-tips.  The white cloth is there for rubbing each penny dry after it’s been cleaned.  The copper in the pennies oxidizes because of the oxygen in the air, and makes them look dirty.  Vinegar is an acid that removes the oxidized copper and reveals the shiny, pretty copper underneath.  Does he understand all this?  I’m not sure, but he did have fun!

 

OTHER ACTIVITIES:

A fun counting activity with pennies (I’ll talk more about this in an upcoming post):

Our nature center class, where we got to touch a turtle and a snake, and take a hike to see some beautiful nature. :)

           The beavers have brought all this wood to the middle of their pond so they have food in winter without having to travel far from home.  You can see the very edge of the beaver lodge at the top of this photo.

It looks like the end of autumn is beginning in this picture, and now that we have several inches of snow, I’m pretty sure that’s true.

 

Mixing vinegar and baking soda, to kill many a dinosaur with red hot lava from a volcano: Actually they just said “ow” a lot because their feet were a little hot.  M is too gentle of a soul to really want them to die from his volcano. :)

To prove this point, here’s a couple of photos taken during M’s free play this week… Superman and The Thing (from the Fantastic Four, if you know your superheroes), who apparently got a little tired and needed to nap, and so used cotton balls for pillows.  :)  Seriously, is that not sweet?!  Superman was lucky enough to even get tucked in with his cape for a blanket. 

When this guy bangs into something he yells, “It’s clobberin’ time!”, but M insists he is saying “It’s cooperating time!”.  Hee hee. :)  

Here’s my little Superman on Halloween, all buff because he has a coat on underneath his costume:He was flying high, let me tell you, after all that candy!   

I’m linking this post up to Preschool Corner and Weekly Wrap-Up; be sure to check them out!

Have a beautiful day! :)

 

Tot School – November 29, 2009

 

This was a pretty light week for us… and we enjoyed it!  We didn’t try to do too much, and just had fun.

Fine Motor Skills

M cut strips of green and red paper with the “zig zag” scissors, then we made a chain of loops and used stickers to close them up: He was very interested in this activity, and caught on to the fact that we were making a pattern.  This was a real breakthrough because in the past he hasn’t gotten the whole *pattern* idea.  I expected lightbulbs to appear over his head and bells to ring, but he just calmly said, “it’s a pattern, we need green next.”  Ha ha, this kid always amazes me and makes me laugh. :)

He spent a LOT of time popping the tiny bubbles on this bubble wrap, such a great activity for strengthening those little fingers:

 

He put pipe cleaner “branches” into the holes of a salt shaker, then added fall colored leaves (pony beads).  He loved this, and thought it was hilarious to call them branches and leaves.  We got this idea from the Schafer Family blog.

 

And laced up some Autumn themed lacing cards:

 

Sorting

M used tongs to sort fruit and vegetables from his supply of pretend food:

And we sorted truck cutouts onto a color wheel:

Math Skills

We played “store” with M’s pretend food and a cup of pennies.  We both had so much fun with this and M had a smile on his face the whole time.  I don’t know why we haven’t done this sooner.  He told me later in the day, “I had fun playing store with you, Mommy!” :)  We set up his fruit and veggies on the loveseat and he picked the items he wanted and I told him the price.  It was perfect for counting practice, and when he ran out of money we had a short conversation about why we can’t always have everything we want.  This great idea came from Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns!

 

Sensory

We played a sensory game with a few matching pairs of items and a small pillowcase.  One of each pair went into a small container and the other went into the pillowcase.  M had to pick an item from the plastic container, then try to find the matching item in the pillowcase using his sense of touch only. I held the bag for him, but he was on his own here just so I could take a picture. :)  He did great with this and had so much fun we did it again right away.  Here are the items we used: pennies, pinecones, wooden blocks, megablocks, clothespins, glass pebbles, pipecleaners wound into a circle, craft leaves, and spoons.

 

Thanksgiving

Here’s a picture of our finished Thanksgiving tree:

We had so much fun with this and we will definitely be doing it again.  What a great way to list our blessings and what we are thankful for.

We went to our Nature Center again for our weekly class and while there the kids drew pictures of what they are thankful for.  Here’s M’s: Apples were first on his list, you can see it in the middle.  Other things were his family, building a snowman, and going sledding when it snows.  He had a great time scribbling… I was surprised because he has not shown that much interest in crayons at home.  At the nature center he was still coloring when all the other kids were done!

I printed a turkey out from here, and M painted it with his watercolors, then cut the tail feathers apart:

 

Imagination

M has a tiny teddy bear that he’s been calling “baby” lately.  (He wants us to have a baby so badly!)  He made a little bed and “baby” slept in it: Then “baby” woke up and wanted to be rocked (someone else wakes up and likes to be rocked sometimes too). What a great daddy!! :)  (No, that isn’t quite the same way I rock M!)

For more Tot School posts, go here.

Have a beautiful week! :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

For flowers that bloom about our feet,
Father, we thank Thee.
For tender grass so fresh, so sweet,
Father, we thank Thee.
For the song of bird and hum of bee,
For all things fair we hear or see,
Father in heaven, we thank Thee.

For blue of stream and blue of sky,
Father, we thank Thee.
For pleasant shade of branches high,
Father, we thank Thee.
For fragrant air and cooling breeze,
For beauty of the blooming trees,
Father in heaven, we thank Thee.

For this new morning with its light,
Father, we thank Thee.
For rest and shelter of the night,
Father, we thank Thee
For health and food, for love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends,
Father in heaven, we thank Thee.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Tot School

November 22, 2009

 M is 38 Months old

My camera battery died in the middle of tot school one day so some photos of just the activities were taken later in the week... like 5 minutes before I wrote this post. :)

ABCs and Pre-writing:

M is going through some anti-craft phase right now, and this includes the craft pages for our ABC book.  He loves cutting and pasting for the collage pages though: So, apparently we will now have an ABC collage book.  I’m hoping the craft pages will make an appearance again sometime soon, but I’m leaving this kind of thing totally up to M.  Here are his Ll and Oo pages: (This was when the no-crafts discovery was made.  M cut the letters out, but refused to do the rest, so yours truly did it in a futile attempt to get him interested.)

On a more positive note, he was totally into the tracing pages.  We “read” his book together and then he practiced holding the dry-erase marker correctly and traced the letters:

We also did our cardstock letters and glass pebbles activity (both from Dollar Tree!): He loves this.  It’s simply setting a letter out and then tracing it with the pebbles in the same way you would draw the letter (start at the top, go down, etc.).

For the very first time we had a sand tray to trace letters.  I was hesitant to do this because I thought at some point M would just want to play in the sand, most likely getting his little cars involved.  We had a little talk about how this is only for drawing letters, shapes, or numbers in, and he actually did pretty well.  He did experiment with just doodling in it too, which was fine with me.  We used this with our sand letter cards: He really did a great job.

We also matched up our Mama and Baby letters with these fun cards (Dollar Tree!):

 

He’s been playing quite often with a fishing game I made 2 years ago (he loved it then and still plays with it frequently) : The fish have letters on them and metal grommets for eyes.  The fishing pole has a magnet on the end of the string to catch them.  The chair, in case you were wondering, is M’s “fishing bridge” and the floor there?  “Floaty Pond”.  :)  As opposed to other side of the room, which is “Sinky Pond”.   Yep!

Pre-literacy Skills:

I have a subscription to an email full of free samples from Dover Publications.  The email comes weekly and I always save a ton of things.  One was these Opposites cards: M was very interested in this – of course he knew about opposites, but didn’t know the term for it.  He enjoyed matching these up and I plan to print more for him soon.  He would say “If it isn’t hot” (and grab the hot card), “then it’s cold!” (and match it to the cold one). 

Fine Motor Skills:

He played with another I Spy Sensory Bin – I found some great new things to put in it for him – a little hammer, screwdriver, pliers, and saw – such cute and tiny things!  We also used a variety of other things found around the house.  I didn’t have a theme at all… but he loved it!

And a Curious George puzzle:

 

Large Motor Skills:

After reading about how important a workout of large muscles can be in a boy’s learning, we did our movement cards before a lot of the other work.  M always enjoys this!

Leaping :)…

 

Math Skills:

I thought this would be a super-fun activity – connecting dots to make shapes: M was interested at first, but quickly moved on to something else.  The idea for this was here.

I found some wooden tan grams at Michael’s  ($1.00 – you should go now!)  and printed a couple of puzzles for him:

 

Size sorting with Bob the Builder trucks (loved this activity and the next one, of course):

 

And size sequencing with Scrambler, also from Bob the Builder:

 

History:

We have been reading some great Thanksgiving books and I told him the basics of the first Thanksgiving with this flannelboard set: He listened very well and then told Daddy the story later!

 

Life Skills:

This week we took the drawer locks off of M’s dresser drawers and he was given two new jobs – put his own clothes away after they are folded, and pick out his own clothes to wear each morning.  He is loving this new-found freedom, such a big boy!  And while the clothing choices are not ones I would’ve made, I’m very, very proud of him!  And now I know that the red shirt is way too small and needs to be packed away. :)

Nature and Science:

We also had a class at our local nature center all about apples this week.  M had so much fun taste testing and graphing his favorite apple, cutting an apple to see the star inside, and even squishing an apple to make cider!  The children were all given their own apple seed and we went to a beautiful sunny field where they planted them. So much fun!  I need to start including our nature center experiences in my tot school posts – we always learn so much there!

For more Tot School, go here!

Have a beautiful week! :)