Book of the Week – Dec. 26, 2009

 
The hit of the week is, without doubt, GO!, by Daniel Kirk.  We made a quick run to the library on Monday and this was one that M picked out on his own. 
I had my doubts.  My husband had his doubts.  That night at bedtime M picked this to read… and we doubted some more. :)
However, M never doubted it; he knew it was a keeper.  And the next day when I pulled the CD out and we listened to it, I realized just how right he was.  This book is awesome!  Don’t try to read it as poetry, it just doesn’t work.  It’s songs – songs with some really weird lyrics and totally kid-friendly melodies.  The songs have super-catchy tunes, the book has amazingly interesting illustrations, and we are absolutely loving it.  M has listened to it no less than 5 times in the past 2 days – he sits on his bed with his nose in the book and listens to all 23 songs.  This equals 45 minutes of freedom for me, which is not the least of the reasons why I love it. ;)
There’s a song about a boy who wants to be an airplane when he grows up.  There’s a song about rollerblading to school.  There’s even a couple you might already know, but with new fun tunes.  It’s great, great, great – I think everyone I know with kids should go out and buy it.  It’s really that great! :)  Hee hee.
If you don’t buy it, at least see if your library has it.  It’s well worth the time!  And give it a chance, with the music, before you judge it!
Check out more book reviews here!
Have a beautiful day! :)

Our Calendar (Free Printables)

One of the things I’m looking forward to doing with M in the new year is daily calendar time.

We’ve been learning the days of the week (we love this song), and we are working on the concepts of today, tomorrow, and yesterday.  We also need to work on morning, mid-day, evening, night, etc.  M thinks anytime the sun is out is “morning” – so pretty much all day, until “night” when it’s dark.  He also thinks if he takes a nap (a very rare occurrence) that when he wakes up it’s “tomorrow”.  Sigh.  If anyone has any ideas on how to help him understand that this isn’t so, I’m all ears.

I bought a piece of poster board and cut it to 14” x 18 1/2”, then marked off spaces for a calendar.  The calendar will hang on our fridge (via double stick tape) and the calendar day cards will have magnets on the back. 

We’ll do calendar time and weather chart time together. I’m planning on noting our birthdays, holidays, and other special days with these calendar cards.  However, I’m also making a full set of regular cards for each month too, so anyone can print and use them (and then you won’t have to celebrate our birthdays. :) )

As I make more calendar pieces for each month, I’ll add them in a list at the bottom of this post, as well as link them up to my printables page. These are listed in order of months, but I’m adding in parenthesis what the theme is in case anyone wants to use them for another month.  There are 31 days in each for just this reason. :)

Have a beautiful day! :)

Month, Year, and Day cards

January (snowflakes) February (dinosaurs) March (baseball) April (baby animals) May (bugs)    June (hot air balloons) July (seaside summer) August (work trucks) September (train engine and train cars) October (owls, pumpkins, leaves, squirrels) November (apples, scarecrow, cornucopia)

December (wreath, snowman, candle)

Merry Christmas!!

I hope you are all having a wonderful and beautiful Christmas day!!

Thursday Thinking – My Top Ten List

Monica wrote a wonderful post here, a long, long time ago and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. When I am frazzled and feel like I’m trying to do too many things at once (yet without getting anything done) and any sense of priorities and time management have long since been thrown out the window, this idea of a daily checklist pops into my head. I know I need that sense of direction and some sort of guide for how to spend my time.

I had one of those days yesterday. Too much to do and too little time to do it all, and I seemed to be spending all my time and energy on trivial things. M wanted me to spend time with him, and all I could do was get irritated… with him and with myself. I wanted to spend some special time with M, but I also wanted (and needed) to do a dozen other things. I was running crazily around with the subtle feeling that I was, just maybe, making the wrong sacrifices in order to get less important things checked off of the to-do list.

I sat down at the kitchen table and finally just did it – wrote my daily top ten list – and it took me all of 5 minutes. 5 minutes of a little clearer vision and some listening to what my heart was trying to tell my brain. :)

Shortly after writing this, I sat down again and tried to place each item in order of importance. Things like tidying up and making a healthy dinner are not on the list, even though they are important to me, but these are things that are already built into my days and are habit and routine already.

Ready? Here it is…

1. Quiet time for prayer/reflection/Bible – aim for both morning and evening, but at least morning. 10 minutes minimum, most days I should be able to spend a good 20 minutes at a time though.

2. Meaningful time with my husband. Connecting with him and paying attention to him and even (gasp!) doing something nice just for him each day. I have to admit I find it easy to put him last.

3. Morning prayer with M – something short, but to get us both off on the right foot together first thing. And, to raise an awareness in him of the importance of this. We used to do this at breakfast, but lately we’ve gotten out of the habit as M isn’t hungry early on and when he’s ready to eat we just say a quick grace, nothing more (I eat much earlier).

4. Spend 20 minutes, minimum, reading books with M, preferably while cuddling. Books at bedtime don’t count towards this.

5. Spend 20 minutes playing with M, doing something he wants to do. (Most likely this will be tot school activities, since this is what he loves to do together, but I will not push it… it’s too easy to make that more important than it should be for a 3 year old).

6. Ensure that housekeeping chores on the list for the day are done.

7. Rest/quiet time for M (and probably me) each afternoon – at least 30 minutes.

8. Some sort of art, craft, or sensory activity every day.

9. Music time – anything simple – putting on a favorite cd and playing a game or dancing, learning a new song, playing with our instruments, etc.

10. Outside time if weather permits.

Number 10 will be a higher priority in spring. In Minnesota it just isn’t always possible to go out in the winter… my cut off is 30 degrees, which is actually pretty warm by MN standards. I know kids at school go out in much colder weather. I don’t like to be cold, I’d prefer to hibernate to tell you the truth. ;)

Many of these will be accomplished in the regular course of our day… if we go out and play in the snow, that’s outside time, sensory time, and play time together all in one. And the Art Box will normally take care of number 8. I just like having them written down so I have hard evidence of what’s important to me and a guide for how to best manage my time each day.

And, just so you know, I DO spend time with M each day, usually several stretches of time throughout the day, but it’s hard for me to put that first. I always think I’ll play with him after I get something important done. Having it written down is a reminder that it really is more important than a lot of the other things. And, I’m trying to remember what Maryanne pointed out in this awesome post of hers… that spending time with your child early on in the day makes it easier for them to spend time on their own later. They need that attention and affection from us, and it’s hard for them to do much without us if that need hasn’t been met.

And, as a side note, you can see blogging didn’t make the list at all. As much as I enjoy it, it could become a full-time job if I let it, and that’s not what I want, not to mention not what’s best for my family! However, I’m pretty sure I’ll still find time for it (obviously I did today!). :)

I also have a list of priorities for each week (which I’ve had for years, updating it occasionally)– what needs to be done at home, a meal plan, activities outside of home, errands, etc. I plan to post about this sometime soon. A new year around the corner is always a good time to think about these things!

I’d love to hear what your daily top ten consists of!!

Have a beautiful Christmas Eve! :)

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What I want for Christmas – Confessions of a Mama-teacher ;)

I have a feeling a lot of moms out there who homeschool or do any sort of tot school or preschool at home with their kids are a lot like this (Dear God, please don’t let me be the only one)… I can’t think of a thing I want for myself for Christmas, but I could give you a list 5 pages long of things I’d love to have for M – toys that help him learn and develop many different skills while having fun.

I just love browsing through quality online toys this time of year; there are so many great things out there that would fit well with the activities I do with M. 

I thought I’d share some great deals with you on some fantastic things I’ve found… and it’s a great way for me to remember what’s on my wishlist when a little extra $$$ comes my way.  (Oh, Santa ??)

Take a look at all these lacing cards and lacing activities.  They  have every shape imaginable, even some that are dot-to-dots at the same time.  Isn’t that brilliant?  M would love the construction and tool ones.  And such great prices!!

And here is a group of ABC and phonics center kits.  There are so many possibilities with these.  There’s even a math center kit, a sequencing story kit, and several science kits that I need to keep in mind for a couple of years from now.  I am practically drooling, hee hee. :)

So, now that you know all this, send me presents!  OK, that is just a joke. ;)  Please don’t send me presents.  But do take a look around the site and the pages I’ve linked to.  You’ll be seeing me post about this site again, and you may just get a little present yourself sometime soon. ;)  For fun, let me know which item would be on your wishlist.

Have a beautiful day! :)

The Art Box – Dec. 21, 2009

In the Art Box last week (last two weeks actually): Christmas foam stickers, tempera paint, watercolors, glue, glitter glue, glitter, oil pastels, assorted ribbons, pom-poms, a pinecone, some cotton balls, a wooden toy train engine, various papers, scissors

On a recent trip to Walmart we saw a bunch of cute little wooden vehicles for just 88 cents a piece. I let M pick one and he chose a little train engine (I know, it looks like a bus to me too, but the “expert” says it’s a train engine). Into the art box it went, and it was the first thing he chose to work on. I am planning to go back and get all of them, he loved painting his own train!

(It has a special place on his dresser, and I couldn’t resist getting this shot of it in front of a picture of M and me when he was 12 months old.)

One afternoon, he was very busy cutting paper and gluing it; I wasn’t really paying attention, then realized he was gluing layers and layers of things together… not spread out on one page, but just scraps of paper piled up.

He was exceedingly proud of his little creation:

See the inside? There are cotton balls sandwiched in there along with all kinds of other little treasures. :)

A few weeks ago we made a baby owl using a pinecone and cotton to go with the book Owl Babies. (I should’ve posted about this, but never got around to it.) When M saw a pinecone in his box he decided he wanted to make a Mama owl! He asked me for a beak and some googley eyes, which I happily provided. They were not sticking on so he stuffed pom poms in the pinecone and then glued the eyes to them! He did this completely on his own. I thought it was absolutely genius, but I may be a little biased. ;)

Note the concentrating tongue in this picture:

The finished Mama Owl:

And the back:

I was told the large piece of green foam is her back and the small pieces of green foam are her feet. So, yeah, her feet are in back. I’m totally OK with that and still think he’s brilliant. ;)

For some reason I was feeling a little nutty and put glitter in his box. The kind you shake out all over everything. Everything, meaning EVERYTHING. He will not be getting glitter again any time soon.

Paintings (you knew they were coming, right?)…

With an empty thread spool:

With tempera paints and paintbrushes:

He is definitely going through some sort of single-color-all-over-the-paper phase, not sure what that’s all about…

Here, he was experimenting with the roller. He asked me for some red paint and some white paint and said he was going to “paint the whole paper red, then change it back into regular paper with the white paint”. I tried to keep a straight face and let him go for it. It didn’t quite work out like he hoped. ;)

And lastly, watercolors:

I’d love to see what your little artists have been creating! Link up below!

Have a beautiful day! :)

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Tot School, Christmas-style – Dec. 20, 2009

**M is 39 Months Old**

This post will be some of the Christmas-themed activities we’ve done in the past couple of weeks. We’ve had a productive, relaxed, insightful, and just plain fun time on my “blog-break” (more about that in future posts).

First, this is how I’ve been finding M first thing many mornings:(sorry for the blurry photo… these old hands of mine aren’t very steady before my coffee, heh) – he’s been sitting in front of the tree, all lit up in the dark, playing with toys so sweetly and quietly. I think he is really soaking up the magic of Christmas and those Christmas lights – remember how special they were when we were children? :) I’m loving this stage with him.

Music:
We have been singing and making music quite often now that his instruments and song book are out and accessible all the time: (Don’t let the blank look on his face fool you, he really does LOVE doing this!)

Fine Motor Skills:
This was a great post from Allie at No Time for Flashcards. However, I really didn’t feel like making one on my own so I gave M some yarn (instead of wire) and some felt I had cut into squares and cut a slit into the middle of – M strung the felt pieces onto the yarn, then we formed it into a wreath and hung it on the tree:
I made these fun rubbing plates using cardboard from a cereal box:I used a cookie cutter to trace the tree, star, and angel and free-hand drew the snowflake. Then I went over the drawings with hot glue. M used them with newsprint and crayons: This was a little tough for him because the paper slid around quite a bit. Here are the best samples of what he did: I plan to make more of these for other holidays – they were fun and really held his interest. He must’ve done dozens of these in the past two weeks.

Sensory:
I filled a large pan with “pretend snow” (shaving cream) one day and M played in it with his little cars for TWO HOURS. I am not kidding. TWO HOURS. There was a mess to clean up, which took me a good 15 minutes. But it was worth it for TWO HOURS of him being involved and interested in something. :)He asked for it again another day and played with it for 20 minutes, sigh. (ugh, look at that kitchen floor. So old and ugly. If anyone wants to give me a Christmas present, a new kitchen floor would be perfect. :) )

Math Skills:
M has really taken off with his understanding of patterns recently. He is really getting it. We did our pattern Christmas lights again, this time in an ABCABC pattern. At first he insisted that it could only be red, green, red, green, etc. Then I talked to him about how we sometimes play games with Daddy and we each take a turn, even though there are three of us. We ended up naming the green lights M, the red lights Daddy, and the blue lights Mommy, then strung them up – he really got it! At the end we were calling them by their colors again and he understood perfectly. We even did some AABB patterning and he picked up on that too! Yay!!

We did a quick counting game with some cardstock Christmas trees and pom poms. I drew little spots for 30 pom poms to go on each tree, then we simply took turn rolling the number cube and putting that many pom pom “ornaments” on our trees to decorate them. The first one to have all the spaces filled won.
I found some Christmas pattern mats here, and printed them in black and white. M was really into this, so I went back and printed a lot of the non-Christmas ones from the same site. The fact that they were black and white instead of colored like the ones we normally use provided just the right amount of challenge to M to make it interesting. He enjoyed “coloring” them with the pattern blocks.

Literacy:
M practiced spelling his name with this ornament stringing activity I made for him. You can read more about that here.
Religion:
We’ve really been enjoying our Jesse Tree stories every evening. I switched to a green felt Christmas tree to see if M would actually hang the ornaments on the tree. He has put some on the tree, but some are still in the “air” too. Such a silly boy sometimes. :) He has really learned a lot from this project, and is always so excited when it is Jesse Tree time!

Nature Center Time:
We are enjoying our Nature Center classes so much, and they just keep getting better and better. I’ve decided to start adding these into our Tot School posts so we’ll be able to remember how much fun we’ve had!

A couple of weeks ago we talked about what animals do when it snows. Did you know weasels turn white (except for the tips of their tails, which turn black) in winter? Or that frogs dig down deep into the mud and turn into frog ice cubes? :) The kids had a snowball fight inside with cotton balls, made candy cane animals,

(It’s a reindeer!)

and went ice-skating on wax paper:M had a ball. We are out of wax paper or we’d be doing this every day. I even tried it and it was fun for me too!

The next week “Nature Santa” visited and read a story about Christmas trees in the forest to the kids:
His glasses were fogged up here because he had just come in from a zero degree day.

M got to make bird feeders with bagels and seeds, and one with fruit loops on a pipecleaner: These are hanging in our yard waiting for the hungry animals to discover them.

We even got to eat a pancake breakfast with Santa! M had the time of his life until….
it came time to actually meet Santa and talk to him: He was suddenly very shy and completely forgot to say all the things he had planned on saying. :) It’s ok though because Mommy has Santa’s phone number and will be giving him a call to let him know what M would like. ;)

For more Tot School posts go here.

Have a beautiful Christmas with your families! :)