The Preschool Corner – April 4, 2010

M is 3.5 years old.

This is my first post for Preschool Corner; how weird is it that I’m totally excited about that? :)

This past week we had unbelievably gorgeous spring weather, and had a relaxed week just spending time outside and enjoying being together. M was still recovering from his pneumonia, but by the end of the week he was totally back to himself, which made for a very relieved mama!

We’ve been doing a lot of dinosaur-themed activities lately, and I hope to put all of it in a single post sometime soon. For today though, here are some of the other things we’ve been up to…

PLAY:

We had such beautiful weather this week, and our first picnic in the backyard!

M has been able to spend time outside each day, and has spent a lot of it doing this: Ack, the photo is horribly blurry, but he keeps pulling extremely heavy logs off our woodpile, dragging them to the patio and then chopping the bark off of them with his little plastic axe. :) All our wood looks naked. :)

FINE MOTOR SKILLS:

This was on M’s activity shelves and he got it out every day… it’s the hammering shapes set from Oriental Trading. This is a “castle at night with the moon in the sky, but the sun is coming up because it’s almost morning”:

The beloved Spiderman slippers were washed and came out full of lint. This bothered M to no end, so I gave him the lint roller and he learned how to use it!

LITERACY:

He cut these Letter N pictures out and made a collage with them.
On our recent car trip I brought some workbooks along with us to give him something to do in the car. I’m not a huge fan of worksheets, but M loved them and can’t get enough. Here he is cutting out rhyming pictures and using tape (his new love) to put the rhyming pairs next to each other.
He did almost every letter in his homemade Build-a-Letter kit (also out on his shelves all week):
SENSORY:
I put together a sensory bin full of only soft things for M this week. It had squares of fleece, feathers, pom-poms, cotton balls, and squares of velvet. I added in some plastic eggs to use for scoops and some plastic salad tongs, a new thing for M (the kind that have a fork and spoon that move together). Here he is first taking a look at it:
The salad tongs were a big hit! He started using them right away:

The next time I looked, this is what I saw:
This was a lot of fun for him. He found that he could blow the pom poms and feathers around the room and he did so for close to 30 minutes! He said “I’m just like the wind, Mommy!” :) He spent time tossing the feathers in the air and watching them float down from various heights. He also just sat and examined each soft thing, occasionally rubbing it on his cheek (so sweet!).

For more Preschool Corner posts, go here!

Have a beautiful day! :)

Books of the Week – April 3, 2010

The Lorax, by Dr. Seuss:How is it possible that I went my entire 37 years without reading this book? I’m a huge Dr. Seuss fan, even more so now than I was as a child. This book is basically a tale about how important it is to take care of our environment, focusing mainly on pollution. It also talks a bit about greed and the trouble it can cause. M enjoyed it and has asked for it several times.
The Little Red Caboose, by Marian Potter:
We are now the owners of this classic Little Golden Book, and since M loves all things train-related (really, who doesn’t?) it’s a big hit with him. The little red caboose feels sorry for itself, always being at the end of the train, but ends up being a hero (and finding contentment in being himself), when it saves the train from falling down a mountain. And the illustrations are adorable!
Check out Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns for more book recommendations!
Have a beautiful day! :)

50 Best Blogs for Early Childhood

Well.  This may sound a bit like I’m tooting my own horn, but I’m just very excited about it and wanted to share it with all of you. :)

Online Degrees is a website “dedicated to helping students find the best accredited online college to pursue their associate's, bachelor's, or graduate degree.”  (Taken from their home page here.)

On top of this basic mission of Online Degrees, they have articles on education and a recently started blog where various aspects of education are discussed.

Their most recent article is titled “50 Best Blogs for Early Childhood” and Tired, Need Sleep is listed along with 49 other wonderful blogs!  I’m anxious to go check them out, and I hope you will too! :)

Thank you all for reading this silly little blog of mine… I’m continually surprised at how many real friends I’ve made through blogging. 

Have a beautiful day! :)

Book Review – To Be Like Jesus by Ann Shields

This book is a series of 31 meditations on the Gospel of Luke.  It is thoughtfully written and very thought-provoking.  As I began, I wasn’t sure I liked the author’s tone… I often felt as if I were being spoken down to, scolded almost… as if she were assuming that I am not serious about my faith, or at least not as serious as she is.  I take more kindly to those authors who have a “we are all in this together, let’s learn together about how best to love God and be holy” kind of attitude.  However, I kept reading and eventually was able to lay aside my initial impression because of the deeply moving content of the meditations.  And well, if I am honest, sometimes I am in need of a little scolding. ;)
The author writes short reflections on 31 passages in Luke; each scriptural passage is printed out in full at the beginning of each chapter, which is very handy, and I loved that I was getting in a little actual Bible reading as I made my way through the book.
The main point of each chapter, and of the book as a whole, is to come to a deeper understanding of God’s love for each one of us personally.  And how the understanding of that great love makes us more loving towards others, and more like Jesus.  She makes a strong and important point about how we need to take time away from the many distractions of life and focus on our spiritual well-being and our relationship with God.  This really hit home for me, and I gained so much wisdom and insight from this little book… it was the perfect thing for me to read during Lent, and in preparation for Easter. 
This review was written as part of the Catholic book Reviewer program from The Catholic Company. Visit The Catholic Company to find more information on To Be Like Jesus.

Letter Dd Lapbook

While M was sick last week I gave myself a break from housework (well, except laundry, dishes, and cooking) and spent some time completing a few projects. This lapbook was one of them and I’m excited to share it with M this week. The entire lapbook is laminated so M can use dry-erase markers for some of the activities.

First, Things that Begin with D:

Color the Daffodils (laminated right onto the folder):

Which Dinosaur is Different?:

Writing Skills Practice:Trace the D and d on the outside of the pocket, and follow the lines on the little card inside to help the baby ducks find the mother duck.

Sorting upper and lower case letters:

Dinosaur Patterns (I chose to laminate this right onto the back of the folder, but I did include a pocket for this in the printables – your choice.):
We’ve been doing a lot of other dinosaur activities too… I hope to post about them soon!
You can download all the pages for this lapbook here. Use them as activity packs or in workboxes… however you want!

Have a beautiful day! :)

The Art Box – March 29, 2010

As many of you know, we rushed home from our trip to visit my parents and ran right into a bout of pneumonia (which thankfully is getting better), and of course I did not give the Art Box a single thought all week.

However, the week we were in Missouri M did ask to paint. His exact words were, “When can I paint? I haven’t painted in So Long.”

So I knew he had art on his mind and wasn’t surprised when he got out the art box from a couple of weeks ago the very evening we came home (before he was too sick). Here’s what he did in that one sitting…

Marble painting:

Tempera painting (darn it, there was a story that went with this one that I can’t remember!):

Some marker drawing and stamping - this was a song he wrote:

Do-a-Dot painting, “for springtime”:

By the way, to do the very cool marble painting, tape a piece of paper (sturdy construction paper or cardstock if you have it) to a pan with a small piece of double stick tape. M used a baby spoon to put globs of paint on the paper, then placed a marble on each glob (yep, technical term). Then he slowly tilted the pan around and watched the marbles make their tracks. Occasionally he stopped to look at it and decide what else it “needed”:He’s done this before with a golf ball, which, incidentally, made very cool tracks, so when I put marbles and a pan in his art box he knew what the idea was. It’s pretty mess-free, but the first time takes a little guidance so the pan doesn’t get tipped completely over. For a toddler, you could use a shoebox and secure the lid on with a couple of rubber bands, let your child shake it up a bit, then look to see the masterpiece inside!

I can’t wait to see the artwork your kids have made! Link up below. :)

Have a beautiful day! :)

Tot School – March 28, 2010

M is 42 months old.

Wellllll…… M had pneumonia this week.  So, we did not do much of anything except read books and watch tv.  My poor, poor baby.  We went to the doctor on Monday and he immediately started getting better after starting the antibiotics, but he’s still not back to normal.  (We’d appreciate prayers, if you are willing!)

The following is a smattering of this and that from past weeks that haven’t yet made it into a post, in no particular order as I’m not up to organizing anything right now…

We visited my parents who live on our family farm in Missouri.  It is more of a hobby farm now than anything (in its glory days it was a magnificent dairy farm, with horses and sheep to boot).  M loved feeding the chickens, and hearing the rooster crow!

While we were there we made a trip to Bass Pro (a major outdoor sports / hunting mall.  They had a lot of wonderful displays, including these sweet turtles:

And this grizzly bear, whom he agreed to stand next to if Auntie M would hold him:

 

I found a small foam ABC puzzle mat - the squares come apart and the letters all come out – for $1.00 at Walmart.  Here M is lining them up like a  train.  After he finished placing the letters in he “drove” it (pulled it) all around the house.

 

I took all the soft stuff out of our previous sensory bin and left the hard glass pebbles and marbles in.  I found a gumball machine at Dollar Tree and added it in.  Here’s M figuring out how it works (it was perfect for the marbles!):    (And, um, WHY does my baby look so long in this picture?)

This past week we did do one school-ish activity (later in the week, when he started improving and actually got dressed)… our egg game, which you can read about here. We played it and a couple of other games quite a bit, and although I hate for M to be so sick, I have to say I enjoyed the slower pace of our days this week.  Anyway, here we are playing the game:

And after we finished, we quickly graphed our chicks and other animals to see who had more before we actually counted them: 

Beginning next week (or the next school post I get around to writing), I’ll be linking these posts up to the Preschool Corner instead of Tot School.  I’ve been in denial that my baby is growing up, but have decided that our posts are probably more preschool-oriented now, although I do intend to keep school activities play-based and fun… no formal curriculum of any kind yet.  I hope all of you who read our Tot School posts will continue following M’s progress and our weekly activities!

Have a beautiful week, everyone! :)

Books of the Week – March 27, 2010

 
Click the button above to read about more great books for kids!
The Golden Egg Book, by Margaret Wise Brown:This is a fun book for Easter that reminded me of stories I enjoyed as a child.  The illustrations are beautiful and  simple and in our house this has been a favorite all around.  A little bunny finds an egg and wants to know what’s in it… so he kicks it, rolls it down a hill, and does what he can to find out.  It’s so sweet and I don’t want to spoil the book for you, so I’ll just say he gets a taste of his own treatment and ends up with a friend.  And no one is ever lonely again. :)  Well, that may be going overboard a bit, but it truly is a sweet book that I think almost any child would enjoy.

What’s Up, What’s Down?, by Lola M. Schaefer: This is an interesting and unique book that absolutely fascinates M.  You turn the book on it’s side and for the first half you follow arrows pointing up and find out what’s above a mole digging in the ground, etc.  all the way to the moon.  Then you turn the book around and follow arrows downward, finding everything that is below the moon all the way to the depths of the oceans.  It is pretty neat and I think adults and children alike will enjoy reading it!
Check out Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns for more book recommendations!
Have a beautiful day! :)