Big week for H!

It has been quite a big week for our firstborn!
has a new room (no longer sharing with baby bro)
first back to school night
started kindergarten
recited weekly verse in front of the whole school
experienced carpool (way cooler than just our little family)
first soccer game
scored 2 goals in the soccer game...
And tomorrow if our first day of homeschool Kindergarten!
So many fun things for our biggest kid!

silly kiddos on the way to school

Our family getting ready to bring H in for his 1st day!!

Flagged down the ice-cream truck after school for a special treat!

Soccer:

Loving that Daddy is the coach!

H and his best friend E!

 GOAL!!!

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What I didn't expect this week was how hard all of H's firsts would be on Bug.  Once we were in the parking lot leaving school, Bug lost it.  "Why isn't bro coming with us?  I want to stay too!  I want bro to come home with us..."

Her sadness didn't last all too long, when we got home I put B-man down for his nap and Bug and I played dolls for 45 minutes.  Do I dare admit, I have never played 1-on-1 with her for that long!  It was such a treat to just get to focus on her for window of time!

She is now enjoying our new routine and doing quite well with bro gone at school.  Tomorrow is our first day of homeschool for H for Kindergarten, so we will see how well she does sharing my attention with both of her bros : ) 

Though I was dreading the busyness of this season, I am really enjoying the unique blessings of this season more than I expected I would!

Morning Board

This year to keep on top of what we are working on with H, and in an effort to have Bug involved in part of "school time," I decided to do what we call "morning board."  Other homeschool blogs that I follow gave me all of the ideas and printables I needed to do this.  I love the amazing resources other moms out there have created and are sharing!!  For the printables and little video tutorials you can check out these 3 awesome blogs:  1+1+1=1,   Homeschool Creations, and Confessions of a Homeschooler. 

Here is our morning board

Our morning routine:
1. Bug picks out the color of the day... then the kids find items that are that color to put on display.
2.  H finds the day of the week then we sing the "Days of the Week" song.
3.  H and Bug go and look out the window to see what the weather is for the day.  H finds the right card to match the weather and puts it on the board.
4.  Bug picks out the shape of the day, again the kids do a little searching to see if they can find anything with this shape.
5.  We talk about the character trait, usually there is a little song that goes with it (based off of Hubbard's Cupboard pre-K curriculum).

6.  pause... I give Bug something to do (puzzle, coloring book...)

7.  H reviews our phone number and address
8.  H recites his verses for the week (1 for Biblestudy, 1 for Awanas and 1 for school)
9.  We go over the site words for the week
10.  We practice the sign language for the letter of the week and sing the ABC's doing the signs that we have learned so far.
11.  H and Bug do the exercise for the letter of the week

This sounds really long, but in actuallity most mornings it is only 10-15 minutes tops.  Then it is usually Alone Play Time (APT) for Bug.  Sometimes H does APT at the same time, other days I use this time to work on more school stuff with H.

That is our little routine for the mornings that we don't have somewhere we have to be... oh, and we usually do this in our pajamas.  Maybe when Bug and BB are a little older and can help dress themselves, I can aspire to have everyone clothed by 9.  I just don't have that lofty of goals yet : )

Pre School this week/ and Bug School too

H- 4 1/2
Bug- 18 months

This week we have not been great about doing school time... a little here and a little there.  We have been busy playing at the park instead, meeting Daddy for lunch, going to craft stores, getting ready for the baby...  We did do some school time, here is what we have been up to:

H-man Preschool
Math:  I had H put together this really great puzzle that I got at Ross for $5.  It has 3 pieces for each number 1-20.  I started by taking out all of the words, and just had him count the pictures then match the number.  Once he did this for all 20, I took away numbers 11-20.  Then I pulled out the cards with the the words (names of each number) for 1-10.  I would hold up the card and ask him if he knew what it said.  Some of the words he has memorized, others he tried to sound out. 

Art time:
Just painting, per H's request

Reading:
For our real reading time we are still slowly working through Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.   He is now to lesson 26 (I think) and each lesson has a "story" for him to read usually made up of 2 sentances of words he can sound out.  This book is honestly amazing, he can already read the little stories.  Then after each story there is a list of questions to help the child with reading comprehension.  We do reading time always while Bug is napping, it helps us both concentrate : )

H has also been really into "reading" or what you might call reciting stories to the baby.  Here are some of my favorite pics:

Yes that is by big bare belly. haha

And this one shows when the baby kicked H's hand as he read... look at that face!  I just love his expression!  It honestly made H's day that the baby liked his story so much!

Tiny Tot School:
Bug is not the best at sitting still, or having a very long attention span, so we have started working on this in a couple of different ways.
1.  High Chair time:  When I am doing school time with H, I have Bug sit in her high chair and play with 1 toy at a time.  She usually has 5 minutes of interest in the toy, then she will gather back up the pieces, and try to hand it back to me.  I know 5 minutes isn't long, but it was huge for her.  And I was so proud of her that she didn't throw the toy on the ground when she was done, that she waited for me to come over and take it from her.  Then I gave her another set of toys... again, 5 minutes of interest, packaged it back up and handed it to me.  On the first day she lasted through 4 sets of toys for a total of 20 minutes!

random, but fun... 1.  Farm Toy

2. Garlic press (don't worry no sharp edges)  

3. Metal bowl and spoon with plastic sharks

2.  Sit still time on a blanket:
Again, sitting still is not her strong suite, but an area we can improve on: )  Both of the kids get Gummy Vitamins each morning.  Instead of just giving them to the kids, I use the vitamins as little rewards or re-enforcements for sitting still.  Bug gets 1 vitamin and H gets 2.  So to lengthen the training time,  I cut hers into 4 pieces and his both in half, giving 4 pieces.   We lay out a blanket, sit down, I start by reminding Bug that it is "sit still time," then I start the Bible story.  If she can sit still for a page (2 -3 sentences) then she gets part of her "bite" as she calls it.  H has the skill down, but I use this time to let him be an example for Bug.  Praising him when he is sitting still, and letting Bug see Bro get his "bite."  Oh, we have a long way to go in this area, but it is worth all of the time and effort.  Training is never easy, but with time it does have it's rewards.

3.  Painting:
Every now and then I will pull out water-colors or finger paints for Bug to do while H is painting.  But on days that I don't have time for a lot of clean up.  I give her a paint brush, construction paper and a little cup of water.  She LOVES it.  And clean up is so easy, simply throw the piece of soggy paper away : )

Little update

Bug: Thanks to those of you that have prayed for Bug and I (keep em coming)!  The last 2 days have been much better.  Well, other than when she bit me today as I was talking to my neighbor.  To which I said to my neighbor, "Wow, I can't believe she did that.  Wait, I can believe she did that!"  Not saying that Bug has been characterized at all by biting, but that as soon as we as parents think our kids are above any behavior or rebellion we are asking to be humbled : )  So, other than that minor infraction and a few others of determination and defiance we are doing better.  I am handling her testing of power, with much more grace and consistency rather than shock and irritation.  Can I just say, that it is not about me either or anything I have mustered up on my own!  God has graciously helped me pull my tired pregnant body out of bed before my kids have woke up to spend time reading and praying.  Whew, what a difference that time in the morning with God makes!

Nesting update:  I wrote about my insatiable urge to nest here.  We have been able to accomplish a lot of the to-do lists. 
H's room and the guest room have successfully been swapped!  Crib is up!  Crib bedding for boy and girl have been washed and are ready to go.  My sweet friend Nicole came over and helped me sort through all of my boy and girl clothes.  Left side of the dresser has boy clothes and right has girl.  My plan is just to wash the Newborn size of each for now, then after I deliver we will just wash the ones we will need (getting so excited to find out what we are having)!  I have started organizing and de-cluttering projects throughout the house.  Man it feels so good to get things in order, I even organized my bras and undies!

PreSchool for H- I am still working hard to plan and prep for next years curriculum.  I originally wrote about it in this post.  From the recommendation of another sweet blogging mom Catherine, I took a look at Hubbards Cubpoard.  Wow, truly amazing the free curriculum they have listed.  I am considering using this as my starting point, and then adding in some of the amazing tools I have found on 1+1+1=1 Blog, Homeschool Creations, Confessions of a Homeschooler and the many other blogs that I am starting to dig into.  Planning for the whole year can feel a bit daunting, but it really is so fun as well!

Baby #3-  I have been having some contractions, and I was a little fearful that it meant this little one would be arriving a little ahead of schedule.  I still have over a month and a half to go, so now would not be ideal for this little one to come.  I had an OB appointment and asked if I could be checked, since I am scheduled to fly to Denver next week for a wedding.  My OB in his tad harsh New York fashion kind of laughed at me since I don't have any other indicators of pre-term labor (both of my other kids were within 8 days of their due date, I am 30 years old, the baby looked healthy on the ultrasound, the contractions have been happening for a week now and I am not in active labor...  yes, he really did snicker at me).  Anyway, I had him check and I am at a 0!  Thank goodness!  He did run the test (can't remember what the test is called) to see if I am probable to deliver in the next 2 weeks, but I haven't heard back from him what the results are.  I am not going to fret over the contractions for now.

That is my little update.  Sorry, no pics, lots of words, might have been a boring post for some of you : )

PreSchool- Beach and Ocean

                     

H- 4 1/2

Bug- 17 months

This last week we kind of broke away from our traditional "school" week and did learning activities out on our adventures.  We had dear friends from Utah come out to visit, and truth be told it felt like a vacation for us too.  We did many touristy things and loved every minute of learning on the go.  Here is what we did this week...

Reading-
I drew large circles in the sand and put 3 letter words across the circles.  Then I had H jump from one circle to the next saying the sound the letter makes as he was in that circle, then the whole word at the end.

He loved it, so I made another word, then another, until I had a mini scrabble board going ; )   Daddy then noticed that all of the words I had in the sand you could read forward or backward, so we had H hop both directions to figure out the different words that were written in the sand.

Bug playing at the beach... looking very concerned.

Science- Marine Life

We had the pleasure of going up to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach.  The kids both really enjoyed it, and I had a great time as well.  We talked about all of the different types of fish and sea mammals we saw.  We even got to feel some of the different creatures.  H was brave enough to touch the starfish, and sea anemone, but he left it up to me to touch the sting-ray.  Bug even touched the starfish and sea anemone, though she was a little rough with them.  Guess we need to work on the meaning of gentle before the baby is born... currently not a part of her vocabulary or understanding for that matter : )

We talked a lot about how creative God is in making all of these different kinds and colors of fish.  I think this is the most colorful aquarium I have ever been to in regard to the color of the fish.  It was honestly amazing.  For the first time I was hit with the thought that there is not a color "created" by man that God did not use somewhere in creation!

 scooba diver feeding the fish

 blues, greens, orange, yellow, pink, reds... so beautiful and amazing!

The show that was put on by the seals at feeding time was fascinating.  The seals are really such smart animals.  All of the kids were thuroghly entertained!

At the end of our day at the aquarium we visited the Lorikeet exhibit.  The birds are beautiful in color.  On the way in a sign said,  to be careful because the birds may bite your finger.  H took the warning very seriously and stood with his hands behind his back the whole time we were in the exhibit.  Me on the other hand stood with my hands covering my head because a bird dive bombing my head or pooping in my hair is one of my biggest fears... true story!

Here we are with our friends, and Bug is showcasing her true independent streak in this picture as she tries to escape.

Ahh, what a great week of vacation at home/ schooling on the go!  Thanks friends for the visit, we miss you, come back soon!

Pre School

Pre School activities for this week...

Language:

Baby Signing Time  This is more for Bug than for H-man.  However, H loves it so much more than she does.  Sometimes, H will say to me, "Mama look at me I am trying to tell you something."  Then he will sign it.  Bug has down the necessities (more, please, all done, drink, milk, thank you).  However, H can't get enough of signing.

Reading readiness:  Bottle cap cards...

A few months ago I made these cards for H after getting the idea off of one of my favorite blogs, 1+1+1=1.  You can see the original post here.  He really likes them.  The front side has the letters written in and the back side just has open circles.  In hopes that they will grow with his reading/ spelling development.

Writing Practice:
H has been using Kumon's First book of Uppercase Letters.  I really like their style and even the order they have kids learn to write letters.  I usually cut the sheet out, put it in a clear plastic cover and have him use a dry erase marker.  Once he has done one letter throughout the week, he can take it out of the plastic sleeve and write it in pencil.  Great system!  We pair the lower case letter with the upper case letter for the week.

Bible: This year we have been going through the story of creation each month.  This month we are learning about how God made animals on the 6th day.  We spent time reading the creation story.  H asked me, "Why are we reading this again?"  Guess, he kind of has it memorized by now : )  We also took time to review last month's memory verses about love.  1 Corinthians 13:4-7, Proverbs 17:17 and Proverbs 17:22.  (I am trying to figure out how to add the PDF file of our verse cards, but when I do I will add them). 

 H-man is 4 years and 5 months old!  I can't get over how quickly he is growing up!