Schooling by Day, Canning by Night...

For some ridiculous reason, I always start our school year right when canning season kicks in. This year was no exception. Although, I have to say, it is so much easier to get excited/motivated to can this year, than it was last year as a pregnant person. :)

But I should start where I left off last time. On Friday I decided to go ahead with my Story of the World activity, because I already had it planned and printed off. Luckily, I chose to do the maps part of it, because Lincoln is way into maps at the moment, so, besides the readings, I wasn't repeating anything he did in class already. We listened to the the Introduction and Chapter 1 on the CD while we ate snack, and then we each colored a map of the Fertile Crescent. I thought Ivan did a lot better than I had expected him to, and Adelia mostly scribbled on hers while I colored it. (Lincoln liked this activity so much, that a couple days later, he asked for another blank map so he could do it again. Which is making me think that maybe we'll keep doing the maps as we read the book, and then just leave the other activities to Lincoln's teacher.) *And yes, I am aware that I spelled crescent wrong on the maps, English Major fail. :(

Then we had kind of a wild weekend. Friday night I hosted a movie night for my book club. We'd just read and discussed Life of Pi, and some of us wanted to watch the movie. I love the movie and the book, but especially the book. It's one of those that my brain goes back to, over and over again, at random parts of my life so I can analyze it from new angles. I think it's hard to grasp anything much beyond which story you believe to be true in the first reading of the book, because the shock factor is so high. But this last reading/book club discussion I kept focusing on the part about it being a story to "make you believe in God". And this, in a nutshell, is what I think. I think the second story is the true story. I think that many religions teach using parables. So I think the first story is a parable for Pi over-coming the natural man, and finding forgiveness and strength by being forced to hold the tiger within himself at bay. Pi says he can't tame the tiger, but he can train it. I think that's a wonderful metaphor. Our mistakes of the past don't have to define us, or our futures, if we can accept the grace of God, and work to rise above our animal instincts. In the book, Pi finds God's forgiveness and peace, allowing him to move beyond a horrible deed and start a new and happy life in Canada with a wife and kids and two cats. :) Anyways, I love the book. And the movie is awesome too.

Saturday we had two soccer games in the morning. Both boys played well. Then I drove up to Hooper for Sabrina's bridal shower. She and Jackson are getting married at the end of September. I'm excited to have her in our family. She is really good for Jackson. And they seem really happy together. My mom puts on a great shower. This time she had a really cute table display with cupcakes and candies in little cups. They were shaped in a heart and set on the table as party favors. It was cute. And I always love seeing all of my Hooper people. All the ladies that were my neighbors, primary teachers, young women leaders, etc. I love those ladies. They are a riot. And it's fun knowing them now as an adult, instead of just as a kid. Jack and Bri got some great gifts...makes me want to have a bridal shower again for myself. I feel like when I got married I had no idea what we needed or wanted, and I didn't know which gifts were good gifts. I remember a few things I returned, thinking I'd never need them, that I sure wish I had back now!

I got home from H-town late Saturday night. Then we all had to get up early Sunday morning to be in Salt Lake by 9:00am because Aaron's brother Kelly was blessing their new baby Eli. We almost made it on time. Luckily, Kelly's ward was flexible and let them do the blessing after passing the Sacrament, so that Aaron was still able to participate. We went back to Kelly and Esther's afterwards and had a nice brunch. It was raining so we all stayed inside, but it was still a really nice morning. The kids had fun playing with Asher, and the adults chatted. We left and got home in time for Sunday afternoon naps! Glorious! We have one o'clock church, so we don't get to have Sunday afternoon naps very often. I have greatly missed them.

Monday morning was Lincoln's first choir class as the Scera Theater in Orem. He had a great time. His teacher even made a point to come and find me afterwards and tell me how much she enjoyed having Lincoln in her class. She said that he followed directions very well. I was happy to hear that. The classes are for home school families, so there were a bunch of other people waiting in the waiting area with us while we waited for Lincoln's class to end. Ivan and Adelia soon found a couple of little friends, and spent a very happy hour playing duck-duck-goose, tag, and running up and down the stair case. I was glad for them that it turned out to be a fun adventure. I chatted with a few of the other home school moms, I hadn't met any of them before since they were all from the Orem/Provo area, and most of the other home schoolers I know are from Springville and south, but all the moms were really nice, and I'm looking forward to getting to know them better. Sometimes I think people don't realize how many home school families there actually really are. Home schooling is not a very small minority anymore. And that makes me glad.

Monday night, my friend Wynter came over and we canned peaches. She did hers and I did mine, but it was way more fun to do it together and have someone to talk to. I bought a bushel from up in Brigham City this year, like I do every year; but, to my great surprise, my very own peach tree also produced this year. I wasn't expecting it to for a few more years. But I got forty peaches off my tree this year. They were a little bit smaller than the onse I bought from Brigham, but they tasted every bit as good! So I had a bazillion peaches. What to do? What to do? I still have about 12 quarts of sliced peaches from last year. I decided to only do 12 new quarts of sliced peaches this year. With the rest, I tried a new Zesty Peach BBQ Sauce recipe, and it turned out awesome. And I also blended up a bunch with some raspberries and made Peach-Raspberry jam. I've been canning like a mad woman every single night this week. Trying to use up my peaches before they go bad.

Tuesday morning it was my turn to host Ivan's preschool co-op. I set out our Wedgits and Magna-tiles for the kids to play with when they got here while we waited for everyone to arrive. Today we learned about shapes. First we did singing time though. We sang Hello Everybody, Here We Are Together, In the Leafy Tree Tops, and Five Little Monkey's (the alligator version). Then, to introduce shapes, I read them Thumper's Shapes. Then I handed each child cut-outs of the four basic shapes; circle, triangle, rectangle, square. We talked about each one, and said how many sides and how many angles it had. Then I would describe a shape by saying something like, "I'm thinking of a shape that has three sides and three angles." And the kids would have to hold up their triangles. For the next activity, we talked about how shapes can be different sizes or colors but if they have the right number of sides and the right number of angles they are still a square (or whichever shape). We played a game where the kids came up and picked shapes of different sizes and colors out of a brown paper bag, they had to decide which shape it was, and then put it on my flannel board under the right category (circle, square, triangle, rectangle). Then the kids needed some wiggle time. So we went outside on the driveway where I had drawn large shapes with chalk. We walked around the perimeter of the shapes singing Hi-Ho the Dairy-o and changing the words for each shape, like this: "A rectangle has four sides, a rectangle has four sides, two are short and two are long, a rectangle has four sides." Then I gave the kids chalk and they practiced drawing the four different shapes. Next we went back inside and had a snack. I gave them pretzel sticks and had them try to make their shapes out of pretzels too. After snack we did a cutting/gluing activity. They attempted to cut out the shapes and glue them onto another piece of paper and then color them. They did pretty well, but I think our scissor skills need a little work. For out last activity we did pattern block pictures. Each of the kids got a cookie sheet, a pile of magnetic pattern blocks, and a laminated picture to fill in. They seemed to really like this activity, and when they finished with one picture, they asked to switch out for another one. When it was time to go, every kid got to take home a bag with paper shapes and colored sticks in it. The idea is that they can set out the paper shape, and then use the same colored sticks to go around the edge, to practice making shapes. I did a piece of string so they could do a circle too.

Tuesday afternoon was also the first day of our art class. We will be doing a weekly art class at my house with Wynter and her kids. We are using the Home Art Studio DVD curriculum, and I'm really excited about it. Today we learned about Primary and Secondary colors. First the kids traced their hands a few times on a piece of large construction paper. Then they painted each of their hands a Primary color of their choice. Next they learned about mixing colors, and then got to choose which colors they wanted to mix to make a Secondary color background of their choice. Ivan's finished product is bottom left, and Lincoln's is bottom right. I put up a string along the empty back wall of my school room, and am planning on displaying all of their artwork for this year on the string using clothes pins. The kids had a great time with this project, and I am looking forward to it next week and for the rest of the year.

Tuesday night we went to soccer games. And Aaron brought me home flowers, just because. :) I love when he does that.

Also, here's a picture I took of Ollie the other night when he was taking forever to want to go to sleep. I feel like he's been a little bit left out on the blog lately. But seriously, he won't hold still long enough for me to take any good pictures of him. He's all over the place rolling around, and even pushing himself up on all fours for a few seconds at a time. I am NOT ready for a crawler. But check out those beautiful baby blues.

Wednesday we had another great Science Club at Wynter's house. I was only in charge of snack this week, and didn't have to teach, so I got to see some of the lessons. They were all so good! We have some awesome creative moms doing Science Club. We did mammals again this week, but each mom took a different type of mammal. So one class was about bears, one class was about marsupials, and one class was about sea mammals.

Jill taught the sea mammals class. She did an experiment to teach about the scientific method, and I thought it was so cool. She wanted to show the kids how some sea mammals have blubber that keeps them warm in the cold water. She had a bowl full of ice water on the table, and had the kids put their hands in it to see how cold it was. Then she had the kids take turns putting their hands in a plastic bag that had another plastic bag filled with shortening inside, then stick their hands wrapped in the plastic bag back into the water, and the shortening blubber kept their hands warm. I thought it was such a neat experiment.

In the bear class they learned about hibernating. And at dinner, Lincoln explained to Aaron how bears are really small when they are born. And in the marsupial class they learned about kangaroos, and how the baby kangaroos are born as small as a jelly-bean and then live in their mom's pouches until they are bigger.

Today was our second day of hosting preschool co-op. My subject was handwriting. Most of the kids in the class are pretty young, so I decided to go with a fine-motor skills approach, rather than an actual hold the pencil and do handwriting approach. For our first activity I used a piece of the Handwriting Without Tears curriculum. They have these wooden blocks that you can use to build any capital letter in the alphabet. I've never bought the blocks, but I have cut the shapes out of card stock, and that works just as well in my opinion. So I cut out a set of shapes for each kid in preschool. We sat in a circle and practiced building the first letter in each child's name. Once we had built the letter we traced it with our fingers, and used the verbal cues from HWT, which go something like this: "Ok we're going to make the letter P. To make a P we start in the top left corner, then we make a big line down, then we frog jump back to the top, ribbit! Then we make a little curve to the middle. This is letter P." In our class, we happened to have two I's, two A's, a P, a J, and a D, so those are the letters we worked on today. But I sent the shape sets home with the parents, so if they want to practice more with their kids they can. I didn't get as many pictures today, because Ollie was awake and wanting to be held. I wish I would have been able to get one of all the kids making their letter shapes, they did so good!

Our next activity was letter lacing cards. Again I chose to focus only on the first letters of each of the kids names. So I made a block letter for each kid, and laminated it, and hole punched it, and tied a piece of yarn to it. The kids got to "sew" their letters, which is a great fine motor skill, and helps develop the hand muscles needed to hold a pencil. Then it was definitely snack time. :) I did pretzels again, because that's what I had on hand. Then we did a cutting sheet. Cutting is another fine motor skill that helps with handwriting. I had planned to go outside and write letters with sidewalk chalk, but the weather did not want to cooperate with me. It was pouring rain. Instead, I took black sheets of construction paper and wrote each child's name in big block letters, then they took the sidewalk chalk and traced over the pencil. It went pretty well. About half traced their letters, and the other half just had a great time making a chalk picture. Either way was fine with me. And that was preschool today.

This evening Lincoln had soccer pictures and a game. Lucky for us the weather cleared up a bit, the sun even came out during the game. It was lovely out. I love Linc, and he is getting better, but man! that kid is an awkward athlete. I think he might be a little too smart for sports. Not that athletes are dumb, not by any stretch...but Linc's biggest problem is that he thinks about it too much. He could probably repeat to you verbatim, everything his coach has ever told him about soccer. But he lacks that natural athletic instinct. When the balls comes his way, he freezes, and you can just see the wheels turning, "Ok, the ball is coming my way, I'm playing a defensive position right now, so that means what I need to do is kick the ball away from the goal and towards an open member of my own team..." and by the time that processes and he goes to act, the ball is long gone. He's also not super aggressive, but I  think that has more to do with his age, than his ability. He's still fun to watch though, and he does a little better at every game, and he has a good time, which is what really matters.

And of course this is a typical soccer game position for Aaron and I, kids climbing all over us, I'm surprised we even see any of the game.

"Go my favorite sports team! Score a goal/basket/unit! Go team! Go team, go!"

Uh-uh, no you didn't! Cut that out! I do NOT want a crawler! 

So that was an extremely long post. I don't mean it as a way to brag or show off, but just as a way to document. We are in a happy place right now. Life is beautiful. We've traveled some rocky roads to get here, and I know that more rocky roads are ahead. But right now, this day, this moment, I am content. Things are going smoothly. I am not over-whelmed or under-whelmed. Things are wonderful, and I am grateful. I want time to stop right here. I want to remember. I want to soak it in, and breath it back out, and love every precious moment while it lasts.

Snowman Unit

I've been promising a post on this snowman unit. We've had a lot of fun with this one. I decided to use the snowmen to try and teach about comparing. So we did a lot of big, bigger, biggest, little, less, least, etc.

First we did paper plate snowmen. The kids got one paper plate for every letter in their name. I had Lincoln write his own name, and I cut out the letters of Ivan's name for him to trace. I did a snowman for Adelia, even though she was napping, because I needed three to compare with.


Once we finished making them, we could compare. Lincoln had to cut out snowmen with the first initials on them, and glue them in the right blank.

The next activity that we did was probably my favorite one. Thumb print snowmen.

We dipped our thumbs in white paint and did three thumb prints together on black construction paper to make snowmen. I let the kids do as many snowmen as they wanted. Then we decorated them with faces and scarves and arms, using the opposite end of a paint brush. Then, using the opposite end of the paint brush again, I had them dip it in white, and make as many snowflakes as they wanted. Then we used a piece of chalk to make the ground for the snowmen to stand on. Once our paintings were dry we filled in the blanks on the poem by counting the number of snowflakes and the number of snowmen. The poem goes like this: "______ little snowflakes fall into sight. While ______ little snowmen played all night." Then you fill in the blanks for the numbers of snowflakes and snowmen, and decide which had more and which had less, then you glue the appropriate word in the next spaces in front of snowflakes and snowmen.

On Wednesday last week, it was my turn to host Little Boys Club, and I decided to keep the activity in line with our snowman theme. So I taught them all how to make snowman-kabobs, using bananas, apples, grapes, pretzels, strips of fruit leather, orange sprinkles for the nose, and cake icing for eyes and mouths. I thought they turned out really cute. Here are Ivan's and Lincoln's and mine.

Then Lincoln and I made a marshmallow snowman, and talked about which circles had more marshmallows and which had less. We also talked about big, bigger, and biggest circles.

And our last big project was a yarn stitched snowman. This one was great for fine motor and concentration skills. You just take a big paper plate and a little paper plate, and punch out holes, then you use yard to "sew" around the edges. Lincoln was most excited about gluing the buttons on. And once those were on we compared the buttons, "Are there more red buttons or yellow buttons?", "Are their less orange buttons than red buttons?", "Which color of buttons are their the most/least of."

And of course, Once There Was a Snowman, is a great song to use for this unit.

Once there was a snowman, snowman, snowman
Once there was a snowman, 
Tall, tall, tall
In the sun he melted, melted, melted
In the sun he melted
Small, small, small.

Maybe tomorrow we can finish up the unit by going outside and building a snowman with all the fresh snow we're getting at the moment.

Ghost Feet

I stole this idea off of a friend's blog. My kids love hand and foot print art, and these were so cute, I couldn't resist. I added the poem to each one, and then hung them on the outside of our front door for decoration. 

Lincoln drew on his own ghost faces, I drew Ivan and Adelia's ghost faces.

Jack o' Lantern Senses

Last year I taught our preschool group about their five senses using a jack o' lantern. It was a blast, and I think I'm going to do something similar with my kids again this year.

This month for my LDS Sentinel article, I wrote up the jack o' lantern senses idea into a lesson plan, and submitted it. I thought it'd be fun to repost the article here too, so that everyone can share in the fun. You can do the five senses, or just use the pattern for a fun art project. Enjoy...

Jack o’Lantern Senses

 By Krystal Swan

 

Photo by Cali Stoddard

One of my favorite ways to teach something is to incorporate a bit of holiday fun into the lesson. Lucky for me, this route is extremely easy to take when you’re teaching younger ones. Fall and Halloween are two great reasons to celebrate, and can provide many different avenues for learning. Today I’d like to share our favorite Halloween lesson: Jack o’Lantern Senses.  Basically the idea is to teach the kids about their five senses using a jack o’ lantern and some fun Halloween activities.

Materials Needed

-Black construction paper

-Clear contact paper

-Scissors

-Orange tissue paper, cut into small squares

-A jack o’lantern pattern (use this link or a pattern of your own, you’ll want the outline to be thick) )

-Flashlight

-A pumpkin, top cut off and guts scraped out (save the guts in a separate bowl)

-Pumpkin seeds (the ones from the pumpkin above will work nicely)

-Soy sauce

-Lemon juice

-Cinnamon sugar

-Seasoning salt

-Scented jack o’lantern candles pumpkin and licorice (you can find these at WalMart for $0.39 each)

*Separate the pumpkin seeds into four groups. Put them in separate parts of a muffin tin. Sprinkle one group with soy sauce, one group with lemon juice, one group with cinnamon and sugar, and one group with seasoning salt. Bake the seeds at 350 stirring every 3-5 minutes until seeds are dry.  Keep the seeds in their separate groups.

What to Do

Cut out the jack o’lantern pattern so that you are left with the outline and the eyes, nose, and mouth. Trace those pieces onto black construction paper and cut them out again. (Depending on the age/skill level of the kids I’m working with, I usually cut out the outline of the jack o’lantern and the eyes, nose, and mouth for them, and provide them with a plastic sandwich baggie with all their pieces tucked inside.) Also, cut out two squares of contact paper big enough to cover the whole jack o’lantern.

 Photo by Cali Stoddard

 Peel the backing off of one of the squares of contact paper and stick the outline of the jack o’lantern onto the sticky side of the contact paper. Explain that this is the jack o’lantern’s skin. Talk about our skin, and how if covers our whole body and allows us to feel things when we touch them. Pass around the pumpkin and let the kids feel the pumpkin skin, the stem, the inside of the pumpkin, and the bowl full of pumpkin guts. Talk about the different textures that their skin is feeling: smooth, bumpy, hard, scratchy, wet, slimy, etc. 

Next have the kids stick on the jack o’lantern’s mouth. Have the kids point to their mouths and ask them what they have inside. Have them stick out their tongue. Ask what they use their tongues for. Explain that our tongue has tiny things all over it called taste buds that help us to taste the food that we eat. Let the kids try each group of pumpkin seeds, one group at a time. Explain that the ones cooked in soy sauce are bitter, the ones in lemon juice are sour, the ones in cinnamon sugar are sweet, and the ones in seasoning salt are salty.  Have them vote on their favorite taste.

After that, talk about ears. Explain that we have something that the jack o’lanterns don’t have, and that is ears. Have all the kids point to their ears. Ask what we do with our ears. We listen. Have all the kids stand in a line, or a circle, and play a wiggle game. Give the kids directions such as, “If you can hear me touch the top of your head.” Or, “If you can hear me turn around in a circle.” And so on. Change your voice, so that sometimes you are speaking loudly and sometimes you are speaking softly. Then tell the kids that we can also hear music with our ears. Teach them the song, Mr. Jack o’Lantern by Alene Dalton, Myriel Cluff Ashton and Erla Young.

Mr. Jack-o-lantern
Is very round and fat.
He has a yellow candle
Tucked underneath his hat.
It makes his face look scary
And very, very bright
When he winks and smiles at me
On spooky Halloween night!

You can find the sheet music for the song in the book "My Picture Book of Songs" by Alene Dalton, Myriel Cluff Ashton, and Erla Young. I found a copy at the library, but you can also look it up online.

Next comes the nose. Don’t forget to have the kids stick the nose on their jack o’lantern. Have everyone point to their nose, and talk about how we use it to smell. Bring out the pumpkin and licorice scented candles. Light them and let them burn long enough to melt some of the wax. Have the kids close their eyes, and let them smell both of the candles. Have them vote on which smell they like best.

Photo by Cali Stoddard

Lastly, have the kids put the eyes on their jack o’lanterns. In order to do the sight activity, you’ll have to finish the art project first. Use orange construction paper squares to fill in the inside of the jack o’lantern. When all the space is full, take the second square of contact paper and stick in over top. Cut out around the edge of the jack o’lantern. When the art project is finish, talk about how we use our eyes to see things. Take one of the finished jack o’lanterns and shine a flashlight behind it so that the light shines through the tissue paper. Holding the jack o’lantern up to the sun will have the same effect. 

 Photo by Cali Stoddard

You can hang your jack o’lantern sun catcher up in the window to remind you about the things you learned about the five senses, and to make a fun holiday decoration. Enjoy!

Mini Preschool: Weather

As usual when it's my turn to host preschool, I find so many fun ideas I want to use, and then have a hard time narrowing them down. The theme for this month is Spring. And I decided to do weather using the saying, March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb.

Last week at Suzy's, she had music activities for the kids to do as they arrived to keep them busy until everyone got there. I thought this was such a brilliant idea, so I copied. As each child arrived, I gave them a cotton ball, which I told them was a cloud, and a straw. I told them they had to make wind using the straw to try and move their cloud across the floor. I think it worked really well. Thanks for the idea Suzy!

Once everyone was here. I sat everyone down behind a masking tape line on the floor. I did this because sometimes when we read a story, the kids crowd around the story teller so tightly that no one gets to see. So I thought I'd try getting them to sit behind a line. It worked ok. We did a hello song to get everyone focused up front. Then I asked if anyone knew what month it was? I told them it was March and that march is important because it's the month where the weather outside changes from Winter weather to Spring weather. We talked about what Winter weather was and what Spring weather was, and how it March we often get some of each, with no particular rhyme or reason to it. I told them that some people say that March has lion weather and lamb weather. Then I asked them what sounds a lion makes. They roared for me. And we talked about how lions are kind of fierce and wild. Then we described some weather that is fierce and wild. Snow, hard rain, cold strong wind, sleet, etc. are what we came up with. Then I asked them what a lamb says. The said baaaaa. And we talked about how lambs are gentle and quiet and soft, and came up with some types of weather that are like a lamb. Sunshine, warm gentle breezes, light spring rain, etc.

Then we went into the kitchen and made lion and lamb paper plates. I got the patterns for those here. The lamb kind of turned out looking like a rabbit in my opinion, but oh well. I didn't mention this specifically to the kids, but I think at our house for the rest of March, every day I will ask Linc and Ivan if the day is more like a lion or a lamb outside, and then we'll hand the appropriate paper plate up.

Next we came back out into the living room. I played a weather song and we did actions to it. The tune is to Oh My Darlin' Clementine.

Sunny, sunny
Sunny, sunny
It is sunny in the sky
S-u-n-n-y sunny
It is sunny in the sky.

And the same over again with cloudy, rainy, windy, and snowy.

That was our wiggle activity, although it was kind of low key. Then I had the kids sit down on the floor with their metal cookie sheets that they brought (as we soon found out, I should have specified magnetic, instead of metal, because some people brought aluminum and it's didn't work as well for them) I gave them a stack of small magnet (which you can buy a pack of 50 at Walmart for a couple buck) and a print out of the sun with holes. The objective was to put the magnets in the holes and "stick" the sun to the cookie sheet. This idea is good for learning one to one correspondence, and I found it here.

While the kids were working with their magnets, I read them the story It's Raining It's Pouring by Kin Eagle. It adds on different weather situations the the old man finds himself in. Some of them are kind of a stretch, but it's a cute book. I decided to read while the kids had something to do with their hands as an effort to eliminate the mass crowding of the story teller that usually happens. I think it worked pretty well.

After that we played Dress For the Weather. I'd taken two paper people and taped them to my flannel board, along with all kinds of clothes for different weather. Each kid got a turn to dress a person, and then we talked about what kind of weather it might be outside to make the person choose to wear that. It was a little stretched. I don't think the kids cared as much about dressing for a particular kind of weather as they did about dressing their person in whatever looked the coolest to them. I was actually really surprised how into this the kids were. Tears were shed and fits were thrown because we weren't taking turns fast enough.

We did weather boats next, which I thought would be the favorite activity, but we'd spent a lot of time on dressing for the weather, so we kind of had to rush through this one. Everyone got a little boat made out of a piece of Styrofoam, a tooth pick, and a square of construction paper. The kid whose turn it was would come up and put their boat in the ocean (a 9x13 pan full of water). Then they would roll the cardboard dice (made with love, by Aaron) to get either a picture of a sun, the wind, or a rain cloud. And then they would have to perform that specific weather on their boat. So if they rolled the sun they got to shine a flashlight down on their boat. If they rolled wind, they got to use a straw to blow on their boat. And if they got rain they got to spray their boat with a squirt bottle (this was the obvious favorite).

And last we made snacks. We made our lions out of a rice cake, peanut butter, chow mien noodles, and raisins. The lambs were a half an apple covered in marshmallow creme with Kix stuck to the back, a big marshmallow for the head, raisins for the eyes, and two mini marshmallow stuck onto four tooth picks for the legs. I think they turned out pretty cute, and they even tasted good. I got the ideas for these here and here.

For those of you who ask, here's a copy of my lesson plan:

March Preschool- In Like a Lion, Out Like a Lamb- Weather

Waiting Activity- Give each kid a cotton ball and a straw and let them be the wind, while you wait for everyone to arrive.

Introduction- Does anybody know what month it is? It’s March. March is important because it’s the month where the weather outside changes from Winter weather to Spring weather. Who can tell me some different kinds of winter weather? Spring weather? March is kind of a funny month because the weather goes back and forth, back and forth a lot. Some people say that March has lion weather and lamb weather.

Explain Lion and Lamb weather- ask them questions like “What would make the weather ferocious like a lion? (rain, cold wind, storms, sleet, etc)” and “What would make the weather gentle like a lamb? (sunshine, warm breezes, etc.)”

Lion/lamb paper plates- divide kids in half so one group does lion plate first and the other does lamb

Song about weather- have the kids act out the different kinds of weather in the song.

Story/Magnets- Read It’s raining, It’s pouring to the kids while they place magnets on their pictures on cookie sheets. If they haven’t finished the magnet page at the end of the story, read them The North Wind and the Sun.

Dress for the weather- Have the kids dress paper dolls for different kinds of weather

Weather Boats- give each kid a Styrofoam boat. They take turns rolling the dice to get different kinds of weather. They have to create that weather for their boat. (Flashlight for sun, blow with a straw for wind, squirt bottle for rain)

Lion/lamb snacks- Each kid gets a rice cake, some chow mien noodles, raisins, half an apple, a handful of Kix, 8 mini marshmallow, 1 big marshmallow, 4 tooth picks, and a plastic knife. Adults will give each child a scoop of peanut butter on their rice cake and a scoop of marshmallow creme on their apple.

I was exhausted after preschool today. I don't know if the kids were a bit more rowdy than normal, or if my late nights have been catching up to me. I love our preschool group. I think it's good for so many things. One of the things that's hard for me though, is that I want all the kids to be able to do everything hands on, for as long as they want, which just isn't possible. Ideally every kid would have had their own set of paper doll and clothes and they could have all happily dressed and redressed to their hearts content until they were tired of it. Or they would have all gotten to create every different kind of weather for their boat, and had time left over to come up with their own kinds of weather. But I know that's not reasonable or possible in the hour and a half time limit. But it does make me grateful for the decision we've made to homeschool, because in a lot of aspects of our kids' education we can do those things. If Linc wants to play with stacks of magnets all afternoon and find out what they'll stick to besides the cookie sheet, or experiment with why they push away from each other when you turn them a certain way, or how tall he can stack them before they tip over, or whatever...then he can. The freedom of it. That's the aspect I love most about homeschooling.

Mini Preschool: Valentine's Day

Thursday we had Preschool at Misty's. To start off she had the kids list off people that they love, and she wrote them down on the white board. They got a pretty good list, including Mom, Dad, Brothers, Sisters, Self, grandmas, grandpas, friends, cousins, and treats. :) We sang some songs about love. Skinamarinka Dinky Dink, which goes like this:

Skinamarinka dinky dink
Skinamarinka doo, I love you
Skinamarinky dinky dink
Skinamarink a doo, I love you

I love you in the morning and in the afternoon,
I love you in the evening and underneath the moon!
So, Skinamarinka dinky dink
Skinamarink a doo, I love you

And the I Love You song, off of Barney.

I love you
You love me
We're a happy family
With a great big hug
And a kiss from me to you
Won't you say you love me too.

We also sang, I Love Mother

I love mother,
She loves me
We love Daddy yes siree
He loves us and so you see
We are a happy family

But we substituted out mother and daddy, for the names of the kids. I think they really liked having a song sung about them.

Next we went into the kitchen and decorated paper bags with hearts, so we could pass out Valentines later. Then Misty gave the kids each two sections off of an egg carton, and they got to choose to paint it either white, red, or pink.

Some of the kids painted faster than others. (Lincoln was so SLOW.) So while the ones who were done waited for Linc to finish, they sang a few primary songs. When Linc finished, he ran out into the living room and wanted to pick the next song. He picked True to the Faith. Misty tried to explain to him that not everyone would know the words to that song, but Linc decided to sing it anyways. He sang a solo for everyone, and he did a great job! It made me laugh.

Next Misty explained about how we trade Valentines with our friends on Valentines Day. She gave each kid enough Valentines to give to all the other kids. Then we spent a little bit of time writing who they were to and who they were from on each Valentine. Since I had to help both Linc and Ivan with their Valentines, I wrote who each one was to for Linc, but left him on his own to write his name on each one. He did a pretty good job. He's getting really good at writing the letters of his name, even though he doesn't understand (or care) that they are supposed to go in a certain order and in a straight line. He'll get that eventually though, right now I'm just thrilled that he loves to write his name...even if he writes it backwards, in a circle, or with all the letters right on top of each other. The important thing is that he is writing and that he understands what each letter looks like and how to make it. After we were done writing, we got to go around and deliver each Valentine into the paper bag of the person it was too. The kids enjoyed this a lot more than I expected them to.

Then we went back into the kitchen and used the egg carton pieces we had painted, some squares of tissue paper, and green pipe cleaners to make roses. The kids got to make one for them, and one to give to their moms.

Then for the last thing, the kids got to dip strawberries in chocolate and decorate them. They got two to do for them, and two to do for their dads. I thought this was such a fun idea. It was easy enough for the kids to do, and so TASTY! I bet Aaron's glad he's got two kids in this preschool, because he is definitely reaping the benefits today. (Although, I should mention that Ivan's strawberries weren't dipped in chocolate, because of the milk issue, but they were dipped in a sugar and water icing that was very tasty on the strawberries!)

I loved preschool today. I thought it was well put together and kept the kids attention in different ways. They didn't stay at one activity long enough to get bored with it, and therefore got a wide variety of experience.

Oh, and I should also mention that as soon as we got home Lincoln and Ivan wanted to open all the Valentines from their friends, and they were both so excited about it. I thought they would be too young to really get into it, but they really did. They wanted me to read what each one said and who it was from and everything. It kept them fully occupied while I made lunch.

 *Sorry about the lack of pictures, I didn't take my camera, so all I've got is what I took afterwards.

Mini Preschool: Winter: Craft

Well, I think after a crazy and unruly December, that we are finally back in the swing of things, and I could not be happier. Sometimes you have to take a vacation from your mundane schedule to realize how much you love the stability of it. :) 

Today was another great day of Preschool at Cali's house. She got things off on the right foot right out of the shoot, by having the kids sing Once There Was a Snowman. (Seriously, is there a a child on this planet who isn't in love with that song?) The kids were all over it.  

The she read the kids the book The Mitten by Jan Brett, which is about a little boy who wants his grandmother to make him snow white mittens, but she's afraid that if they are the same color as the snow then her grandson will lose them. But she makes them for him anyway, and he does lose one. One by one some cold animals find the mitten and climb inside to keep warm. This stretches the mitten out so much the boy finds his mitten before returning inside.

After the story the kids got to color and make their own large mitten. Then they colored the animals and cut them out. After that, Cali read the story again and as she read each animal the kids put it inside the mitten. Very cute.

I always seem to be three hands short, on these kinds of activities, and so today for the first time, I let Lincoln do his own cutting out all by himself, so I could hold Adelia and help Ivan cut. Linc did great! I was really impressed. He didn't do perfectly, but when he finished most of his animals were all the way intact.

After the mitten activity, the Cali gave the boys little paper snow men on popsicle sticks. We sang a song about the snowmen, and the sun coming out, and the snowman turning into a puddle. When we got to the puddle part, Cali replaced their snowman with a picture of a puddle. It was a really cute song.

She did another song with them where they got to waddle like penguins. The kids went all around the room with their hands down at their sides, and only their hands flapping around. It made me laugh to watch them. I was surprised at how well they left their hands down at their sides though.

For the last activity, she gave each child a shishkabob stick and three large marshmallows and had the kids build a snowman with them. Then she used frosting to dot the eyes and buttons and the kids stuck mini M&Ms to them. Of course they ate them before we could bring them home to get a picture, but they were really cute.

Hand Turkeys

Funny story and then I'll get to the real reason for this post. Last night, I was playing with Adelia on the couch. We were playing something similar to peek-a-boo with MoMo (the puppy stuffed animal). Aaron wanted to show me something on the computer. So I handed MoMo to Adelia, and went and looked over his shoulder (I was only about 2 feet or less from Adi, so never fear, she wasn't in any danger). Adelia played with MoMo and was surprisingly happy for a few minutes. Then she started to get fussy, but wasn't crying to I didn't go right to her. Anyways, when I looked her way next, I found her completely sacked out with MoMo on top of her head. It was pretty cute.

Today was really cold. And the snow flurries flirted with us all day long, so I knew we weren't going to be going outside to play after naps like we usually do. Therefore, I spent nap time today coming up with a plan to entertain the children after nap time. When I was searching for the pilgrim craft I did for FHE, I found instructions for these cute framed hand print turkeys on the same site. It looked like my 3 year old and 18 month old could handle the the turkeys, and I already had all the material. Lincoln wanted to invite his friend Nathan to come paint with us, so we did.

All you need to make a turkey is a paper plate, brown yellow red orange green acrylic paint, and 1 inch squares of different fall colored paper, and glue. First paint the inside of the plate yellow, leaving the rim around the plate free of paint so glue can stick to it. Then take your child's hand and paint the palm and the thumb brown. Then paint each of the other fingers a different color (red, orange, etc.) Then have the child press his hand onto the center of the plate. While the turkeys are drying, glue the colored squares around the edge of the plate to make a frame. If you want you can paint legs on. Lincoln not only painted legs, but wanted to paint arms too. And he insisted the turkeys have arms, even after I told him they didn't. Ivan was still napping while we did this project, so I helped him with his turkey later and we chose to draw the legs on with an orange sharpie instead. The beaks and waddles I just cut out of construction paper and glued on. And the eye is just a dot of black sharpie.

They turned out cute, and more importantly it gave us something to do this afternoon. And they'll make a great addition to our ever growing Thanksgiving decor. :) I hung them up in the front window.

Mini Preschool: Halloween: Craft

Today for preschool it was my turn to teach. We're still doing the Halloween theme this month, and today my sub-theme was craft. Craft is a fairly tricky subject when your age range is 18 months to three years old. I did my best to pick something that even the littlest ones could do, but that the big ones would still enjoy. I got the idea for this craft here. The sun catchers she did were apples, but someone commented on her post and said that it would be fun to do pumpkins as well. And I thought, if you can do apples and pumpkins, why not jack 'o lanterns? (Which for some strange reason Lincoln calls "pumpkin jackals") And so the idea was born.

But I didn't just want to do a craft and be done. I wanted our preschool session to be at least some what educational as well. And I spent about a month brainstorming different ideas on what I could do. It's funny how the pieces come together. At first I thought I'd just teach them a song about jack 'o lanterns along with the craft. I'd talk to someone about it and what they said would inspire a new idea, and then I'd feed off of that, and someone else would say something and give me another idea, and pretty soon it all came together. I think Aaron was the biggest contributor though, he's the one who suggested I use each part of the jack 'o lantern's face to talk about one of the 5 senses. So that's what I did. :)

I made each kid a bag with their name on it. Inside the bag were all the parts to make their craft: the outline of the pumpkin, two eyes, a nose, and a mouth. And two pieces of clear contact paper. And the lyrics to a song I wanted to teach them.

First I had them stick the outline, or "skin" of the pumpkin down on the first piece of contact paper. Then we talked about our skin and how it's all over our whole body and how we use it to touch or feel things. I took around a pumpkin and let the kids feel the different parts of it. The outside of the pumpkin had a smooth, cool feeling. The stem of the pumpkin was hard and rough and scratchy and prickly. And the pumpkin guts (which I had in a separate container) were slimy, gooey, and squishy.

Next we stuck on the mouth of the pumpkin. I asked the kids to point to their mouths. Then I asked them to tell me what they had inside their mouths. Then I had them all stick out their tongues. We talked about how we use our tongues to taste. I brought out four different bowls of pumpkins seeds. One where the seeds were cooked in soy sauce for a bitter taste. One where the seeds were cooked in lemon juice for a sour taste. One where the seeds were seasoned with cinnamon and sugar for a sweet taste. And one where they were seasoned with seasoning salt for a salty taste. I let the kids try a few seeds of each flavor, and talked about the different tastes they were tasting.

Then we did ears. I explained that we have something that the jack 'o lanterns didn't have, and that was ears. I asked what we do with our ears, and they answered that we listen with our ears. I had them get up from the table and stand in a straight line. We played a wiggle game, to change things up a bit. I would say, "If you can hear me touch your head, or turn around in a circle, or wave your arms in the air, etc." And the kids would do it. Sometimes I gave the instructions in a loud voice, and sometimes in a quiet voice, just to make sure they were listening. :)

After that I had them go sit back down at the table and we talked about how we can listen to songs with out ears. Then they listened while Lincoln and I sang them "Mr. Jack 'o Lantern", which is a song I learned in preschool. Here are the lyrics:

Mr. Jack-o-lantern
Is very round and fat.
He has a yellow candle
Tucked underneath his hat.
It makes his face look scary
And very, very bright
When he winks and smiles at me
On spooky Halloween night!
--Alene Dalton, Myriel Cluff Ashton and Erla Young

If you are interested you can find the sheet music in the book "My Picture Book of Songs" by Alene Dalton, Myriel Cluff Ashton and Erla Young. My preschool teacher, Bev, taught us quite a few songs out of that book that I still remember and can sing today. I checked it out of the library, it's got great pictures to go with the songs, and has the songs divided up into categories like Winter Songs, Fall Songs, etc. And Lincoln asks me to read it to him like a bed time story all the time. We just go through it and I sing the songs I know while he looks at the pictures. (I can't read music, or I'd give the ones I don't know a go as well.)

After ears, we did nose. The kids found the jack 'o lantern nose in their bags and stuck it on. Then I had everyone point to their own nose, and we talked about how we use our noses to smell. At Macey's the other day, I found scented jack 'o lantern candles for $0.39 each. So I bought a pumpkin scented one and a black licorice scented one. I lit those and walked around and let the kids smell each one, and had them vote on their favorite. It came out to be a tie.

Next we did the eyes. The kids put the eyes on their jack 'o lanterns. Then, in order for me to do the activity with sight, we had to finish the project all the way. I had little squares of orange tissue paper cut out. So the kids stuck those to the remaining sticky spots on their jack 'o lanterns, and then covered the back with the second sheet of contact paper. Then I went around with a flashlight and showed each kid how they could see the light shining through their tissue paper. It also works really well if you hold it up to the sun.

Since I don't own ten pairs of scissors, and because I thought it would be chaos having ten kids under age 4 trying to share the two pairs I do have, I decided to send the jack o' lanterns home without cutting around the edges. That'll be a good project for the moms to do one on one with their kids later. ;) But I think they turned out really cute, and everyone seemed to have a good time.

This is how ours turned out:

Sorry this picture is not great, it's a bit of a challenge to take a picture of your window without glare. This is the best I could do. The one on the left is Lincoln's. He wanted his to be a scary face, which is why the mouth is upside-down, he also put the eyes on clear up at the top, so they kind of blend in with the stem. Mine is the middle one, I made it for demonstration purposes. Ivan's is the one on the right. His does have a nose, but he put it clear down at the bottom, so again it kind of blends in with the outline. But over all I was really pleased with how these turned out.

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