The beginning of a new school year

Summer is over, and we’re back in the school routine.  We had a busy summer filled with lots of fun memories.  In the midst of all of the craziness, I also did a lot of brainstorming ideas of what and how I would teach my girls this school year.  Brooklyn is now 3 (she will not be 4 until the spring), and Madelyn is 19 months.  With Madelyn no longer taking a morning nap, I have had to be creative in coming up with activities to occupy her while I focus on teaching Brooklyn.  This has been one of my greatest challenges!  I’ve decided to do school only 3 days per week this year so that we still have time to get out and visit museums, play at the park, and hang out with our friends without the pressure of doing school every single day.  Below I’m going to share how I’ve decided to structure our school times this year; but first, here are the different components that make up our days.  

First day of school picture

I’m using a curriculum called Before Five In a Row as a part of our school time each day.  Basically, you read a children’s book five days in a row (in our case 6 days in a row as we are spreading each book over a two week period) and then learn and do activities based on that book.  So far, I have loved the simplicity of this curriculum - of course I also love researching and coming up with crafts and other ideas to add to the ideas given in the book.  Before Five In a Row is recommended for 2-4 years olds, but Madelyn loves listening in as I read the book each day.  Occasionally, she will join us on an easy craft or activity, but most days I’ll pull something out of her activity basket for her to play with while I help Brooklyn (more on that below).  

Madelyn wanted to join Brooklyn in the picture

Another area that I knew I wanted to focus on this year is character traits.  I began researching for a good curriculum to help me with this but decided to pull from a few websites (and a little of my own knowledge) and come up with my own. Basically, we focus on one character trait per month.  Each month, Brooklyn will learn a memory verse, definition, song, and several Bible stories that all go along with the character trait for that month.  In order to make this extra fun, I bought these little popsicle stick figures (which I colored) to use as puppets.  I used a shoebox to create a little house.  Every month I introduce my girls to a new little boy or girl who helps teach us about our character trait each day.  I decided to use our character traits to name the puppets.  Brooklyn and Madelyn absolutely love seeing Obedience (our September character trait) every morning!  This definitely has helped keep their attention during our Bible time.  I also made an obedience chart for this month.  Every time I notice Brooklyn being obedient on her own (which means: being a good listener; listening right away and with a happy heart), I give her a sticker on her chart.  I plan to do this each month with each new character trait.  

In addition to the BFIAR (Before Five In a Row) curriculum and character traits, I knew there were some other things I wanted Brooklyn to work on this year.  Some of these things I included in our circle time each morning (such as counting; days of the week; months of the year; yesterday, today, tomorrow; and the weather).  But I also wanted her to work on writing her letters and numbers, getting a better grasp on phonics, practicing basic math skills (simple addition, subtraction, recognizing all of the numbers, measuring, etc.), working on her gross motor skills, and doing art projects.  I have decided to focus on a few letters and one number each month.  I am using a variety of activities to help Brooklyn practice writing (writing letters in salt, painting with water over chalk letters on a chalkboard, tracing letters in a dry erase book, forming letters with playdough, etc.)  Brooklyn’s favorite way to practice letters so far has been to make rainbow letters.  I printed out large block letters.  I then made a dot inside the letter which is the starting point and explained the correct way to form the letter.  Brooklyn then writes the letter correctly with her choice color of marker and repeats over and over with lots of colorful markers until she has a rainbow letter.  All of these skills are practiced during the last 20 minutes of our school day.  We do two different activities, for 10 minutes each, to finish up each day.

Madelyn’s activity basket consists of random toddler activities that I’ve put together.  I usually pull one of these out while I help Brooklyn with her craft/learning activity for BFIAR.  I try to spend at least a few minutes teaching or playing with Madelyn once I get Brooklyn working on her activity.  This gives me a chance to help Madelyn with her colors, shapes, letters, and words as well as her fine motor skills.  Here is a link to my current, but always growing, list of activities.  So far, one of her favorites has been pushing straws through a Parmesan cheese lid!

Now here’s how our day is structured:

10:00 - 10:20  -  Circle Time  

We sing songs and learn basic calendar skills.  I dump out our drum full of musical instruments and let the kids make music as we sing and learn.  Madelyn usually sits still for at least part of this and enjoys playing the instruments with us.  At the end, we practice counting.  In September we are counting to 30 each day; in October we will count to 40 and so on until we reach 100 at the end of the school year.

*I bought this really cool Melissa and Doug calendar which we update each school day as we go through our circle time routine.  

*(Click the link to see the songs/lyrics that we use during our circle time)

10:20 - 10:30  -  Character Trait Puppets/Bible Story

At the end of circle time, we put away all of the instruments and get out our character trait puppets.  The girls love knocking on the window to help wake up Obedience so she will come out and talk to them.  We always review the character traits definition, our theme Bible verse (several times), and previous Bible stories.  We usually end our time by singing our song and reviewing our verse one more time.  

*I am planning to blog about each character trait each month as we go along.  

10:30 - 10:45  -  Snack Time

10:45 - 10:55  -  Storytime - Read the BFIAR Book

10:55 - 11:15  -  BFIAR Discussion/Activity/Craft

*This is the time I get out one of Madelyn’s activities.

11:15 - 11:25  -  Activity 1 (see schedule below)

Day 1 - Writing Letters

Day 2 - Writing Numbers

Day 3 - Phonics

*I change up the writing activity each day to add variety.  Sometimes the Phonics activity will go along with our BFIAR book.

11:25 - 11:35  -  Activity 2 (see schedule below)

Day 1 - Math Skills

Day 2 - Gross Motor Skills

Day 3 - Art Project

*Sometimes the math skill will go along with our BFIAR book.  The gross motor skill activity can be anything from skipping, jumping, hopping on one foot, tossing and catching a ball, running, pretending to be an animal, etc.  The art projects are often times either a seasonal craft or a type of process art.  

Wow, that was a lot of typing!  I hope this helps someone who is trying to teach their children at home like me.  I really enjoy planning all of this and teaching my children.  I think for now I am planning to just write a blog entry each month on the character trait for that month.  I will be happy to share my BFIAR lesson plans and art projects too if anyone is interested (and if I can find some extra time in my life! :) )

Summer Bucket List

So I wanted to share our Summer Bucket List.  I’m hoping to accomplish most, if not all, of the things on this list by the end of the Summer.  Hopefully this will give others some fun ideas of things to do with their children too.  We have already done several of these (since it’s already July!) and are looking forward to having lots more fun in the coming months.

Summer Bucket List

On the go:

• Beach
• Pool
• Library
• Museum
• Pet Store
• Park
• Farmer's Market
• Go get ice cream
• Pick Strawberries
• Go on a train ride
• Feed ducks
• Go out for snow cones
• Go on a nature walk
• Visit a garden
• Watch fireworks
• Visit out-of-town family

Rainy day:

• Bake cookies
• Play instruments
• Make an obstacle course
• Have a dance party
• Make ice cream
• Build a sheet fort
• Play dress-up
• Build a book tower
• Race cars
• Make a paper boat to float in the bathtub
• Play hide-and-seek
• Make lemonade
• Practice sewing with lacing cards
• Play with play dough
• Make Popsicles
• Balloon ping-pong

Outside:

• Have a picnic
• Draw with sidewalk chalk
• Play in the baby pool
• Have a water balloon fight
• Play in the sprinklers
• Go for a walk in the wagon
• Play soccer
• Bean bag toss
• Fly a kite
• Race around the yard
• Plant flowers
• Catch lightening bugs
• Play horseshoes
• Go for a bike ride
• Watch birds
• Make S'mores

Crafts:

• Watercolor
• Flower bottle stamping
• Write a short story with illustrations
• Paint a butterfly
• Finger paint
• Keep a journal
• Make a summer tree
• Create a summer mosaic with scrap paper
• Make a craft using things found in nature
• Fireworks painting
• Sticker books
• Color with markers
• Flower pressing
• Tin can wind chimes
• Fish sun catcher
• Citrus stamping

          Here a  few pictures of our adventures so far this Summer.

Madelyn enjoying our sprinkler pool

Brooklyn running through the sprinklers

Enjoying a breezy day at the beach

Playing in the sand

Reading books together

Having so much fun on the boat ride at the park

Climbing at the playground

Watching fireworks with a friend

Happy 4th of July

Sunset at the beach

Family picture - look at those two cute little faces peeking out :)

Enjoying a beautiful summer night outside

End of the Year Recap

After a long, fun-filled year of crafts, songs, books, poems, verses, activities, Bible stories, games, and learning through all of the letters, we finally made our way to the end of the alphabet.  As I reflect back over this past school year, I am so proud of my little Brooklyn.  While we had tons of fun, and Brooklyn learned so much, it wasn’t always easy to stay on course.  We had good weeks where we got all of our planned activities done and learned a lot, and we had weeks where we hardly accomplished anything.  Through all of this, I’ve really learned to let my girls be kids who have fun during this time of their lives when play should be the way they spend the majority of their time.  (There is a lot you can teach a child through playing!)  Although I put a lot of time and effort into planning these lessons each week, I’ve had to get over the fact that every week isn't going to go like I planned.  There were many beautiful days, especially in the Spring, that we rushed through our school time so we could go play outside.  There were other days when I could tell Brooklyn just needed some extra attention, so we skipped school time altogether and just snuggled up on the couch to read books.  I value the moments that I get to spend with each of my girls and try to do the best I can to teach them while also playing and doing fun things.  I’ve always been careful not to push learning on my girls.  While Brooklyn really enjoys school time and doing crafts, there are occasional days when she really doesn’t want to participate.  I’ve learned that trying to force her to do these activities is pointless.  Finding the right balance between structured school time and free play time has been one of my biggest challenges.  My advice to someone who is just starting to teach their toddler is to start off slowly.  It was difficult to get in all five days of school every single week (even though a lot of the activities only lasted 10-15 minutes).  I think my expectations were too high going into this school year.  It was extremely difficult for me to squeeze a structured school time in if we wanted to get out of the house or have friends over to play.  Once I let myself off the hook and realized it was ok if I didn’t accomplish every single planned activity within the allotted week, Brooklyn and I both enjoyed this learning time much better.  There were several letters that I spread out over a two week period rather than trying to squeeze everything into one week - these were our favorite letters!  In conclusion, Brooklyn and I really enjoyed learning this past year.  We also enjoyed spending time cooking together, reading books, going on walks, trying out different parks, going to MOPS, having playdates with friends, exploring, playing with playdough, playing dolls, going to storytime, and just doing kid things.  Now we are going to enjoy a fun, laid back summer!  I’m still deciding what/how I will teach her next school year and looking forward to all of the possibilities.  

August 2013 - Brooklyn was still a little toddler!

June 2014 - She's grown up so much!

To help myself remember, here are some things Brooklyn learned this year.  When we started school time in August, Brooklyn (who was 28 months) could recognize pretty much every letter (but she only knew some lowercase letters).  She knew a lot of her shapes and all of the colors.  She could count to 10 and was able to sing several songs for memory.  She was learning how to hold a pencil and scribbled whenever she colored or drew anything.  She was able to spell her name.  

Here are some of the things that Brooklyn could do at the end of our school year (at just over 3 years old):

• She can recognize all of the letters in the alphabet - uppercase and lowercase.  
• She knows all of the letter sounds (there are a couple that she mixes up occasionally).
• She can write a lot of the letters by herself.
• She can sometimes even write words on her on (she loves writing O’s and M’s so she likes to write “moo” and “mom”).   
• She can count to twenty (sometimes she’ll get stuck in the teens and repeat them a few times though.  She also still says “twenty-teen” occasionally which is so cute it’s hard to correct sometimes).  
• She can recognize numbers 1-9.
• She can easily count things.  Example - she is really good at counting how many yellow butterflies are on a page of lots of various colored butterflies.  She can also count how many grapes are in her bowl, how many people are sitting at the table, or how many people are missing from the table.
• She can hold up the number of fingers that you tell her or count out the correct number of an object.  Example - she can correctly give me 13 goldfish out of a box of goldfish.    
• She can understand simple addition and subtraction.
• She knows all of her shapes and can recognize the shape of most objects.
• She can tell me the opposite of pretty much anything.
• She knows TONS of songs for memory. (Including almost every Mary Poppins song).
• She still remembers several of the Bible verses that we learned.
• She holds her pencil the right way and has started drawing real pictures - she’s been really into drawing people lately.
• She has started trying to stay in the lines when she colors (sometimes).
• She has learned to use a glue stick by herself.
• She is an expert at lacing string through holes.
• She is an excellent painter.
• She can use scissors by herself.
• She remembers stories very well and can read them back to me after I’ve read them to her.  (She did this almost every Friday after I read her Bible story).  
• She loves to help and is very good at following directions.  
• She is very creative and given some scrap paper, scissors, and glue she can work for hours on creating a masterpiece.  
• She has an amazing imagination and loves to teach her little sister and her dolls all of the new things that she learns.  

Over the summer, I plan to relax and have lots of fun with my sweet girls.  I also want to have a little structured time occasionally to keep them in the habit.  While we were going through the alphabet, I would write our verse of the week on a card for us to review each day.  I plan to let Brooklyn pick one of these cards every morning during breakfast so we can review it together.  Hopefully, this will keep the Scriptures on her mind.  I may also do our circle time some mornings when we have nothing planned to do.  I have also created a summer bucket list of some fun activities.  I will try to post that list next week.  I hope everyone has a fun summer with their little ones!!

Brooklyn's 3rd Birthday Party

                 I can't believe my little Brooklyn is already 3 years old!!  Where have the years gone?  Her absolute favorite movie is Mary Poppins, which she refers to as "Mary Hoppins."  It is the only movie she will sit through.  She knows at least some parts to all of the songs and is constantly going around singing "let's go fly a kite, up to the highest height..." or "it's a jolly holiday with Mary, Mary makes your heart so light..."  For several months, every night before bed, Brooklyn would have a Mary Poppins dance party in her room.  She would give us all props to hold for each song and direct us where to stand and how to dance.  She is very creative in her props - a dirty sock was often used for a kite or an empty water cup for a chimney sweep.  So many good times have been had and memories made as our family sang, danced, and marched around Brooklyn's room singing Mary Poppins songs each night.  So as Brooklyn's 3rd birthday approached, I knew there was only one theme that would make sense for her party - Mary Poppins!!  As I began to search for ideas and listen to the soundtrack over and over to get inspiration, I began to fall in love with Mary Poppins too. This party was so much fun to plan, and I hope Brooklyn enjoyed it!

          I decided to make my own invitations using a blank template on Greetings Island.  I used clip art of Mary Poppins and Bert along with a cute quote from the movie.  I printed the invitations on thick, textured yellow cardstock.

          I made all of the decorations using scrapbook paper, ribbons, and poster boards.  By planning ahead, I was able to watch for those supplies to go on sale; so ultimately, I spent very little money (just lots of time).  Since it's springtime, I decided to focus on kites as a major theme for the party.  Brooklyn was also excited about that because "Let's Go Fly A Kite" is probably her favorite Mary Poppins song.  Next, I came up with the color scheme.  I had found a couple of yellow tablecloths on clearance at Target, so I knew that would be one of my colors and went from there. I decided on red, blue, and black for my other colors and picked four different patterned pieces of scrapbook paper in these colors to use.  I bought several of each piece of paper and used these in every decoration I made to tie everything together.   I especially liked the idea of using striped paper to mimic the stripes in Bert's vest in the movie.  I first made two big kites to hang over the food table.  I used all four of the patterned papers in each kite.  I also purchased four spools of ribbon - one yellow, one red, one blue, and one red and white stripes (which I used for the favors only).  I made tails for the kites by taping on a piece of ribbon and tying two little bows onto the tails.  After making these kites, I decided to continue the kite theme for Brooklyn's birthday sign.  I used three pieces of the black poster board to sketch out a London skyline which I cut out and taped together - this was the backdrop for the food table.  I used the extra poster board to cut out a silhouette of Mary Poppins and the letters for the birthday sign.  I hung the birthday sign kites over the skyline along with Mary Poppins floating with her umbrella in the sky.  Finally, I typed up signs for the different game and activity stations throughout the backyard.  I found movie quotes to go with each game and added that to the signs.  I glued these signs onto the same scrapbook paper to add some color.  To make each station more noticeable, I tied a red balloon to each sign.

           We were blessed with absolutely beautiful weather the day of the party!  As the guests arrived, they were directed to our backyard by a "Mary Hoppins" hopscotch board written in sidewalk chalk.  (This was not a movie reference.  It was inspired by Brooklyn's pronunciation of the movie title.)

 There were several games and activities to keep the children entertained.  I set out sidewalk chalk that the children could use to make their own chalk scenes to jump into - just like Bert does in the movie.

Once all of the children had arrived at the party, we started off my doing a horse race.  I had set up several small jumps using some old wood and bricks.  The kids took turns galloping over the jumps on a stick horse.

After they completed the race, they were directed to the tuppence toss.  I had originally planned to give the kids tuppence (plastic coins) as their prize for winning the race.  They would then try to toss those tuppence  into cornhole boards; however, we ended up just using beanbags.

The birthday girl having fun at the
Tuppence Toss

Next is was time to eat!  I tried to come up with as much Mary Poppins themed foods as I could. Here is the menu:

• A Spoonful of Sugar - plastic spoons dipped in white melting chocolate and sprinkled with sugar       sprinkles
• Chimney Sweeps - big marshmallows on sticks dipped in black melting chocolate and sprinkled with black stick sprinkles
• Umbrellas - Babybel cheese cut in half with a bendy straw (cut very short) for the umbrella's handle
• Strawberry Cupcakes - I used this recipe for the strawberry cake and this recipe for the icing 
• Fresh Fruit - orange slices
• Tuppence Cookies - chocolate chip cookies
• Cheese and Crackers
• Chips
• Raspberry Ice - fresh squeezed lemonade with raspberry ice cubes (I just froze whole raspberries in water in an ice cube tray)

I also made Jane and Michael's Candy Apples by using a melon baller to scoop out tiny apple balls which I then dipped in melting chocolate and rolled in colorful sprinkles.  At least that is how I practiced making them earlier in the week.  However, Matt had suggested that I try dipping them in melted caramel instead of chocolate which seemed like a good idea.  I never practiced the apples this way to make sure they would work (which was my mistake) and quickly prepared them right before the party started.  Sadly, when I went to get them out of the refrigerator to serve them, I realized that the caramel didn't harden around the apples like I thought it would.  I decided that the big platter full of melted caramel with some apple balls on top wouldn't make the best addition to the food table.

After we ate, Brooklyn opened her presents.  She got lots of fun things!  Thanks everyone :)

We ended the party with a kite craft.  I had spent lots of time preparing the pieces for the kites before the party so during the party, I would be able to assemble them quickly.  I followed the directions on this website for the most part.  Because I didn't have paper bags, I bought a roll of brown craft paper (they have this at the Dollar Store).  I also bought wooden dowels (I used 3/16" by 36") and string.  I cut the dowels so that I was left with two pieces - one was 21" and the other was 15".  I found the center point of each piece and made a cross which I tied together with the string.  Next, I laid my cross frame onto my paper and traced a diamond/kite shape - leaving extra room at the top and bottom (to glue on my pockets) and drawing the triangles off to the sides (like it shows on the website).  I cut out the pockets for the top and bottom of the kite and went ahead and glued the bottom one on completely and glued the top one on halfway.  I left that one side open so that once the kids decorated their kite, I could easily slide the frame in and tape it together.  I then added my kite strings which I taped and wrapped around empty toilet paper rolls.

During the party, the kids decorated their kites with markers, picked between a few different colored streamers for the kite tails, then brought their kite to me to assemble.  I simply inserted their kite frame, added a few pieces of tape, and they were ready to go fly their kite!

So....these kites weren't the best flying kites, but they were fun to run around with.  As soon as I gave Brooklyn her assembled kite, she took off running through the yard with it singing "let's go fly a kite, up to the highest height, let's go fly a kite and send it soaring...."  That made all of the time I spent working on preparing those kites worth it!

As the kids left the party, they received "Bert's bit o' magic chalk" as a thank you for coming to Brooklyn's party.

What a fun day!  Happy 3rd Birthday to my sweet Brooklyn!!