The Teacher in me is ESCAPING!!!

I am a teacher. I love young children, am a slight control freak, and adore planning units and activities. I am NOT a clean freak, therefore doing crafts and wild activites are GREAT fun for the munchkins and myself.

One thing that I FIRMLY believe in is (educationally) that teaching in THEMATIC UNITS is extremely beneficial for small children.

So I decided it was time to start some pre-school concepts with my 3 small disciples. I picked out a few themes to start with: OCEAN, BUGS, FARM, DINOSAURS

Then begins the fun part: I pick one theme (oceans) and:

1. Dig out all my books with fish, oceans, or ocean animals in them. (reading)
2. Find some handwriting pages from my fave website with an OCEAN theme (www.first-school.ws/theme/handwriting )
3. Find some DVDs about the Ocean (Finding Nemo, Veggie Tales Jonah, Disney's Ocean)
4. If feasible, head to the beach, zoo, aquarium at the end of the unit
5. Art projects - Color some fish with crayons~discuss shapes oval plus triangle tail then water color blue over the top, Water color seahorses in pastel colors, make a paper plate fish (cut a triangle out for the mouth- then staple on as tail)
6. Creative play - make jellyfish hats with a shower cap and tie tentacles on with curling ribbon
7. Fine motor- make seastars by glueing on Cheerios onto the seastar. Teaches great preschool skills of cutting and glueing. We also did the 5 senses with feeling our seastar vs. a real one.
8. Biblical - Learned about obedience and the Bible story Jonah.

I then checked and made sure that I had a balance of Language Arts (reading/writing/listening) , Math, and Science. I was pleased! **We did a ton more ~ but the rest is probably boring teacher STUFF!

Our paintings, "O" practice writing, and Ocean Charts.

We focused on 2 letters these 2 weeks ~ O and F.
Here were our 2 pages of F practices, Fish and Handwriting pages.

Here was our project that was the most fun! The Cheerios Seastars!!!

Gabe hard at work!

Gavin struggling through.

Grant doing great!

Gavin was ready to be done here from his look! I let him take a few minutes break, but made him come back and continue working!

The little ones loved doing their first handwriting. They were so proud! The shapes allowed for them to stay in a confined area first, learning the design/shape of O, before having to trace O and create their own.

And here they were! We have enjoyed starting some deliberate pre-school units.

How do you work with your children? What do you think would be fun units to do with kids? My kids are 3,3,and 4!

Halloween Night 2010

So first, yes ~ I am behind! Seriously ~ I know. I really and truly can't keep up with everything. So I do what I can, and finish when I can.

Now to the good stuff.... How freakin' adorable are they???? Oh my... they make me grin just looking at my beautiful, healthy darlings.

We have a Dalmation dog named SPOT. A Grant who is known as Woody and a Gavin who is currently going by the name Buzz or Space Ranger! :)

I (brilliantly) decided to take pictures that day due to our PART-TAY that night. He jumped on the suggestion, grabbed the camerea and decided that he was the better picture taker, and well took the pictures. I was so grateful (and got to be the crazy mom doing antics and coaxing out smiles behind Corey.)
Woody taking his job seriously!
The dog taking control of the situation.

and Woody now going after Buzz!

Here are the twins at their 2nd Halloween. I paid a fortune (as usual) but loved the costumes.

Gabe was doing to be a dog since his birthday last MARCH. Oh that kid wants a puppy so bad.

Here is Gavin being a fantastic Buzz.

Here are my beautiful babies. Gabe 4, Grant 2, Gavin 2

And well, this is because Corey was taking the pictures. Go figure!

I am still laughing as I type. Corey cracks me up.


So the part-tay. A kid party, for kids, with other parents of kids... still we all loved it!

Jack the fireman

Ellie the butterfly

Lance the Giraffe

Rowan the Pumpkin

My Niece Alaina the Jazzerciser!

The fun food! I loved the spider and skeleton dipped OREOS.

Here are the witches' fingers (thanks Laurel)

Laurel's creative yummy's!

The rest of the spread... brats and hotdogs, pumpkin cake, 7 layer bean dip, fruit tray OH and my pumpkin tree in the background!

Sarah, Lance and my little bro Andy

Gavin's first candy!

Grant's first piece

Gabe's first piece EXCITING!!

Me with the love of my life! I love him so much, even if he didn't dress as a fireman to walk around with Gabe, even if he didn't want me to dress-up as JESSIE the cowgirl from Toy Story or as Cruella de Ville. I still have him who tolerates all of my wild ZEST for life and calms/grounds me when I need it!

Trick or Treat!

The dalmation and the fireman!

Insisting that Gav wears his goggles, since I paid for those too!

The littles (kids 2 and under) went home after 2 blocks but Gabe and Ellie (4) went for 2 more blocks with the daddies!

Later that night after the party, ANGIE showed with with Mike, Colton and 4 days old baby Macie!!! Jenae got to her first!

But don't worry, I was patient and soon got my turn! **HONESTLY, there is NOTHING like holding a newborn, fresh from Heaven! I loved every second of it!

Best Playdough Recipe - Microwaves !!!

I am not a fan of store-bought playdough. It dries out fast, hard to pick it all up and crumbly, lots of dye and smells weird. So, I asked my mom, a kindergarten teacher, for her suggestion and here is the WORLD'S BEST PLAYDOUGH recipe. (It lasts forever, perfectly moist and plyable, EASY - no cooking, just microwave! Hooray!)

What you need:

• 1 c. salt
• 2 c. flour
• 3 tsp. cream of tartar
• 2 c. water
• 2 TB. oil
• food coloring
• scents/extracts- optional (peppermint, lemon, orange)

What to do:

1. Mix dry ingredients in bowl, stir well
2. Add oil, water, food coloring **I divide for different colors and add extracts for smell.**
3. Stir until smooth consistency
4. Cook in microwave on high for 3 minutes, stirring occassionally
5. Knead for 1 minute ** It's hot and so I knead thoroughly for about 4-5 minutes, very important
6. Return to microwave and cook for 2 minutes
7. Knead dough again for about 3 minutes.
   

So this round we did RED (err...pink and it was peppermint smelling!) , BLUE (which we did lemon smelling - what the dollar tree had since it takes a lot to cover up the salt smell) and ORANGE (which was Orange smelling!)

And here are my cherubs ~ 20 minutes later all playing with beautiful, pleasant smelling playdough! It was fun to work with each boy seperately for the 5 minutes to pick colors and their scent. Before that we all took turns stirring and adding ingredients. I enjoy cooking with my boys and ADORE the end product of this one. I promise in 15 minutes total you can have a batch of playdough made and ready (if only doing one color) and it will last for months (probably 6). From one hard working mom to another ~ Ciao!

Lance is now ONE OF THE BOYS!!!

Welcome to my life. I am surrounded by BOYS!!! And I love it!! I have the sweetest faces that beam at me everyday. I know that I am blessed beyond compare. God has been so good to Corey and I. We love our sweet, precious boy and now for 11 hours each Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I also have my sweet nephew Lance.

Lance loves all of the hub-bub!!
All of my 3 boys love him. I think the feeling is mutual!

There are my 4 sweet boys!!!