Strawberry Birthday Brunch

I'm finally getting around to sharing pictures from Hannah Rose's first birthday! I used a lot of leftover decorations from Ellie's Fairy Party. I did not have a clue what kind of theme I wanted to use for her party but when I found matching strawberry dresses for the girls at Target (for less than $4 each), I planned the party around them :) The dresses aren't a traditional red/green strawberry but are more pink and aqua - which worked out well since those were the two main colors I used for Ellie's party. I invited only a few guests that we consider our "family away from family." This was a Saturday morning affair so we made it a brunch - but more on the food shortly. First, here are the pictures!

Tablecloth tutorial here

Birthday Banner Tutorial here

The girls in their matching dresses. No one wanted to cooperate for a picture. Can you tell?

Daddy and the birthday girl

The birthday girl did not appreciate all the picture taking.

More decorations...

The weather cooperated so we were able to eat outside.

Straws and napkins were leftover from Ellie's party. You can order the straws here.
The napkins and caddy are from Target.

To display pictures, I covered an old cork board with fabric.
Then I took plain, plastic push pins (thumbtacks?) and spray painted them.
If you stick them in a piece of styrofoam or cardboard, it is very easy to paint them quickly!

A good friend supplied the flowers from her garden.  Love!

For brunch, I served two types of breakfast casseroles and Belgian waffles. To fit in with our strawberry theme, I included a homemade strawberry syrup as one of the many choices on our toppings bar.

For party favors, each family received a strawberry basket with a miniature strawberry plant and pink soap wrapped up in pink tissue paper and tied with my favorite cotton candy pink baker's twine. No picture can be found, sorry!

What kind of party are you hosting for your kids? I need some ideas for the coming year!

Fishers of Men

This post is months overdue as the pictures were taken back in February after my blogging break began. I thought they were worth pulling out of the archives though.

While teaching the 2's and 3's class at church, I tried to incorporate some fun activities to keep them engaged and to help them make a connection to our lesson at hand. Our lesson this day was on being fishers of men.

Now as Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee, He saw two brothers, Simon who was called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. And He said to them, "Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men." Immediately they left their nets and followed Him. 
Matthew 4:18-20

Afterward, I gave them each a plate with goldfish and pretzel sticks (fishing rods) and cream cheese (a.k.a. bait). I saw this idea a couple years ago in my Parents magazine. The kids had so much fun dipping their fishing poles into the bait and then catching fish. Ellie was more than excited to eat her goldfish so I couldn't get a great picture of any of the fish she "caught." This would make a great activity for your Family Bible Time too.

If you do this for a Bible class, I would suggest portioning out the cream cheese beforehand to save time. I brought a plate with dollops of cream cheese ready to be placed on each child's plate. If I did this again, I would look for some blue paper plates to look more like water. Either way, the kids will enjoy it. To keep the parents involved, I snapped a picture of each child showing the fish they caught and texted/emailed it to their mom. I know I love pictures that give me a glimpse of what my child has been doing in class and it helps us discuss their Bible lesson more when we get home.

My Journal Accomplishment

I really enjoy journaling but I am really bad at it. By that I mean I never actually write in it. For instance, my January 1, 2011 entry is immediately followed by my January 1, 2012 entry (new year's resolutions and goals). But when I do write,  I enjoy it in a therapeutic kind of way. There is something so special about the written word. Unfortunately, my perfectionist tendencies have always kept me from writing anything on the first few pages of a journal. A first entry always feels cheesy to me and I just can't bear "messing up" my journal on the first page. Today, I combatted my fears and wrote on that first journal page and I'm okay with my handwriting being less than perfect and my spelling error too ;-)

Maybe you will be encouraged to write down your thoughts today. Recently,  Lil Blue Boo posted a journaling series on her blog. I haven't been taking part in it but it sure looks like a lot of fun if you are more consistent with your journaling ;-)

The Letter C

Ellie is doing a letter of the week curriculum for preschool. I started earlier in the summer so that we would have a head start before baby brother arrives. Here are some of our activities from our letter C week. The themes and additional activities used can be found at Preschool Alphabet's blog. I did skip the "C is for Cheerio" theme because we are focusing on the hard "c" sound.

Clouds:

• We talked about how clouds look and I made this shaving cream sensory bag. We imagined this must be what clouds feel like! (I also made one of these using blue hair gel, glitter and glass gems for Hannah Rose to play with. I think Ellie enjoyed the sensory bags even more than her sister.)
• After reading Eric Carle's Little Cloud, Ellie used a white dry erase crayon on her black board to draw clouds. She also drew with a white crayon on white paper. I gave her blue paint and she painted over her clouds to make them appear. So much fun! 

Cars:

• Making Learning Fun has highway alphabet cards and I printed the letters A, B and C. Ellie enjoyed driving her race car over the letter streets. I also printed the various shape "streets" and we use them to practice and review shapes on the days I don't incorporate a workbook page practicing shapes. 
• We read the Spanish version of Dr. Seuss' Go Dog, Go! (Corre Perro, Corre!). This is Ellie's favorite book to be read in Spanish. It is great for practicing command words and reviewing colors and sizes. We talked about how in Spanish, there are many words for car but two of them also start with the letter C - coche and carro. (This book only loosely      relates to the theme of cars because the dogs in the story are often  driving in their cars.) 
• I described a drive-in movie to Ellie and then let her attend her own private drive-in. Her car was an old diaper box and the movie was most likely Rapunzel. You can find a tutorial for this activity here. 

Cookies:

• After reading If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, we listened to author Laura Numeroff read it online at Barnes and Noble Storytime.

I would also recommend finding a good way to save your child's artwork. I keep a file folder with Ellie's projects but, obviously, I can't keep them all. Plus, some of them won't last long before the Fruit Loops come unglued...or sister eats them ;-) I'm using an iphone app called Artkive to save Ellie's work. Here is a screenshot to give you an idea of how it looks in case you are interested:

The Letter B

Our second week of homeschool focused on the letter B. Most of our themes and activities came from Preschool Alphabet. We only added a few activities and mostly these were ways to incorporate Spanish into our lessons.

Bears:

• I reenacted the story of Goldilocks and The Three Bears in Spanish using my flannelboard and the story characters that I already had on hand. Since it was in Spanish, I stopped along the way to ask questions to ensure comprehension. Her responses were in English unless I gave her specific choices like  ¿Es grande o pequeña? This was a great story for teaching the concepts and Spanish words for small, medium and large. After telling the story twice, per Ellie's request, I had her retell it using the flannelboard characters. She had so much fun - y'all, flannelboards are really under appreciated! Next we watched this Spanish video of the story. 

• We read Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr. & Eric Carle. Well, actually we read the Spanish version - Oso Pardo, Oso Pardo  ¿qué ves ahí?  The Spanish version has a great rhythm to it and I think it more catchy than the original. Ellie has enjoyed it since she was a little baby! I laminated pictures of all the different animals from the book and had her try to guess which one was next by repeating the name and color of the animal in Spanish. After the story, I placed laminated construction paper of various colors on the floor and had her hop from color to color as I named it in Spanish. She enjoyed this game so much that we played it multiple times over the week. I also made a clank can to go along with the story using the printable and tutorial over at Making Learning Fun. The girls got a lesson in sharing and taking turns since the clank can was so popular! Hannah Rose enjoyed the clanking noise and the coins (a.k.a. juice can lids!) were just the right size for her. Some of you may remember that I have been saving juice lids for awhile (see this post...which coincidentally also shows a pencil holder that has now evolved into the clank clan below. Ha!). I was able to make four different sets of clank coins for future stories with all that I have saved. 

Butterflies:

• Read The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle in Spanish (La Oruga Muy Hambrienta). I, again, used cut out pictures from the story and let Ellie help act out the story as we read. We have a clank clan for this story too! 

Buttons:

• I pulled out my stash of miscellaneous buttons and had Ellie sort them in the egg carton color box I made after seeing this idea at Create Studio. 
• Using a letter B printout, I let Ellie glue buttons in the shape of the letter B. 

Ballet:

• Ellie started ballet over the summer and loves it. I knew this would make for a fun theme. We completed some of the prewriting practice and the graphing game available in the Ballerina Preschool Pack by 1+1+1=1. 
• Read Angelina Ballerina and dressed up like Angelina. I made her ears from pink and brown felt and a stretchy headband. We were even able to get Hannah Rose to dress up...but she didn't cooperate for a picture :)
• I printed an Angelina coloring page for Ellie but now I wish I would have also used this website - lots of interactive games and activities for any Angelina Ballerina fans. 
• Each week I try to incorporate some time for Ellie to "practice" her ballet from class. I like to play this music and let her dance around the room. 

That sums up the letter B! On a side note, Ellie has insisted on wearing her panda bear ears ever since we read Goldilocks and the Three Bears. She refers to herself as "Baby Bear". 

The Letter A

Today I thought I would share a handful of activities we used while learning the letter A. I followed a lot of the themes and activities on the Preschool Alphabet lesson plan.

Apples:

• Apple prints
• Apple tree prints using a q-tip for painting and tree bark we found on one of our morning walks
• Apple seeds
• We also used this fun print out with the well known rhyme "Way Up High in the Apple Tree." I ended up just taping the tree to the refrigerator and using tape on the back of each apple. After completing the rhyme in English, we did the Spanish version. We practiced it all week and shared it with Daddy :)
• We didn't do this one, but I thought it was too cute not to share. 

Ants:

• I used the ant puzzles and size sorting from Confessions of a Homeschooler
• We also watched this bilingual video of the song "The Ants Go Marching" many, many times! 

Alligators:

• Along with the activities from Preschool Alphabet, we made this craft I had pinned previously from Meet the Dubiens.

Alphabet

• Ellie loves the book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. We got out our magnetic letters and reenacted the story. You can find the tutorial at I Heart Crafty Things.
• If you have a young toddler, I would definitely recommend the Leapfrog DVD "The Letter Factory".  It helped Ellie quickly identify both the letter and phonetic sound for the entire alphabet. I am NOT a fan of television or movies but I do let her watch this once a week. (Don't get me wrong, we watch movies! I just think kids are easily addicted to sitting in front of the tv and I find it doesn't help with behavior issues at our house.)

We are using the alphabet memory verses from I Can Teach My Child. 

Ellie's favorite books of the week included:

Chicka Chicka Boom by Bill Martin Jr. & John Archambault
Ten Apples Up On Top by Dr. Seuss
There's an Alligator Under My Bed by Mercer Mayer

This is certainly not all of our activities but just the ones I thought would be worth sharing while the girls are napping and I have time to type away! 

Preschool Curriculum

As I mentioned in the previous post, we have started homeschooling. It isn't anything fancy or super intense - Ellie is only 3 1/2. However, I have found tons of great resources online and most of them are free.

I am adapting the curriculum from Preschool Alphabet. It is letter of the week curriculum that focuses on one theme each day (related to the current letter). You can print out calendar lesson plans for free from the website. I use a lot of the lesson ideas but some I skip and add in my own. Sometimes I have another word for the letter of the week that I want to focus on and so we adjust the lesson plan accordingly. *Also, I do substitute letters based on phonetics. For example, Ellie is learning that the letter a makes the short vowel sound like apple, ants and alligator. Since "airplane" utilizes the long vowel sound, I would not focus on that theme for teaching the letter A to a beginner. Another free letter of the week curriculum that I like is by Brightly Beaming Resources. I haven't utilized it as much but it is definitely worth checking out.

I have been trying to plan out a month of lesson plans in advance. It is easiest for me to keep track of my lessons using a teacher's lesson plan book. (I got mine from Target in the dollar bin.) I have found it helpful to go online and reserve all of the books I will be using from the library 1-2 weeks ahead of time. After planning out the following month's lessons, I add any project supplies to my grocery list so that I will have everything I need when the time comes. So far, some of those random items have been Fruit Loops, Teddy Grahams, Ziplock bags and a Bingo marker. For the most part, I try to adapt lessons to work with the materials I already have on hand.

I also incorporate a lot of the preschool printables from Confessions of a Homeschooler. She has great pre-writing pages, letter tracing, etc. that can be printed and then laminated. I have yet to get a laminator so, for now, I just stick pages that I want Ellie to reuse in page protectors and she can easily use them with wipe erase markers.

For handwriting practice, I have heard many great things about Handwriting Without Tears. I have not purchased any of their workbooks yet but I have found their free letter tracing guides very helpful in demonstrating how to form letters to a three year old :) I've also heard they have a good phone app.

As we go through this first year, I'm sure I will continue to make adjustments. Here is the checklist I use to make sure our daily activities are covering the areas I want to focus on:

Hope this gives you some ideas. If you have any questions, feel free to email me!

Changes

Hi! Remember me? Probably not :) It has been a long time! This pregnancy has definitely taken a toll on me. The blog went on the back burner when the nausea set in and, unfortunately, it never went away! But now I'm nearing the end and finding it necessary to rest a little bit more and so here I am - with my feet propped up.

Many things have taken place in the last several months but one that I am very excited about is the beginning of our homeschool journey. I hope to chronicle some of our experiences and activities along the way. Ellie is loving it!

Like most things in my life, homeschooling is going to be a work in progress. One thing I know for sure is that I want to instill in my children the desire to be lifelong learners, to develop a Christlike love and to always be centered on God's word. And that is where this journey begins.

Today, I am thankful that God has blessed me with the stewardship of my two (soon to be three!) precious children and the privilege I have to be their first teacher.