Week #2 Theme: The Jungle

First of all, I would like to say that last week was fun, but I did realize that if you have something like VBS scheduled in the morning and nap time scheduled in the afternoon, it is hard to fit in the activities that I had planned on the specific days. However, we did have fun, the books that were suggested for us to read were great, and we just fit in the stuff that we missed on other days. The only thing that we did not do was the nursery rhyme and Brady did not want to color the letter A printout (so Smiles did it!), but I am really not too concerned about that. He already knows his letters, and he does know how to write the letter A.

This week we will be learning about the jungle, the color green, the letter B, the number 2, another nursery rhyme, and a new Bible verse! I have some more fun wood cutouts for Brady to color as well as some glue-ing for him to do! Over the weekend, he painted a ceramic lion - that was fun and also interesting...it started out white, then he painted it completely brown and then changed it to completely black! :)

This will be interesting to see what we will be able to accomplish each week, but nap time is not as long as it used to be, so if we are out in the morning, I am going to try and do some of the activities with Brady after I put Smiles down for his nap.

Moving Forward in Victory!

Back in March, we started to potty train Brady, and he had a lot of success in peeing and pooping on the potty...yes, this post does involve the subject of pooping! However, after about one week of pooping on the potty, he regressed. We tried a few different ways to encourage him to poop on the potty, but nothing was working!

There are a few details that I am going to leave out at the moment, but let's just say that with lots of prayer (for patience for me and for Brady to poop on the potty), having Brady clean up after himself, and telling him that he could not go to VBS if he did not poop on the potty...we had VICTORY!!!

He almost made it to the potty last night - it was an awesome try - so, he was allowed to go to VBS today...and then at VBS today - he pooped on the potty!!! Although I missed it because I was in another room, I was able to rejoice with him right after he did it! A HUGE thanks to Thrills for taking him to the potty and for telling me right away!

I am so excited and did a little happy dance for my son! We are praying that this continues in a positive direction!

Our Theme Week #1: Cows

I suppose I just needed some focus, something that made sense to me. I don't think that I was wired to regularly pick things randomly...once in a while is okay, but I needed some type of system...some type of curriculum!

I enjoy doing crafts with my kids, but lately I have not felt inspired to do any - I was not sure what I wanted to do. I needed something to kick start me again, so I decided to turn to the Internet and look for some ideas. What I decided to look up was preschool curriculum, since Brady falls in to that category (he is 3 1/2). I found this website called Brightly Beaming Resources, which has free preschool curriculum, and it seems to be what I was looking for!

I have decided to start with the preparatory curriculum, just to get our feet wet with this program, but we will see how things go...we may move a little more quickly than the time frame given, since he knows a lot of the info in it already. I am really taking it one day at a time and ready to have some fun!

So, this week, we will be learning about cows, and working on writing the letter A, the number 1, drawing and cutting out squares, learning a nursery rhyme, and I am also going to teach him a Bible verse each week too! Along with that, we will be doing cow related crafts, reading books and poems about cows and singing songs!

Today, I started peaking Brady's interest in the theme by having him complete a craft - he colored a wooden cow with markers. It cost 30 cents from Michael's - and it came with a rooster too.

I still need to finish making our Learning Poster and somehow binding his counting book (that can actually wait another day or two) before I go to bed tonight...I feel like I am back into teaching again!

Library Requests

I have just tried something really cool! I requested books and DVDs online, to pick up at my library! How cool it that?

So you know what that means? It means that I do not have to take the time to look for the books that are on my book list, and then spend time with the librarian while she/he is placing requests for me at other libraries for the books that they do not have. Now, don't get me wrong...I enjoy spending time at the library and talking with our librarians, but I don't like trying to find things/standing around while my toddler is still in "take every book off of the shelf" mode...he is getting better, but still enjoys being a "house wrecker".

Have you ever done this before? If not, maybe you want to try it out too! Just look up your library system online and then go to the request page! Easy Peasy! (ok, I never say that, but it was fun to write!)

So, that is something that I did tonight...what have you been up to?