Oh, Brother!!

And we mean that in a good way.  E calls her big brother, "Brother."   Brother left Thursday morning and E misses him very much.  She had a good time when he was here, but the visit was too short.  She's already asking when is "brother" coming back.  Hopefully, sometime yet again this year.

Here's a short video of E and her big brother playing Tag:



This picture was taken the last night my son was here. Love this picture!

With "brother" gone, it's back to preschool. Nice thing about homeschooling, you can take a break whenever you need to. But, our guests are gone, so back to work!

Break is Over......

We took a break over the Christmas Holidays but it's back to our regular schedule.  We've started preschool up again.  The Letter J is the first letter we will learn this week.  Since E already knows all the letter sounds, we are just going to do two days a letter, then move onto the next letter (except for O and U...we will do three or four days on each of those).  Then it is on to letter combinations such as  oo and ee, etc. 

Yesterday we baked some Oatmeal Scotchies.  Once again, E helped...all but putting the butter in the bowl!  We enjoyed spending this special time together. 

E got a bike for her birthday but it has been so cold out, she hasn't had a chance to ride it yet.  It looks like we will be back up into the 60's next week so hopefully we will be out bike riding then!

I am noticing that E, since she turned five, is showing a bit more attitude...and crabby-tude.  It is almost as if she knows that she physically turned five, and mentally she is five, but emotionally, she still wants to be a baby sometimes. 

That's it for now.  Off to make some pancakes with The Princess.

Warm Fuzzy Alert

As I've been blogging about, E is loving preschool...so much so, that when I tell her we are done for the day, she wants to do more!  This morning as we were sitting at the table, reviewing the short sound the letter E makes, she stops, folds her hands and says "God, thank you for my mom. Thank you that she gets to teach me things at preschool. Amen."

Definitely a Warm Fuzzy moment. ☺☺☺

The rest of the week...........

We've been busy, enjoying the continued beautiful weather we are having.  Hard to believe that it is already mid-October and in less than three months, The Princess will be five years old!

Here's what else we have been up to:

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The Pool Is Cool.....

but that didn't stop The Princess from going swimming again today. I'm not sure how many more days we will have to go in the pool. Even though it was near 90° today, the sun is lower in the sky and doesn't clear the trees that now shade most of the pool, so the water doesn't warm up as much as it does during the summer.

We are moving onto letter D in preschool. Some of the letters we are going to be moving through quickly as she does already know the sounds for most of the letters. The vowels, and other letters that have more than one sound we are spending a few extra days on. I am making some adjustments to what we actually cover, and how we cover it, so it is a learning process for both of us. E is still enjoying it, and we are spending lots of quality time together, so overall this is a great thing.

I think the turtle park will be in the plans for tomorrow. Oh, that reminds me of something cute. E told me one day after coming home from the turtle park with her dad that they play tic-tac-toe at the park and she would show me how to do it if I went with them. Well, I told her that I could play it with her right now and she couldn't believe it. I got out some paper and drew a tic-tac-toe board and we played several games and now that is ALL she wants to play these days. It is so fun to see her little mind trying to figure things out. I wish she could stay this age forever!

Same Ole, Same Ole

Not much happening here. We're still working on preschool stuff in the morning. E is really enjoying it, and so far, so am I. It's been warm enough to go in the pool still...well, the air is warm enough (it was around 90° today), but the water is a bit cool for me. The Princess, however, gets all in! I have a friend here who said her kids swam in December! Now, that is a too cold for me. We did start swimming here in April, and then the water temp was in the mid-70's...can't imagine how cold it would be in December. We had a quiet weekend, and today was much of the same, as I expect the rest of the week to be as well. Pretty boring..I know.

What have we been up to this week?

Preschool is going very well.   E picked up easily on  the letter B this week, so I decided to split the week into two parts (M-W  for Letter B) and started the letter C today (Th - S).  Since C has two sounds, I'll work on the hard sound /k/ this week and next week do the soft sound /s/ on M-W, then move onto the letter D for Th - S.

We are having a few days of cooler weather which is very welcome.  We have been over 80° pretty much every day since May and most of the summer was near or over 90°.  Don't get me wrong, this is why we moved down here, but it is nice to have a few days break.  It will be back up near 90° for this weekend, so still plenty warm enough to go in the pool in the afternoon (which we did today).

My husband took E to the "turtle" park today.  She has really been looking forward to it and enjoyed the one-on-one time with her daddy.  The park is usually "their" thing to do together.  They don't go often in the summer due to the temps but soon they will be heading their most every day.

We are making chocolate chip cookies in honor of our letter C today.  E loves to help me out in the kitchen. 

Getting ready to make Chocolate Chip Cookies!

Putting the butter in the bowl

Adding the sugar

Mixing it all up

Ready for the oven

Enjoying the fruits of her labor!

And that is what we've been up to this week!

I've Created A Monster

Preschool has been going very well...maybe a bit too well.  The Princess wants to have preschool every day, even on the weekends.  I ended up yesterday just doing a "review" with her for about 30 minutes just to satisfy her desire for school.

I had to laugh because yesterday morning she was full of energy.  "Mom, lets do this."  "Mom, lets do that."  "Mom....."   I finally looked at her and said, "Emma, you are being annoying."  Without skipping a beat she smiled and said, "Yeah, and annoying starts with the letter A."  Well, at least I know she is paying attention!

Preschool Pictures

Here are a few pictures from this week.

All ready for preschool!


E LOVES coloring


Another favorite thing to do...PUZZLES!


E working on an ABC Airplane. First, practice writing the alphabet. Then, color in the airplane. Preschool is more fun when Clarice the Reindeer attends!


Next, cut out the airplane, the alphabet banner, tape it together and hang it up!

1st Week of Preschool

We've been busy every morning this week with preschool. This week was a review of the alphabet. E, like many kids her age, mixes up lower case letters such as "b" and "d", "p" and "q". We worked on it this week and she has really improved. We were going to go with a "Letter of the Week" theme, where you introduce each letter and go over what sound it makes, but E surprised me today by telling me correctly ALL the consanant sounds, and several of the vowel short sounds. So, I'm going to have to rethink what we will do next week. I'll post a few pictures from this week tomorrow.

Preschool

The Princess is 4 1/2. Too young to go to school this year and too late for her to get into VPK at our church preschool. So, I followed a link someone posted to a website of a woman who has posted preschool and kindergarten curriculums, with weekly and daily schedules, as well as lots of other resources. I've been toying with the idea of home schooling The Princess pretty much since I was pregnant with her. I've a good friend from back home who has been home schooling for years and has been a great resource for me.

There is a local Christian school that also offers a home school/in school program starting in kindergarten. I've decided to give the preschool home schooling a try to see if I have what it takes to home school The Princess next year. E is excited...and I have lots to do. I'm going to try to have things up and running next week. We'll see what I'm made of here. I'm not the most patient person, but I know that patience is already inside me from the Holy Spirit. I'm going to pray that God will work this patience to the surface as I attempt to teach The Princess here at home.