All About Me

This year, we are going through the alphabet one letter at a time.  Each week we work on activities that correspond with our letter of the week, and we also have a weekly theme based on our letter.  Here are some skills we are practicing this year: recognition of lowercase letters, pre-handwriting, letter sounds, basic math, basic science,Bible concepts, shapes, etc. 

Since we started at the beginning of the alphabet and will continue on through, our first letter, of course, was A.  The Theme for that week was "All About Me."  Here are some of the things T worked on:

Apple Jack letter collage
Cut and paste-things that begin with A
Letter A Do a Dot pages (he LOVES these)
Trace Letter A on worksheet
Writing practice on Expo board (he does try to write the letter A)
Completed and colored All About Me poster
Bible verse-"As For me and my house, we will serve the Lord" (Joshua 24:15)
Did worksheet on small families and large families

Other things we did included:
Alphabet picture match puzzles
Bead Sorting
Put racecar drivers in their appropriate cars (by number)
Lined up cars in numerical order 1-10

Playing with his number cars

We started out pretty easy.  This year, I plan to use lots of printables from my favorite websites (Confessions of a Homeschooler, Making Learning Fun, Homeschool Creations, 1+1+1=1, and Totally Tots).  T still is not into crafts all that much, but he does enjoy cutting, gluing, painting, and do a dot markers, so I plan on doing lots of these type of crafts!!

Thanksgiving

I finally have some time to catch up on my blog!! 

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year and hope you did too!!   T worked on some fun educational Thanksgiving activities and printables throughout that week.  Here is a glimpse at what he worked on:

Bible verse: Be thankful to Him and bless His name (Psalm 100:4)

Turkey color matching file folder game

Thanksgiving matchng game

Colored Thanksgiving pages

"Is it all about the Turkey" sheet

Thankful color, cut, and paste Cornucopia

Painted Colors of Salvation Indian Corn

Made Thanksgiving Dinner Collage from grocery ad

Made Turkey handprint t-shirt



T modeling the shirt we made with our handprints



Every Thanksgiving, our church hosts "Thanksgiving in the Park."  It's intended for people who don't have family nearby or for people who want to eat Thanksgiving dinner with a large group of believers.  We enjoyed it so much last year that we decided to go again!  Like last year, there was a ton of delicious food there, more than enough for the 60 or so people who came out.  T was not very interested in eating and just wanted to play, as there were lots of other kids there.  As always, one of the older kids really took to him and played with him the whole time.

"Be thankful to Him and bless His name"!!!!!

Cuddling with a new friend!

Operation Christmas Child

One of our favorite holiday outreaches to support is Operation Christmas Child.  The mission of OCC is to demonstrate God's love in a tangible way by providing gifts to needy children around the world.  Participants choose the age and gender of the child they would like to help, and then fill a shoebox full of age and gender appropraite gifts for that child. 

This year, we opted to buy for a two year old boy and a two year girl.  We filled our boxes with coloring books and crayons, stuffed animals, dolls, kid toothbrushes and toothpaste, stickers, and more!  Once our boxes were filled, we downloaded some cute "all about me" coloring sheets designed to send with the boxes.  I helped T fill in his answers.  My favorite fill in the blank was "I love Jesus because..."  Participants also have the option of listing their address, in case the family that receives your gift is able to write back.  How neat would that be!!  Even if we never get a letter back ,we will at least know what country our box was shipped to.

I love this ministry for many reasons.  One, because it provides gifts to children who probably have never, ever received a gift before and who literally have nothing.  However, the main reason why I love this outreach is because it is an evangelical effort.  The gospel of Jesus Christ is shared with all children and families who receive a gift through this ministry.  I can't think of a better gift to give than Jesus!

Buddy Walk

Today T and I participated in the Buddy Walk, an event which recognizes and celebrates the many wonderful people living with Down Syndrome.  The walk officially started at 11:00, but I was glad we got there at 10:00 because there was plenty to do!!  There were bounce houses, horseback rides, face painting, and much more!  T had a blast jumping around in the bounce houses, but wanted nothing to do with face painting.  They also had live entertainment and presented awards to local residents who have made a difference in the lives of people with disabilities.  When it was time to start the walk, I couldn't believe how long the line was..there must have been a few thousand people there!  It was really great to see all this support out there for these special people.  When the walk was over, T played on the playground for a few minutes before we left.  It was neat to see him interacting with children with Down Syndrome..he didn't see them as any different from him..he was just thrilled to be playing with other kids.  I pray he will always keep the same gentle, kind nature he has now.  We had a fun morning and look forward to participating in this event again next year!

Some of the walkers lined up

Jumping in the bounce house

Trip to Aquarium

Yesterday, our local Aquarium held a homeschool day.  Because we are now members of a large county-wide homeschool group, we got to take part in this event, which was deeply discounted in price.  We got to see lots of different creatures including stingrays, sharks, river otters, alligators, many types of fish, and much more!  Daddy and I got to touch the stingrays in the touch tank.  T wanted to touch one but none of them came close enough for him to reach.  We had alot of fun and were glad that Daddy was able to spend the morning out with us!!

Checking out some starfish

Pretty Jellyfish!

Playing in a shell

We all loved the river otters the best!

Let's make some noise!

Yesterday T and I went to a place where children can play all sorts of different insturments.  We have been there a few times before and are going to start going more often.  It costs $5.00 for one hour of play time.  The instructor is very nice and really interactive with the kids.  T is always really shy around him at first but then warms up.

I assumed that T would mostly play with the guitar yesterday.  He dabbled a little with the various guitars, piano, and keyboard, but he actually spent most of the hour playing the drums!!  The instructor showed T some patterns, such as several bangs on the snare drum, one bang on the cymbal, and T was able to follow.  He even kept up as the patterns got more and more difficult!

T is very interested in music, and I really want to be sure to encourage participation in activities that he loves!!!                                  

July 12-18

On Monday, we just stayed home!!

On Tuesday, my sister-in-law told me about an elementary school that was closing and selling everything they had, so we went and got some great books, games, two desks and a chair for a grand total of $12.00

On Wednesday, 5 of T's cousins came over and went swimming in the pool. T loves that he can be in the intertube by himself now, and he just floats around the pool contentedly!

On Thursday, we spent a while at the library playground, and then went inside for an hour to get books. T loves going to the library and always askes to go.

On Friday, we went over to see some of T's cousins for a while, and then we had lunch with daddy at the Cuban Delight. Friday evening, we went see Daddy's friends' new house, and after that we took T to see his first theater movie: Toy Story 3. T loved the movie (so did we) and he made it through the whole thing! We did the whole movie experience and got popcorn and nachos too:)

On Saturday, we just hung out around the house and went swimming while daddy went out on the boat. That night, we went to church and then to Panera Bread with some of our family.

On Sunday morning, a friend came over to help me with the website that we are trying to get up for the ministry. We worked on it for about 3 hours and then had to call it quits because our brains were turning to mush. This afternoon, T's friend E had her 2nd birthday party at Chuck E Cheese, and we had a good time there. T loved everything, but especially a car racing game where he and Daddy raced each other, and he also loved the game where you roll the balls up into the slots for points (he just walked up and put the balls in).

Books we are reading this week

We got some great books at the library this week:

Hello Baby: This was Tristan's favorite book about six months ago, and he still loves it. The first day I brought it home, he asked me to read it at least 25 times. I am so glad he loves to read!!

Bee-Wigged: This is such a sweet book-it's one of my favorites. It's about a huge bee that loves people, but people don't love him because he's a huge bee! He finds a wig on the side of the road and puts it on, and people suddenly mistake him for a little boy. He goes to school all week, and everyone loves him because he is helpful, funny, and generous. They decide to make him the grand marshal of the school parade. During the parade, his wig flies off and everyone runs away. (They show the poor bee sitting there crying, and seriously, I almost started to cry myself) Everyone hears a voice yelling for them to come back, and the voice is coming from the wig. It turns out the wig was just a really hairy guniea pig named Wiglet, and he tells everyone how truly nice Jerry is and that he doesnt sting. Everyone comes back and cheers for Jerry and Wiglet. Jerry is thrilled that he can finally be himself and and also have friends, and he declares that Wiglet will be his best friend forever!

Muncha Muncha Muncha: About a man who plants a veggie garden and these three little bunnies keep getting into it. He tries many ways to outsmart them, but they still keep getting in his garden and eating his veggies!

Let's Go: Animated pictures of transportation

Sizes: Book about objects that are big and small

Creation: Tristan loves this book- all based on the biblical story of creation

Diary of a Worm: Takes you through the life of a worm

Pizza

One of T's favorite books right now is "The Little Red Hen Makes A Pizza." We did a few activities this week that revolved around pizza.

We made a letter pizza. I found this idea on No Time For Flashcards. I punched out 26 red pepperonis and wrote a letter on each piece. I also cut some green peppers and cheese. I had saved a round piece of cardboard from a frozen pizza we had a few weeks ago, and so we made our pizza on that. Tristan identified the letters when he put them on and sprinkled the other toppings around too.

We also made a real pizza. I pulled one of our dining room chairs into the kitchen, and it was perfect because he could just sit on it and was at the right height. He helped me paint the tomato sauce on (He kept licking it off the spoon), then he helped me pour on the cheese and then the pepperoni.

We have gotten a little lax with our letter of the week stuff (although I do believe he recognizes all of the capital letters). We haven't really been doing too many crafts, and I want to get back to doing at least one craft per week. T isn't really crazy about crafts, so I've learned to just do a little bit at a time on a certain project. He does participate for a couple of minutes and then he's ready to move on, which is fine. I'm going to try to start photographing some of our preschool stuff that we are doing.

T knows the ABC song now and sings the whole thing, although he always leaves out the letter R. He loves to count and will often count the things he sees. His vocabulary is through the roof now, and he is really starting to use sentences. He recently said an actual, complete sentence, even using an article. His first full sentence was "Maggie doodoo's are gross." Haha!!

T also has very nice manners and uses them often. He sayd "Excuse me" if he bumps into you or is in the way (he says "Sorry" for the same scenario). It's so cute because he'll say "Excuse Me Mommy" "Sorry Dada", etc. He says Bless you if you sneeze (although I am trying to get him to say God Bless you), and he says "Tanks" if you give him something. He also says "No Tanks" if he doesn't want something. One day Maggie was follwing him closely because she wanted his cookie, and he kept saying "NO Tanks Maggie.' Sometimes in the bathtub when I am washing his hair he'll say (or yell) "No Tanks." He's so funny!! He also says "please." After we pray he always says "Amen." Amen was actually one of the first words he ever said.

I've found lots of sites with excellent preschool ideas and printables, so I have been trying to print stuff and organize it. Some of the stuff is too old for him right now, so I made files and stuck the older things in there. I'd rather know that I have it rather than try to go back to it later and have it not be there (this has happened a couple times already). I am constantly finding great ideas on the internet and really want to start doing more of these activities!!

July 4-11

(Pictures: T in the intertube by himself for the first time, T hanging on the equipment at the park, and Maggie taking a dip. YOu can click on the pictures to enlarge them-click on the second one to get a good look at T's face).

This year, we just stayed home for the 4th of July. It had been raining for four days leading up to the 4th, so all of our plans had gotten ruined. We did go swimming in our pool on the 4th, and it was freezing since the sun hadn't been out in days, but it was still nice to get in. We just watched fireworks that night in our driveway, which was actually kind of fun. Last year we watched them on the beach, and hopefully we can do that again next year.

On Monday, we just stayed home. I think I am going to stay consistent in not really planning anything for Mondays so that we can work on our preschool stuff, swim, play outside, etc.

On Tuesday, we went to the library. We played outside at their playground and then went inside and got some really good books. T loves going to the library and always asks to go!

On Wednesday, my moms group had our ladies Bible Study at the house here. We decided to study the book called Sacred Marriage. This book concentrates on building your relationship with God, and allowing the struggles that come up in marriage to conform you to be more like Christ. We are going to study one chapter at a time for each meeting (we meet every other Wed). One of the moms stayed afterward with her son, and the four us swam in the pool.

On Thursday, we stayed home and went swimming twice. As you can tell, T loves the pool-and so do I!

On Friday, we met some of our friends at the park and played for a while. Later after T's nap, my sister in law brought over her three kids to go swimming. T loves his cousins and asks for them alot!



On Saturday, I went to a prayer rally in the morning while Daddy and T ran some errands. We just worked around the house and of course, went swimming:)

Today (Sunday): We went to church and will probably just stick around the house. And yes, we will probably so swimming!!

Hope everyone has a good week!!

We have been busy the last couple of weeks, although I haven't taken many pics because our camera died and our charger is missing. We are going to look in one more place for it tonight, and if I can't find it, I am going to have to buy a new one. I can't stand missing out on all these pictures because of something being lost!!

T and I have been staying home alot more than we ever did at our other house, and we go swimming just about every day, although the past four days it has been really rainy.

We went back to a new gymnastics place for him to try again, and he really liked it. His favorite thing was hopping all the way down the tumble track ( a very long trampoline). Like last time, he really enjoyed jumping down with the older girls, and would wait for them to jump down with him. I would love for him to take lessons there when he is older, if he wants to!

I started a ladies Bible study at my house, and we had our first meeting two Wednesdays ago. We will meet every other Wed at 12 to pray and we will be studying marriage. There are four of us at this time.

Last Tuesday was a big night for me. For the past two yeas, I have been planning on starting a pro-life ministry in our community. Everything all came together, and we had our first meeting last Tuesday evening at our church. I am so blessed to have the endorsement of Calvary Chapel, and they are advertising it for me in several ways (in the bulletin, in the minstry directory, and on the website. There were ten of us at the meeting, and everyone was very excited to be there. I got some great feedback, and we are planning on having our next meeting at the end of July. The purpose of the group is to come together to pray, become better educated on the issues, and discuss various projects that we might like to take on.

T had a big accomplishment this past Saturday night at church...he went into the toddler classroom for the first time. WE started out in the family room, and about half way through he was getting antsy, so I walked him down to the room. I expected that I would go in with him and help get him acquainted while he clung to me. Nope!! He went right in and just started playing and talking to the other kids. I had planned on staying in the room for at least five minutes, but after about two, I could tell he was fine, so I took the plunge and signed him in. He saw me leaving and I expected that he would start to cry, and he never did. I stood outside the room for about five minutes , waiting......and nothing. One of the helpers came out at that time, and I asked her how he was doing, and she said "He's doing great, he's still playing with the trucks." I left and went back to the Family room and expected to get paged to come get him, and I never did. When I went to pick him up after church had ended, he was just in there playing with the toy kitchen. The teacher said he did "Awesome" and never even cried. In fact, the only time he did cry was when we picked him up because he didn't want to leave. Ha!

Books we have been reading

Sorry I haven't had much time to come on and update. I really want to keep this up to date, so I am going to try a new approach and see if it works.

Here is a list of some of the books we have been reading lately:

The Little Red Hen Makes A Pizza: this is T's favorite book right now. It's about a hen who needs to keep going to the store because she doesn't have all of the items needed to make a pizza. She keeps asking her friends the duck, the dog, and the cat for help, but they won't help her. At the end of the book, she gives them some pizza, and they help her do the dishes. T loves the part where the big pizza is all finished and likes to name off all the different toppings, especially all the bacon slices. He calls the tomatoes "monanoes."

The Color Box: He loves this book too. It's about a monkey who steps inside a box and goes through different holes. Each hole contains a different colored room. Every time I am finished reading a book, T says "one more time."

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom: This is such a cute book and T loves it. It's about all the alphabet letters racing to the top of the coconut tree. When they all get to the top, the tree breaks and they all fall off. They all go up the tree again, but they have various amusing injuries..(T's favorite page goes..."look who's coming it's black eyed-pea, q,r,s, and loose-tooth t. I always point out that the letter t's tooth is just dangling there, and he thinks that is hilarious!

Oh Boy, it's Bounce: This is a cute book with great illustrations. Bounce is a goofy little spider, and the book just talks about his goofy outings. This was his favorite book to read for a while but now he's getting tired of it, although he did ask for it last night.

Don't Wake Up Mama: A funny book about 5 little monkeys who are baking a surprise birthday cake for their mom while she sleeps. They burn the cake and the firetruck has to come. T calls it the fire-monkey book.

Slowly, Slowly, Slowly said the Sloth: A nice book about a sloth who likes to take his time. At the end, one of the jungle animals asks him why he is so lazy, and the sloth replies he is not lazy, he just likes to do things slowly, slowly, slowly.

Circles and Squares Everywhere: Nice book about circles and squares.

The Number 1: Good counting book featuring one of each object pictured.

Touch and Feel 1,2,3: Another good counting book

Dinosnores: A book about dinosores sleeping that T is not really into

The Little Boys Bible: He loves the story of Adam and Eve eating the apple!

Daddy turned 30

Daddy's birthday was this past Monday, and he turned the big 3-0. I had a family party for him at the house on Sunday, and we were excited to host our first real gathering ever! Our last house was just too small to entertain people in!!

All of our local neices and our nephew came over, and the kids and the dads spent the majority of the day in the pool. We also had a cookout, and after a few hours of pool time, we celebrated with cake and ice cream.

I thank God every day for bringing my husband into my life. He is so gentle and kind. He works very hard to provide for us, and always puts his family first. I am so proud to be his wife and I look forward to celebrating many more birthdays with him!!

Ocala Trip

For Memorial Day weekend, we went up to Ocala and stayed for two nights. Daddy's brother owns a property up there, and he let us stay in their large trailer for the weekend. Daddy's brother, his wife, and their daughter met us up there and stayed at their property, which happens to be just one mile from where we stayed. Daddy's mom rode up with us as well, as she had never been there before. We took Maggie too. The trip was a little bittersweet for me because we took both dogs up there last year and they loved it. Daddy and I had talked about taking them back again over the next year, and we just never got around to it. It made me sad because I know how much fun Thomas would have had...man I miss him!! Anyway...

On Saturday night, we went over to Tim's brother's place for dinner. They eat seafood every year for Memorial weekend, so they had steamers (either raw clams or raw oysters..I can't remember), and they fried up some fish. I wouldn't go near the raw food, and Daddy ate one, but T gobbled up four of them. They were so gross looking, and he just scarfed them down without a care in the world. I tried to get a picture but he was done before I could locate my camera.

On Sunday, we went to a place called Silver Springs. It is kind of an amusement park, but a much smaller scale. We rode on a glass bottom boat, which allowed us to see what the springs look like from the inside. We did a jungle safari in a jeep and saw some animals. We watched a bird show. T went on his first amusement park ride without us-boats that go in a circle. He went on with his cousin and loved it! Then he saw the Merry-go-round and was running over to it shouting "Hooray." He rode on a horse with Daddy behind him. They also had a nice jungle gym for little ones to play in, and he liked that too. We were there for about half the day, then went to eat at a BBQ place.

Once we got back, T and Daddy rode on the quads and the tractor. Daddy's family came back over to hang out and we had a BBQ that night at the place where we were staying.

We had a fun Memorial weekend and are so thankful to all the men and women who died for us and for our freedom!

The letter D

This week we worked on the letter D. Here are some of the activities we did this week:

Letter D Dinosaur
D is for Doctor Do a Dot Art
Colored Dinosaur pictures
Dinosaur file folder color matching
Dramatic play with dinosaurs

We do lots of other educational things throughout the week too, but these things go directly with the letter D. This week we pained alot and used alot of Glitter Glue. We also do Tot Trays, which I will explain in a future post.

Tristan knows all of the main colors now and will correctly identify them by saying their name. He knows red, orange, yellow, blue, green, purple, white, black, and pink. He can also identify about 3/4 of the alphabet by sight, and has started singing his ABC's. Today he attempted to count to 20 for the first time. He made it all the way from 1-17, I was pretty impressed!

A funny thing: Tristan hates getting his teeth brushed. Last night Daddy was holding him and brushing and T was throwing his usual fit, but this time he actually yelled out "Please Help." Daddy and I laughed so hard!!

Books we are reading:
The Nativity: a Touch and Feel Usbourne book which he loves. He points at the book and says "Jesus."

ABC I like Me: a positive reinforcement book that goes through the whole Alphabet.."A-I am Awesome, B-I am Brave, etc

That's Not My Tractor: a touch and feel book about Tractors

Puppies: He must have this book memorized, because he was reading to himself today and said the correct things on the correct pages. For example: one page features a puppy stuck in a water pitcher and the puppy says "Help, I think I'm stuck in this pitcher." Today when T got to that page he said "Help, I stuck."

Does a Kangaroo Have a Mother Too?

And the ever-popular Dinosaur Roar!!!

Let the BBQ's begin!!

Last Saturday, we went to a BBQ at my friends house. T and her son E are one month apart and have known each other since they were 7 and 8 months old. T enjoys E, but he especially loves Ellie, another toddler who my friend babysits for. Ellie is also very fond of T, and the kids all get together and play at least twice a week.

On Sunday, I attended a surprise baby shower for one of the ladies in the mom's group which we belong to. Daddy watched T for me so I could spend a few hours with some of the girls. Later that day, some of T's cousins came over and they all swam in the pool, and then we had a BBQ at their house.

Since our weekend was so busy, T and I just stayed home Monday and Tuesday. On Tuesday afternoon, I had a meeting with the Personhood Now! team. Personhhod Now! is a youth led pro-life group whose goal is to collect enough signatures to be able to put the Personhood Amendment on the 2012 voting ballot. The Personhood Amendment would declare unborn children as persons and would ensure them the same rights and protections as people who are already born. They will have one year to collect 700,000 signatures in the state of Fl. Out of the five team members, only one lives in locally. The rest of the teens live in Colorado and Texas. They are here to kick off the project, network, and recruit/train other volunteers to keep this effort going for the next year. We had a great meeting and I am excited to be involved as a liason.

On Wednesday, we took our weekly trip to the library. We always play at the park right there and have snacks, and then go inside to do puzzles, color, and look at/check out books.

We stayed home again Thursday and Friday and just went swimming in our pool both days. We are loving having a pool!!!

This weekend we are going up to Ocala, about a two hour trip from here. Daddy's brother has a house up there, so we will be staying there and meeting some of his family that will also be up there for the weekend. We are having a BBQ Saturday night:)

Hope you all had a good week!!

The letter C

Back in Feb. we worked on the letter C. Since it has been so long, I can't remember much about it, so I will have to go from the picture:)

We made a caterpillar C using pompoms, we made a sprinkle letter C, and we also made a counting cupcake.

Because of the move and being so busy, we have gotten out of the habit on working on one letter per week. However, I am going back to doing that. I've been organizing our things and getting some supplies that we need, and we should be back on track next week.

T is talking!!!

I've been so busy I haven't even come on here to update about everything going on. We just purchased our first home and I will be blogging about that in a future post. I wanted to come on today and jot down the progress that T has made over the past month. As some of you know, I was becoming a bit concerned that T was not talking as much as other kids his age. I was seriously considering having his hearing tested, and thoughts of speech therapy had started to flood my brain. I have been praying for him, that the Lord would help him build his vocabulary. For the longest time, T would ramble on with these long sentences but I couldn't really understand any of what he was saying. However, within the last month, his vocabulary has grown and his articulation has improved by leaps and bounds, and I am so happy and relieved.

He has been saying some of the words in this list for a while now, but many just popped up recently). (and in the right context, like while pointing at the object) ball, rock, sun, moon, sky, cup, fla-flop (flower), baby, bye-bye, cheese, juice, nano (piano), gop (guitar) doggie, GiGi (a cartoon he watches), Bob (as in the tomato from veggietales) wop (yacht), all-da (all done), array (hooray), crying, boat, cop (helicopter), bubbles, tickle, whoa, oh my, oh no, hi, hello, eye, digall digall (he uses this word for bicycle and motorcycle, but he also uses this word when he sees a bird), wow, wawa (water),good, egg, mow (cat), star, and he can count from 3-6 (I have yet to hear him say 1 or 2). He has been saying baby for a while, but he would just walk around saying baby baby baby and wouldn't say it if he saw a baby (he would actually only do the sign for baby until about one month ago). He has also started verbally imitating me and others, another thing he never used to do. Yesterday was the first time that he linked two words together and I understood them: more cheese. He also says "set, go" and then takes off running.

He can also now identify and say the capital letters A, Y, and N,. I have not been working with him like I was because of the transitional way we are living right now. We are literally living out of boxes, and everything is everywhere. All of his craft supplies are at the garage of the old house, and I just want to get everything organized before we proceed. I am excited that we will be in our own home soon so that we can get back to work because T is interested in learning and he is picking things up quickly now!

Edited to add on 5/21/10: T's vocabulary now is incredible and he is talking in 2 and 3 word sentences very easily. I am hearing new words every single day, and he has gotten compliments from others on how well his articulation is.

Letter B

This past week led up to Valentine's Day on Sunday, so we did lots of activities involving hearts, as well as things that begin with the letter B.

Crafts: We made a caterpillar out of hearts, a pom pom heart, and did the sprinkle letter B (he remembered this from the previous week and knew what to do right away. He likes craft time and really enjoys making glue dots!

Activities: I bought 6 plastic tumbler cups at the Dollar Store (6 for $1.00) and four packs of conversation hearts (four for $1.00). T really enjoyed dumping the hearts in and out of the cups and also putting the hearts (and the cups) into muffin tins. I tried to get him to sort the hearts by color in the muffin tin, but he had his own sorting method in mind:) I printed a counting sheet and attempted to play a counting game where we placed the correct number of hearts onto the corresponding number, but T was having none of this either!! We also used the tumbler cups for pouring practice in the bathtub. He is good at pouring and can usually dump one cup of water into an empty cup without spilling too much!! Finally, we played a find the heart game where I dumped little foam hearts all over the carpet and T collected them and put them into a container. He loved this one and kept making sure daddy was watching and clapping for him every time he "found" a heart.

Favorite books of the week:

Good Night Gorilla-he got really into this book this week and especially liked the part where all the animals say goodnight to each other.

My Big Animal Book: He loves this book and just likes to sit and watch as I point to the animals and identify them. For a while he would point out specific animals when I asked, but lately he seems annoyed with this and just wants to hear me say them.

Dog Food: This ended up being his favorite book for a while, but I think he is getting tired of it. I can tell he is memorizing the order of his books though, because he anticipates certain parts of them. At the end of this book, we always say "SHHH" because the dogs are sleeping, and now he starts to say "SHHH" about 2 pages prior to the end.

God Made You Special: This is a Veggietales book that we have had ever since he was an infant, but he has gotten really into it lately. It's actually a long book for a little one, but he happily sits through it every time.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar: This is the first book I ever bought him, I was six months pregnant when I bought it. He loves this book and always gets excited when it gets to the food part.

I am so glad that T loves reading. It makes me so happy that he brings me book after book and sits there totally focused on it as I read to him. I pray he will always love to read!!

The letter A-again!!

I decided to do the letter A again with Tristan. I had much more time to prep, and I used multiple themes for the letter A instead of just one. I found a bulletin board that Tim had and never used, and I am using it to hang Tristan's artwork on. The first thing I hung up was a capital letter A that I drew, and I placed this at the top.

Projects were all made on different days.

For our first project, we made an alligator A. Tristan colored the A, and even helped glue on the triangle teeth. I just put the glue dots down, and he stuck the teeth on top of the dots. This project was really easy and I think it turned out cute!!

We also made a sprinkle letter A. I poured glue in a capital A, and we put sprinkles on top of the A. Tristan didn't always put the sprinkles on the glue, but he did like sprinkling them onto the paper.

We also made a pom pom apple tree. Tristan colored the tree trunk and painted the top of the tree, but he had no interest in gluing the pom poms onto the tree.

Finally, we made apple prints. This was super easy. Just cut an apple in half and dip it into some paint and press it onto your paper. Tristan understood the concept and would dip his apple into paint and then press it onto the paper. Tim informed me that the apple prints looked more like rear end prints, and I would have to agree, but it was fun nonetheless.

Books:
Each week we go to the library to get books, and I am so glad that Tristan likes to read. He loves it, in fact. He very frequently wants to have books read to him, and I am happy to do so every time. This week, we did get books to go with our theme of letter A, but I also got a variety of others.

Hello Baby-This is a book about baby animals, and Tristan LOVED . You can ask Tim, I have probably read this book to Tristan at least 150 times in the past week, no kidding!! He wants to hear it over and over.

Dog Food-this is a cute book where all the dogs are made out of food. This has been his second favorite book this week, although it doesn't come close to Hello Baby.

Baby Animals: this is mostly a picture book with pics of real animals, and he likes to sit and look at this book on his own. Sometimes he'll look at this book while I am getting ready in the morning, and I hear him practicing naming all the animals. He has taken a major interest in eagles. He likes birds in general, but he specifically points out eagles in books we have that contain pictures of eagles along with other birds.

Dinosaur Roar: We own this book, and Tristan never gets tired of this one!!

A is for airplanes

Over the past week, T and I worked on the letter A. I didn't have much time to prep for this week, but I am pleased at how everything turned out. We checked out some books on airplanes and put airplane pictures up in his room, which he liked:) I printed a few large letter A's and let him color some. We also printed a magnet page for the letter A, and I tried to get him to trace the A by putting little pom poms in the circles, but he was completely uninterested in this. He also had no interest whatsoever in flying the paper airplane Daddy made him:)

We recently discovered how much T enjoys exploring his preschool activity bags. A few months ago, a group of about 30 of us each were assigned to make 30 bags of the same activity, and then we all met up and handed our activities out, so we can home with 30 different bags of activities for preschoolers. T had been too young for most of them until recently when we discovered there were several he is really good at! He loves matching games and is very good at them. One activity is a grid which has different foam stickers on it and comes with the same amount of loose stickers to match. During the 1st try, he matched almost all of them up! We have done this activity lots, so now he knows where everything goes but he still enjoys doing it. There is a similar activity of the same concept, except you match up letters, and he matched them right up. I was really surprised at how well he could do this!! He also enjoys his alphabet puzzle we've been working on. It comes with all 26 letters, and I think he has it memorized because he will pick up a letter and just put it exactly where it's supposed to go.

I am looking forward to our next theme of bugs. There are tons of neat ideas out there for preschoolers to learn about bugs, and we found 4 bug crafts that we are going to try!