Monthly Themes Ideas

I keep forgetting to post these. I'm going to do this the first of every month from now on. (So for March, next week).
These are unit theme ideas for future reference.

January:
Seasonal changes
-rain
-snow
Animals in winter
-hibernation
Penguins
-polar animals
warmth and coziness
Martin LK, Jr.

February:
Groundhog Day
Candlemas/Imbolg
Chinese New Year
Valentine's Day
-communication/correspondence
transportation
-road
-trains
-water
-air
-space

A Much Needed Update (in progress)

My girls are growing up so quickly. Lily, who turned 4 back in December is full of awesome. She is now reading simple books (stage 1) and is doing K & 1st grade work. A couple of days ago she started tying her shoes all by herself! She's so tall, smart and independent you would never know that she just turned 4 a couple months ago. She had an allergic reaction to her antibiotics again. She is allergic to both penicillin and sulfa. I don't know what we're going to do if she ever gets sick again.

Iris is just as bright, she's just a little bit of crazy. That kid is set on search & destroy. I wish I knew the 'off' switch on her. She's the shortest and fattest of the three right now. She weighs almost as much as Lily but is only a head taller than Rose. She & Rose wear the same size socks!

Rose is almost 7 months already. She's eating solids now (and stealing my food) and has found her voice. She's figured out what kind of sounds (and screams) get her desired effect.

All in ...

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Lesson Plans for the Week

The children are coded as follows: Lily-orange, Iris-purple, Rose-pink; any activity where all children involved will be green.

Monday: socialization at preschool; letter tracing (cards w/ string); patterns (foam blocks); line tracing; coloring time; workbook review; write in journal; spanish; musical notes and rythm

Tuesday: socialization at preschool; patterns; tracing; workbook review; music & rythm; spanish; write in journal

Wednesday: vision, hearing, dental and developmental screenings held at early learning center; body parts; spanish or chinese; workbook review; write in journal

Thursday: Lapbook: If You Give a Mouse a Cookie; patterns; bake cookies

Friday: Parents as Teachers program; board games (candyland & monopoly, jr.)

Acceptable Toys & Other Gifts for the Girls

Before buying toys and other gifts for our children, please consult us. We would really like for our children to play with them for more than 5 minutes and I would like them to be toys and activities that I don't want to throw away as soon as I see it. I've compiled a list of acceptable and unacceptable toys below:

Acceptable
-puzzles, preferably made of wood or foam. Cardboard puzzles get lost, chewed, destroyed, and even eaten.
-mega-bloks- they love to build. You can never have too many legos.
-foam blocks - see above. If they are made of wood they will be thrown to cause bodily injury.
-role playing accessories/toys - we love to pretend. A LOT. Pirates, princesses, doctors and carpenters, just to name a few. This includes tea parties, picnics, and beauty salons.
-educational video games -they have a V-Smile, and a Leapster2. We also own a Wii and a Playstation2 if you find something educational or for physical movement.
-Movies
-board games (we already have memory, candyland, monopoly, jr, and scrabble, jr)
-BOOKS - this includes workbooks (currently preK-1st), books in Spanish or French, science and history topics, Level 1 and 2 stage readers, and books for the LeapPad.
-arts & crafts supplies- tempera paints and brushes, Popsicle sticks, STICKERS ;)

Unacceptable
-Dolls - they play with them once and move on. They really aren't interested unless it's a "baby" and they already have one of those.
-Toys that make too much noise---this is actually for my sanity. J and I can only take so much before taking the batteries out and or hiding the toy in a closet.
-LittlePeople(tm) - They don't actually *play* with them. They all end up shoved in a bag and hidden under the couch.
-Toys with itty bitty pieces. My children have an oral fixation. It WILL end up in their mouths.
-viewMaster: they had three, and all the view discs were used as Frisbees.
- anything that can be eaten or mauled by the dog or cats.
-Candy- they are only given candy as a treat; they get it about once a month.

This list is incomplete, but it should be a good example/guideline of what is "allowed" in the house. If all else fails, it never hurts to ask. :)

2.19.10- totally political

her thoughts on the economy.

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Life in a Nutshell

Man, we have been MIA for a while. It's been a crazy couple of months...

Back in December, we did a lot of lapbooking. So much so, we actually needed a break from it. :) For our Language Arts lapbook we did A Pocket for Corduroy. Both girls did this. You can actually tell who did which lapbook just by the skills on the pasting part. Lily took her time, while Iris was just like 'this goes here, it doesn't need to be perfect.' We then mixed language with history by doing the history of Santa Claus (which I pulled out of my butt, and took 2 hours to make) and The Night Before Christmas. We then did the history of Hannukah and had a blast! I found a project on making a dreidel out of cardstock, which we jumped at. We even did a "lighting" activity where we lit the menorah for the whole holiday. We were going to do Yule and Kawanzaa, but that month was crazy and we were visiting family, so we decided to just take a vacation instead. :)

About a month ago, my husband and I went to Barnes and Noble and Border's and found a wonderful array of homeschool curriculum and workbooks in their education section. We bought three Brain Quest books for the girls to do as supplement to their every day activities. They were out of PreK, so we only brought home K, 1st, and 2nd grade. Lily is almost done with the Kindergarten book, and Iris has done a couple of the activities in it as well. Lily and Iris were also given workbooks as gifts for the holidays/birthday.

I have this old notebook that I've had for ages. I decided to make it into a planner. When I ended up finding a nice leather-bound one on sale at Borders, I ended up taking this planner/notebook that I had made into a lesson planner. It was a notebook from high school that I never used, hence the ridiculous stickers, but I found a nice fabric book-cover and added post-it tabs to make it more professional. I use it for book work, activities, and other mundane things, like doctor appointments and play-dates.

We've kept busy doing bookwork and other activities with open-ended toys. Right now I'm just trying to figure out what to do and how to do. I am the epitome of winging-it.

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