Home-Preschooling

As I mentioned, a few of my friends asked if I would share details on what I do for my 3 year old's preschool lessons (which we like to refer to as games :). I do not claim to actually have any clue as to what I am doing--but I am glad to share, nonetheless. We started our preschooling a couple of weeks before Bella was born, then took a break for a bit and have now started back again. We are only in our 4th week, but we have found this to be not only DO-able, but really fun! I love having the one-on-one time with my son and he LOVES doing "the super fun games while sissy is sleeping." His words. I quote. As soon as I tell him I'm going to put Sis down for her morning nap, he runs to his place at the kitchen table and waits for me to get back and start our lesson.  The format I have come up with is: each week we study one letter and one color. I prepare 3 days worth of lessons to allow a little flexibility on the other days, but a lot of the time we end up doing 4 days. On the 4th day, I either repeat some activities, catch up on ones we ran out of time for,  make up some new ones, or just do some art projects. 

This is how I put our lesson plan together. I use 2 MAIN resources. I use this workbook that I purchased from Mardel for our color activities (we will do shapes and numbers when we run out of colors). I love this workbook for many reasons. 1. It is reproducible. That way I can just run a quick copy of a coloring page, etc. and I can reuse it with my other kids!  2. It has one "chapter" per color. It has some coloring pages etc, but then it has different color activities broken down by "subject". For example, there are science activities, language, arts, fine motor skills & large motor skills.    And there are several activities for each subject. It also explains how to do the activity and what the child will learn from it. 

              

This website is AWESOME!!  I would like to meet this lady and shake her hand. She has created such a resource for homeschooling that is incredible. She offers tons of FREE printables that you can download one at a time, or you can purchase large packs of her stuff for a very small price. The website is www. confessionsofahomeschooler.com. I mainly use her letter of the week curriculum for our letter activities. On her site, you can go to PreKCurriculum, then ABCs & 123s. She has it separated out by letter. I just click on the letter we are doing that week and then decide which activities I want to use. 

This is my homeschool box. I keep a random assortment of craft supplies in here. I also keep my lesson plans for the week and any supplies I need for that week's activities in here. That way, when it is time to get to work, I just grab this and we have everything we need! 

This is my lesson book. Isn't it pretty :)  

The very first page in my book is our calendar. I just print a blank month off of our Outlook (or whatever the Mac version of that is. For a 2-time mac owner, I am very Apple-illiterate.) I decide what letter and color we will study that week, and then I write in the activities for each day. (more on that later)

When I sit down to begin my planning, I grab a piece of paper, my workbook, and my computer. I look at COAH first and download/print any of the letter activities I want to use for that week. I save everything I download in a folder before I print it, so that I have it for later down the road. As I print things off, I write it down on my piece of paper so that I have a nice list of all the things I've found. 

I use this letter tracing sheet from COAH every week. I put it in a sheet protector (with a sheet of cardboard behind it to help make it sturdy) and then he uses a dry erase marker to practice his letter. I just put the new letter paper on top of the old letters. That way, I can pull them out to refresh his memory on the old letters.
                                            

On the back side of my sheet protector, I put these "pre-writing skills" sheets. I have a few different ones stacked in there and I switch them every once in a while.                                     

                                              

After I have gotten all of my letter activities, I move on to the workbook for the color activities. Basically, I skim through the chapter and see which activities I think he would enjoy. I try to choose out of several of the subjects. 

When I find one I like, I make a copy on my printer so that I have the instructions handy when it is time for that activity. Also, if there are any coloring pages I want to use, I run a quick copy of those as well. As I am copying these off, I also write the activity on my handy dandy list. 

Lastly, the ONE thing that I have actually done on my own, I print off the Verse of the Week document I created. COAH lists a few verses for each letter. I just pick the verse I want him to learn, and type it up. I also change the color to coordinate with our color for that week. Because I want our fridge to look nice and matchy. And because I have issues :)

But see, doesn't it look nice and matchy.  I also cut out our letter out of construction paper (using that week's color, of course). 

I tape the new verse on top of our old ones. This keeps it nice and tidy looking, and then I can just flip them up as we go through all of our verses each day!

Ok. So now I take my handy dandy list and my calendar. (My list for 3 days is usually longer than this. I didn't write everything down). I then divide up the activities between the 3 days. I start with the things we do every time (memory verse, some sort of letter tracing/writing), then I try to make it to where we do a few letter and a few color activities each day. I also balance them to where we don't do all writing one day and art the next day. A little of everything everyday. I even try to write them in the order that I will do them, just for ease. 

Then I look at each day and gather up all the things I need for that day's activities and put everything in one sheet protector. (in order I will do them, of course)

If any of the activities have lots of pieces, I put them in an envelope so they don't get lost. 

After I have filled all 3 sheet protectors, I check my supply box to see if I have everything I need for that week. If not, I either track it down in my house or add it to my shopping list. I put my lesson book in and I am ready to go for the week! It usually only takes about 30 minutes of planning per week. I usually try to do at least 2 weeks at a time. And that's it!! I keep my school box in my kitchen so that I can just pull it out when we are ready. Easy Peasy. 

I also keep this little box to throw all of our old activities in. Some of it is reusable for the next kid, some of it I just like to keep as a record of his handiwork :)

Some of the games/activities, I keep in a sheet protector in the back of my lesson book in case we run out of things to do on a particular day. I can just whip one of these bad boys out and we are good to go. 

Sometimes, Sis refuses to nap so I try to include her in our games. It usually works out pretty well. I have a small tupperware container filled with colored squares of cardstock that I cut up. I use these for pattern practice, sorting, etc. Sissy likes to put them in a bowl, dump them out, put them back in. She could do this for hours on a good day. 

That is pretty much how we do it. I thought I would show you a few more pics of some of the things we have done, just to give you some ideas. 

This is a sun we made on yellow week. We cut the centers out of two paper plates (see sis above), colored them, shaved some yellow crayon onto waxed paper, melted it, (ruined a tea towel), put the wax paper in the hole and made a sun!

It brightens my day while I do dishes. 

We use shaving cream to practice writing our letters. 

 I'm trying to help him get over his dislike of getting messy!

This is a yellow bumblebee we made. (from the color, shape, number book)

I bought this dry erase board at Mardel for about $4. They also have them at Wal-mart. The back side has lines on it. Sometimes he likes drawing letters on this better than tracing them. 

I usually have one of these activities every week. Either we look for things in a magazine that are our color, or that start with our letter. Then we label the pictures and talk about how they are spelled. Brother decided that he wanted to label this yellow one himself. Some of them he even spelled himself! So Proud.

 We also make these labels (copied from our workbook and colored by momma). We go around the house and find things that are our color. So far, we have left them all up because he enjoys looking at them. This is one of his favorite games. We do this on the first lesson of each week.

 And these are the pre-writing pages I mentioned. If he stays on the "road" and doesn't wreck, we always have to take a picture to show Daddy.

Well, I'm sure that is WAY more information than anyone cared to know. But hopefully it is helpful to some of you. I know that there are about a million ways to homeschool, but so far, this has been easy and fun for us. If anyone has any questions, I would be happy to attempt to answer them. There are also approximately 80 million websites and blogs that offer so many ideas and resources. My personal experience was that I tend to get overwhelmed with TOO much information. Then I don't know where to start. I decided to just keep it simple this first year and really enjoy my time with my boy. There is plenty of time to be stressed out when I have to try to teach him Physics down the road! yikes :)  Hope you all have a wonderful day!

-Mica

I Suppose "Normal" is a relative term

Today is the first day that I have actually felt NORMAL!!! I can't even begin to tell you how happy that makes me. I have actually had energy to go to the grocery store, cook lunch, do Brother's lessons, play outside with the kiddos, do some lesson planning, write a blog post :), and I don't feel like I need a nap!! Ok, that might be an exaggeration--I could ALWAYS take a nap. Like, fall asleep on command!  But still. I feel great! We all seem to have recovered from the lovely stomach bug that hit us the past few days. The bathroom remodel is (supposedly) finishing up tomorrow or so. We can see the light at the end of this long dark tunnel we have been in for a while.

I am anxiously awaiting a package in the mail. Anytime now, we should be receiving the photos that were taken at the hospital by our NILMDTS photographer. I can't wait to see what she captured. She said we should have the disk in 3-4 weeks and it would be 4 weeks tomorrow. I am looking forward to seeing them for many reasons. One of which is that I'm waiting to see them so that I see if they should be put on Bella's birth announcement. :)  The sadness surrounding Bella has faded. I try not to let myself dwell on it too much. I know that things will come up that trigger the tears. For example, my due date is approaching. Just a few more weeks. I think that might be a hard day for me. But overall, we feel at peace. We are starting to get all our hospital bills in the mail already. That is kind of a weird thing. Like, shouldn't you get a refund if you leave empty-handed? :) I'm only kidding, but it does kind of stink.  One happy thing--this week, a man is coming to plant a tree in our backyard. The very sweet people that work at my father-in-law's office, went together and purchased a tree for us to plant in Bella's memory. Now, we will be able to look out our back window and have a visible reminder of her at all times. As the tree grows, we will play in it's shade. Such a kind gesture from sweet friends. We will be blessed by it for years to come.

A few friends have asked if I would be willing to share some more information about what I have been doing for my home-preschooling with Brother. I would love to share that with you. I'm going to put it in a separate post so that those of you without preschoolers can just skip on over it if you like :)

I'm looking forward to getting back in the groove of life. I can't wait to start on all the sewing/crafting projects that have been put on hold over the past few months. I can't wait to go to the park and the zoo and all the fun playdates that we have been missing out on. We've got a lot of fun to make up for and I can't wait!!

Thank You So Much

I can't even begin to tell all of you how blessed we have felt since the beginning of all of this back in June. We have had so much support from friends, family, church family, and even people we didn't know.  Approximately 5 seconds after Bella was born, there were a month's worth of meals lined up for us on a Care Calendar. It is obviously always a blessing when you get to eat yummy food without having to prepare it. But I'm not sure how we would have managed these past few weeks otherwise. It has been an absolute Godsend to not have to THINK about what to prepare, much less actually PREPARE it. Seriously, that has been SUCH an incredible blessing to us. Thank you to everyone who has brought us food or is signed up to bring some over the next couple of weeks. We appreciate you SO much.

I have had so many sweet friends that have called and said, "hey, I'm out and about. Can I drop off a Sonic drink for you?" First, the fact that my friends are thinking about me enough to offer blesses my heart. Second, Sonic is my Love Language. The fact that my friends know me well enough to know that blesses my heart as well. Although, I may have to change my motto to "Caffeine is my Love Language" because lattes have been awesome as well :)  Thank you girls for thinking of me and getting me my fix when I can't get out to get it myself. :)

I have had so many friends that have just come over to play with my kids while I rest. Or to empty my dishwasher, or carry laundry baskets up the stairs for me, or whatever I need help with. I have had friends offer to clean my house! And, while I am floored by the offers, I just can't let friends clean my toilets. That goes above and beyond the call of friendship :). But I feel loved by the offers all the same.

We have also just felt so blessed by all of the sweet cards, emails, Facebook messages and phone calls we have received. It is always nice to know that people remember you and are thinking about you and praying for you. These sweet gestures always serve to brighten up our days.

While we know that we will be sad for a while, and it will take time to feel "normal" again, we are starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel. I am seeing a little improvement physically every day. I am able to do little snippets of stuff around the house here and there. Yesterday I even got my pumpkins out on my porch just in time for the first day of fall! yippee for fall!  And we are finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel on our bathroom remodel!! We are going to be able to move our clothes back into our closet tomorrow. It will make a huge difference overall when we get to set up our new bathroom and move back into our own bedroom. Back into our own BED!! The thought of having all of our rooms situated again makes me almost giggle with happiness. I hope you all are enjoying Fall so far and I hope you have a great weekend.

Tuesday

Bella was born on a Tuesday. 3 Tuesdays ago. I wonder if Tuesdays will always be this hard. She was also born on the 30th. Maybe eventually only the 30th of each month will be hard. And maybe a long time from now, only August 30th of every year will be hard. But for now it is Tuesdays.

Emotionally, I have been pretty good lately. Last Friday, the funeral home delivered Bella's remains to us. I had dreaded that since we first met with them to discuss our arrangements. I thought that the sight of her tiny, beautiful pink box, engraved with her name and birthday would break me. But it didn't. I felt strangely at peace about it. Almost as though it provided a sense of closure. Things were going well. Then I woke up this morning and realized it was Tuesday.

Although the emotional highs and lows have definitely been difficult to say the least, the thing that has been the most frustrating to me is the SLOW physical recovery. Although my emotions were pretty smooth this weekend, I feel as though I have taken steps backward physically. Even though the kids were gone for a couple of days, I still spent a majority of my weekend resting on the couch or napping. To say I am "tired" is a huge understatement. I feel DRAINED. My belly seems more sore than it did last week. And I have been having really bad cramp-type pain. Like, stop-my-conversation-and-breath-through-it type pain. I will definitely be calling my doctor today to make sure it's not out of the ordinary. But it is frustrating. I hate being unable to do things. I hate sitting in my house and looking at my disgusting dirty floors and knowing that I shouldn't clean them because it will zap any energy I might have built up. I hate that my clean laundry is still sitting on top of my dryer getting all wrinkly. I know that all of this is just part of having a c-section--it will just take time. I just feel like if I were busy nursing a baby and getting up all during the night and changing 87 diapers a day, the tiredness and lack of productivity would make more sense.

True to form, God showed his sense of humor again this morning. As I was typing this, worrying about my dirty floors, I heard a strange sound coming from our powder room. When I went to investigate, I learned that my recently-potty-trained 3-year old had gone to the bathroom, decided he was big enough to wipe himself (with half a roll of toilet paper), and had overflowed the toilet. I closed the door, cleaned him up, finished my cup of coffee, and started to have a pity party. Then I heard God's voice, "well, you said you needed to clean your floors!"  Ha! I'll have to be careful what I wish for. :) My son camped out and watched while I tried to figure out how to work the plunger (i know, it's not that hard, but I had never done it!) and clean the floors. When I got the toilet to flush, he exclaimed, "Hooray Momma! You saved the day! I'm so proud of you momma, you are such a good cleaner!"  He may never know how much that meant to me in that moment. If you have to unclog a toilet, you might as well have a cheering section while you do it. :)

Time Marches On

I think one of the things that is most helpful in my process of grieving is the fact that no matter what, time just keeps on going. You kinda just get pulled back into the flow of things or else you get left behind. Our life has definitely just kept right on going these past few weeks.

Case in Point....

One week after Bella's birthday, my bathroom looked like this.

and my bedroom looked like this. 

Yes, sane people might have called off the remodel in light of our current situation. But we have never been accused of being sane. Hopefully, by the end of next week, we will be done to the point where we can dig our bed out of this mess and move back into our room. Hopefully. Because the week after that, we are hosting a dinner party for 30 or so people. 

After a brief hiatus, we also have gotten back on schedule for our home-preschooling. This week we are learning about the letter B and the color Blue. Brother has really enjoyed our lessons and is doing so well. he makes a momma proud!

This is a ziplock bag filled with hairgel. You can use it to practice writing letters on with your finger. Much more fun than paper!

This is our Blue aquarium that we made. 

If you shake it like this...

...the little fishies swim around and around. I never got around to getting some little rocks to put in the bottom. Those would help complete the "aquarium" effect. 

We made a "B" book. We looked through old magazines and he found things that started with the letter B. Then we glued them in our book and learned how to spell the words. 

This is what our fridge is destined to look like for quite a while. We have started memorizing a scripture verse for each letter that we are studying. I forgot to do letter A last time, so we are doing A and B verses this week. I wasn't sure what to expect as far as memorization from a 3 year old, but this morning, I was about to go over the verses with him when we started our lesson and he said, "no momma, I can do them by myself!" and he did!! I was very proud. 

This is quickly becoming one of his favorite "games." Our little color scavenger hunt for Blue things around the house. 

So that is what we've been doing in between everything else. It is nice to have other projects and goals to keep us moving. Otherwise, it would be very easy to fall into a rut of self-pity. Because time keeps moving and we just try to keep up. 

Letter to my Daughter

Dear Bella,

Today you would be 2 weeks old. Our lives have been forever changed since we met you--forever changed for the better. We have missed you so much every single day. The hardest part for me is knowing that I will never get to hold you again, this side of heaven. I cherish every second I got to hold you, my beautiful tiny girl, but it just wasn't enough time. I look at your pictures every day. I take in every detail of your precious little face, your tiny perfect hands, and your beautiful black hair. Wow Bella. You are SO beautiful.

One thing I thought of the other day as I was singing "Jesus Loves Me" to your brother and sister, was that I would never get to sing it to you. Almost immediately, God spoke to me. He said it was okay that I didn't get to share the story of that song with you, because Jesus Himself was holding you & Jesus Himself was telling you how much he loved you. What an incredible comfort to me.

"Little one, to Him you belong. Your body was weak, but He is strong. Yes Jesus loves you, because He tells you so."

I only got to know you for a short time, but you are a part of me and you will remain a part of me forever. I love you so much, my sweet Bella Faith.

Love Always,
Your Momma

My Bella Belly

I just realized that I never got a chance to post the rest of the photos from our Maternity shoot. I think I got the pictures back from our photographer just a week or so before Bella was born. What an incredible "God Thing" it was that we were able to capture these photos just 2 weeks before she was born! All along, I had wanted to wait as long as possible to capture by belly at its biggest without waiting TOO long and risk her being born early and missing our opportunity. I would say that it worked out just perfectly.

I want to thank Holly Hall of Legacy 49 Photography for being such a blessing to me during this time and for capturing these priceless memories of our family of five.