Rain, Rain, Go Away!

I didn't think we'd been spending THAT much time outside lately, but compared to being STUCK indoors ALL day for 2 straight days, with more rain on the way...Whew. What's a tired momma in her 3rd trimester to do??

Here's some randomness for the week: our minivan is getting a new transmission. We're not sure if it's the right decision to pour more money into a vehicle with 150,000 or so miles on it...but too late now, so we'll make it work. Hopefully it will be ready to pick up tomorrow. Wouldn't normally be a big deal, as Hubby can have an excuse to ride his motorcycle every day. But--the rain. Our area is approaching record-setting rainfall for the year. Thankfully, the basement hasn't leaked again.

Saturday I made the mistake of thinking that walking (10-15 min) to our city's fall fest parade would be simpler than driving, finding parking, and waiting in the traffic to get home. Next time I'll think twice. Can you feel the cooperation from this picture?

Speedy whined, screamed, and/or fell down in a heap on the street most of the walk there and back. Princess had to go to the bathroom as soon as we were 2 blocks from home. Honey ate 3 suckers and some tootsie rolls (in the wrapper) in a very short time. Princess had to hide behind my chair from a couple characters dressed up on floats. Not surprisingly, they talk about the parade favorably.

Mousecapades: we'd caught the one, by accident. Then Friday night I was minding my own business doing dishes, when I caught some movement by my foot. Followed by spotting a long skinny tail and shrieking as it ran under the fridge. Loud enough shrieking, that the kiddos (doing shrieking of their own in the bedroom), came running to see what was the matter. They were disappointed they didn't get to see the mouse. I found another glue trap, baited it with some peanut butter, and stuck it under the fridge. Sure enough, early the next morning, I heard some squeaking. Brave Hubby pulled it out for me, and to entertain the kids, he pulled it off the trap (this is more humane than a traditional snap-trap??) and put it in a glass jug for the kids to watch. He told them it would probably like a TP tube to play in, his gerbils always did. I mentioned hearing how his gerbils were always ESCAPING. He kind of shrugged and left for football meetings. I found a TP tube and took the jug out to the screened porch for observation. Did I mention it was a baby mouse? How many more in the family??? Princess was worried the mommy and daddy mouse would be looking for their baby. I don't think I gave a very good answer--I'm not very sympathetic about rodents in the house! It almost makes me ready to have a cat again. Almost...then I think about the flea issues we've had in the past...

Spiders!

This week our theme is spiders! We checked out books about several different kinds--there was a huge selection! (Did you know there are fishing spiders??) We're talking about the letter S, the number 8, and the color black.



Here are some of our books, activities, crafts and songs (look here to see where most of my ideas are gathered from):

Spider's Lunch by Joanna Cole; The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle
The Jumping Spider by Alice B. McGinty; The Eensy-Weensy Spider by Mary Ann Hoberman.
8 Spider web lines hanging down; with a thumbprint spider and 8 legs on each one. (most of Speedy's have 8 legs, anyway; he doesn't like help.)
Cheese! And spiders.
Watercolor resist web: we drew webs with white crayon on white paper and watercolored over it. Plain black would have been too boring, as you can see!

Handprint spiders: I traced the kiddo's hands on black paper, then we cut them out and cut the thumbs off. Glued the palms together (so the fingers are spider legs), then glued on googly eyes.

Here's our twist on marble/acorn rolling painting: we used some of the seed ball thingys from our sycamore tree. We rolled the balls in a bowl of white paint, then rolled them in our pan on top of the black paper.
Here were our S's! Princess is doing a great job cutting her stuff out. Speedy likes to try sometimes, sometimes just wants me to do it. :)

We used some black pom-pom fuzzies to be our spiders for singing 'The Itsy-Bitsy Spider' (english and spanish), 'Some Spiders like to Crawl...', and 'There's a Spider on Your Nose...'

Some spiders like to crawl, (x2) Spiders, spiders, everywhere; some spiders like to crawl. (Add in any other actions spiders do: run, jump, hide, fish, etc.)

Spider On Your Nose by Jean Warren (to tune of 'If You're Happy and You Know It')

There's a spider on your nose, on your nose. (x2) There's a spider on your nose, Let's see where else it goes. There's a spider on your nose, on your nose. (keep singing with other body parts.)

School Days, School Days

For anyone wondering, I thought I'd update where we're at with our home preschool. :) I started out using the 4-year old Character training curriculum from Hubbard's Cupboard. Princess wasn't very interested in trying to do stuff with sight words; Speedy was bored; and there wasn't much for Honey to do. And one character trait per week seemed to be moving through it too fast for us. So basically we kept most of the calendar binder, and we try to do that 2-3 times a week. (I’m practicing letting go of the perfection of doing things ‘just right.’) We work on a bible verse (usually the one Princess brings home from Children’s Church.) We’re emphasizing the ROCK rules for our house, using the four appropriate trait sheets from Hubbard’s Cupboard to supplement. I’ve been trying to pick a seasonal theme, or something the kids have been very curious about for each week. If we’re at the library or PAT room, I check out some books relating to the theme, or read from our BIG home library. (We’ve done Bugs, Caterpillars, Leaves, next week will be Spiders.) Then we work our way through a letter that fits in and a number. We’ve been doing more art—which all the kids like best, anyway. J Even Honey is getting into it. We also try to do some play-do time, and singing and finger play time.

Here’s my summary of the (FREE, of course!) resources I’ve used the most and found the most helpful over the last couple years:

Hubbard’s Cupboard is a very thorough pre-k resource with lots of theme and bible activities, crafts, songs, and fun play-do recipes.

No Time For Flashcards is a great blog for simple, cheap crafts for young kids. The projects use mostly things you'll already have on hand. There is usually a related song and book reviews listed, too. Her index of activities is very easy to use, too.

Hummingbird Educational Resources is a compilation of crafts, activities, songs and snacks listed by topic, as well as by certain storybooks (i.e., a bunch of ideas for using with Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?)

Preschool Express has many activity, craft, snack, and song ideas for different themes; as well as calendars of suggested activities for toddlers or preschoolers, and different sections focusing on art, music or movement.

I’ve been trying not to do worksheets (as someone reminded me, my kiddos will be doing worksheets the rest of their school career!) but the older two like them at times, and they are good reinforcement for some of the letters and sounds. I have found great worksheets at beginningreading.com.

And for letter and picture coloring printables, there is quite a selection at Preschool Coloring Book.

There are SO many useful and inspiring sites out there, but these are the ones I go back to over and over.

In the School Room this week

Here's some of what we're doing in 'school' this week:

We're reading these books:

A Grand Old Tree by Mary Newell DePalma

The Nutty Nut Chase by Kathryn White

The Leaves are Falling One by One by Steve Metzger

Autumn Leaves by Ken Robbins

Clifford and The Big Leaf Pile by Josephine Page


We're painting on these leaf spiral crafts:

We're pretending to be leaves, dancing and twirling to music.

Maybe we'll do some leaf rubbings; find pairs of matching leaves; or groups of 7 leaves.

We're working on the Letter L (for leaf) and the number 7.

We'd like to make these Adorable Acorns:

The kids are holding their acorns, and their Leaf L's are hanging in the window behind them.

Some fingerplays and rhymes:

I stood beside a tall oak tree, I felt a gentle breeze.

I tipped my head and looked up high, to see the colored leaves!

And soon the tree began to sway, The leaves came swirling down...

Red and yellow, orange and brown leaves...Landed on the ground!

By: Jane Kitson

Mary Had a Little Lamb

Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb; Mary had a
little lamb, who's fleece was white as snow.

Everywhere that Mary went, Mary went, Mary went; Everywhere
that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go.

It followed her to school one day, school one day, school one
day; It followed her to school one day, which was against the rule.

It made the children laugh and play, laugh and play, laugh and
play; It made the children laugh and play, to see a lamb in school.

Cobbler

There's a cobbler down our street, Mending shoes for little feet:

With a bang and a bang and a bang-bang-bang;

With a bang and a bang and a bang-bang-bang!

Mending shoes the whole day long; mending shoes to make them strong;

With a bang and a bang and a bang-bang-bang;

With a bang and a bang and a bang-bang-bang!

And a Spanish song we've been working on:

Lava, lava (sung to: 10 little indians)

Lava, lava tus manitas. (pretend to wash hands)

Lava, lava tu carita. (pretend to wash face)

Lava, lava tus dientitos, (pretend to brush teeth)

Todas las mananas. (every morning)

Peina, peina, tu cabello. (pretend to comb hair.)

Ponte, ponte tu ropita. (pretend to put on clothes)

Calza, calza tus zapatos. (pretend to put on shoes)

Todas las mananas.

By: New Eton School Staff

If I haven't mentioned it, No Time For Flashcards is a great preschool activity blog that someone turned me on to! (Thanks, G.B.!) It is crafts that you will actually have supplies on hand for, and that keep it simple! Yahoo!

What Motivates You...

...to vacuum under your fridge?

For me, it was some interesting squeaking I heard Wednesday night at bedtime. I'd convinced myself a belt or something on the fridge was making the noise. Then this weekend I started to catch a whiff of a suspicious odor as I walked through the kitchen. This morning I finally decided to get brave and investigate. With my flashlight in hand, and three little helpers also on hands and knees to check it out--I found a forgotten glue trap, complete with dead mouse. We fished it out and put it in the dumpster. I decided to vacuum under there and make sure the fuzzy piles were actually lint and not other members of the family. :) We haven't seen any mouse evidence, so now my question is: how many other mice are lurking around, unbeknownst to me? Guess I'd better buy some more glue traps.

A Less Whiny Post

Honey is getting to that fun stage of understanding so much, and starting to use so many words! :) We pulled up to her cousin's house last night, and as soon as we saw P, Honey said, "Hiee!" with excitement. So cute. And she has added "Ses." (yes) to her "Nooo." that she'd been saying so much. Now if only she would quit putting stuff in her mouth...she had some kaleidoscope (multi-colored) poo this week.

I didn't pass my glucose test for gestational diabetes last week; so had to go back an do the longer 3-hour test. But yay! this time the results came back normal. What a relief.

Speedy had developed that pronounced limp (the doctor couldn't find anything wrong, even did x-rays.) But it now seems to have resolved itself. Another relief.

Hubby's football team is 5-0, which is pretty exciting. In true coach fashion, though, he was not that excited last night because of the sloppiness and mistakes.

I feel like I'm getting into nesting mode--sorting and organizing in the kids' rooms and other places that haven't seen the light of day for awhile. It's just a funny phenomenon when I go to put something away, and I'm not content to shove it in and leave, but have to sort and organize the cabinet, drawer, closet, etc.

And lastly, a 'Have you ever...?'

I was on my way to turn out the kids' lamps at bedtime last week. I stepped on something big and furry. BAREFOOT, mind you. Then it started to scurry away--yes, I did say 'Eek!' or something similar, loud enough for Hubby to come out and check on me. I had squished the HUGE wolf spider by this time, and without his contacts, he squinted, looked down, and said, "it doesn't look that big." He probably saw something about a quarter-sized. I said, "that's because I already squished it and it's curled up!" I'm sure glad that wolf spiders are harmless. But talk about the heebie-jeebies, seriously, I may as well have stepped on a tarantula!

Here's a totally random pic from this summer at my sister's house, just because these posts seem SO boring without any pictures!

Why Do I Bother??

How is it that seemingly simple tasks can turn into an ORDEAL so quickly with munchkins?? Yesterday, maybe I just should have known better after I returned from mopping up milk in the dining room and found Honey pouring almost a WHOLE pitcher of apple juice all over the counter, herself, down the dishwasher, and onto the floor. And we've ALREADY been having trouble with ants. But...we had portraits scheduled, so I got breakfast cleaned up and proceeded to get everybody ready. Princess wasn't bad, she's been looking forward to her 5-yr pics for a couple weeks. Honey was fairly cooperative. Speedy...now this is where things started turning sour. He DID NOT want to wear the nice outfit we'd picked out. I eventually got it on him; then he was CONVINCED he needed to wear his yellow socks. Sorry, kiddo, not for these pictures. We're about ready to get in the van, everyone is clean and dressed, just need to brush Speedy's hair. I wet it down (like Hubby does) and brushed it to get those rooster tails flat. He proceeded to say he didn't want his hair wet and rubbed it dry with the hand towel. And say that he wanted 'crazy hair' and mussed it all up. Grr. (You can see why on most days, no one has neat hair when we leave the house!) I think we actually made it to the mall on time, checked in and straightened hair, put Honey's shoes and socks back on (she kicks them off whenever she's in the van for more than 2 minutes.) Then Princess has to go potty. "Are you sure you can't wait?" "No, I have to go REALLY bad!" The 4 of us trucked to the restroom, which thankfully, wasn't far. Back to take the pictures--no one would cooperate. Honey wouldn't stay (or even go) to her spot; Princess was kind of pouty and wouldn't really smile; Speedy was rolling around instead of staying put. So we gave up on all 3 for the moment and went on to the birthday girl. Who would not cooperate.
The photographer: "Would you like to come back and try a different day, to get what you were looking for?"
Me (not out loud): "No, I would not like to get all three of these kids dressed nicely with hair combed and out of the house on a certain time on another day to come back to this studio where you are not engaging them or working with them at all."
Me (out loud): "No, I don't think that would help."

Finally, between another worker coming to our rescue to make the kids smile and pose them; and fruit snacks from the diaper bag for Honey in between shots, we came up with some decent pics. While waiting for our pics to load, Princess had to go potty again. Are you serious? We truck back to the restroom, and she starts to go in by herself. A good thing. But she pushes the door right next to the bathroom by accident. Not so good. It's a fire exit and the alarm starts sounding. She starts crying. I try not to start crying. A saleswoman comes to turn it off and says not to worry, it happens every weekend. Not much consolation after the morning we've had.

So, when you get the kids' pictures in the mail, it might be wise to refrain from any comments regarding anything that's not positive. :)