Jaxon is really in to trucks, trains, and airplanes--typical boy.  So we planned a field trip to our local fire station to see the engines and talk to a firefighter.  The kids were so excited.  I called the station and set up our tour.  That Saturday morning, we loaded up and headed to our fire station.  No one was there!  Off fighting a fire I guess!  So, we drove to the next closest station.  Empty garage!  The engines there were gone too!  Ok, time to drive to yet another station.  We get to that station, and.........you guessed it, no engines!!!  Everyone was having an emergency that morning! 

The kids were whining and I was about to lose my patience.  I called the fire chief and found a station with an engine and firemen actually AT THE STATION at THAT VERY MOMENT.  We drove over there as fast as we could!  Thankfully, the engines were still there when we arrived.  They announced our tour over the loudspeaker.........all five of us.........and we got to climb in the engines and look at the hoses and talk with the firefighters.  Jaylyn loved the trucks and talking to the firemen.  Jaxon just loved touching the trucks. 

“Mommy, what is sake?  Name’s sake?  What does that mean?”

Hmmm, let me think a minute.  (For the life of me, I could not figure out how to explain it to her).

It means that God is righteous and His name means righteous.  He wants us to follow Him and do the right thing too.

Whew………that was the best that I could do.  I have to field so many hard Biblical questions and have so many deep Biblical discussions.  For example:

Why was Adam alone?

Why is Satan a snake?  What does Satan look like?

Why do people obey Satan?

Why do angels wear halos?

Is Satan powerful?

Do we have bodies in heaven?

Why isn’t Joseph Jesus’ daddy?

Why did Jesus need a body to come to earth?  What does he look like in Heaven?

What is in hell?  Is it a nice place? 

Good grief! 

The best discussions have been about hell, though, I must admit.  We have discussed hell countless times.  We talk about how it is not a nice place, the people are not nice, people who don’t obey and love God go there when they die, Satan lives there, he is not nice, and that we don’t want to go there.  She keeps asking me what it is like.  I try to convey that it’s not a nice place without being too graphic because she would be upset for days if I explained too many details at this point. 

She has since decided that hell is yucky.  This was her explanation:

“Hell is yucky.  People have poo-poo bottoms there.”

Well, that would be yucky all right!!  What an interesting take on hell……….Glad I don’t have to worry about that!

The craft was a patriotic wind sock.  One oatmeal canister, some construction and crepe paper, glue and tape.  Easy right?

I gave the instructions to cover the canister with construction paper and then decorate with crepe paper and do crepe paper streamers.  My instructions were met with a blank stare.

“But I thought construction paper was crepe paper.  Is it different?”

Ok, crafts should probably just be my job. 

But to his credit, once I showed him construction paper vs. crepe paper, he and Jaylyn made an adorable wind sock. 

You learn something new every day I guess!

I had some baking and cleaning to do, so Dad was substitute teaching--art class.  The craft was handprint butterflies.  Cut out a butterfly body, trace little hands on different colored construction paper, glue to butterfly body to form wings, and there you have it!  Well, here are the pictures:

Jaxon's butterfly:

Jaylyn's butterfly:

Hmmm...........after that Dad said he was going to retire or maybe just stick with math! 

And while we’re on the topic of music, Justin and I had a fun date night the other night.  We got comfy on the living room floor with pillows and the laptop and played name that song.  We took turns finding some of our favorite old songs on youtube and tried to guess the song.  I’m a cheap date I guess!  It was such a fun way to remember some of the best things from our childhoods and we ended up talking about our favorite memories from growing up.  We also had to listen to some of our favorite songs from when we were dating and engaged.  The memories!  It was such a nice break from nursery rhymes and toddler tunes!

Continuing our bug and butterfly theme, we made a butterfly life-cycle mobile.  Jaylyn cut a paper plate into a big swirl and then we attached our leaf with caterpillar eggs, our caterpillar, our chrysalis, and our butterfly. 

We've been reading a lot about bugs lately.  We've also had fun watching them fly and crawl and wiggle around outside.  Jaylyn, the anti-bug child, even let a ladybug crawl on her finger!  I was so proud of her!  To celebrate, we've done some bug crafts. 

Here is our cute caterpillar

And Jaylyn's ladybug

These crafts came from a kit by Alex Crafts

Here is a fun website with some neat games for preschool, history, geography, math, science, health, and vocab.   

I want our kids to have opportunities to try things, to explore, to discover new interests and hobbies.  I want our kids to have a wide range of talents and abilities.  I want them to be well-rounded.  So, I look for interesting activities and fun experiences for them.  But, on the flip side, I don’t want to be rushing from one activity to another—never  having family dinners and feeling stressed as we’re always late leaving the house for some new activity.  I don’t want that pressure.  I am not a taxi driver.  I’m a mom and I want to spend time with my kids!

Lately, I’ve evaluated Jaylyn and Jaxon’s schedule and decided to scale back.  Jaylyn was in gymnastics one morning a week, doing an art class on occasional Tuesday afternoons, doing a different art class on some Tuesday mornings, coming with me to Bible study at the church on Thursday mornings, and going to a program at the library on Friday mornings.  This doesn’t include our field trips that we try to do fairly often.  Jaxon was doing gymnastics on Monday, Bible study on Thursdays with me, and going to the library program on Friday morning.  It was too much!!!!  I’ve cut out gymnastics for the rest of the summer, because, quite frankly, I’m tired of it!  I’ve also made sure that on the afternoons that Jaylyn has art class, she does not also go to the other art program in the morning.  I cut out the Bible study for me, because it was so hard to get out the door with 3 kids on time.  It was adding too much stress to pack two diaper bags, a purse, get my Bible, and get down to the church.  We decided to keep the library program for this summer since it was something new and different that we hadn’t done before.  We’re also going to do the art classes for this summer.  Art and library.  That’s enough for now!

I was so stressed and worried until I came to this decision.  I felt like a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders when I decided on my plan.  Then I began to think about how busy we were.  And then I thought about how ridiculous it was that we were that busy.  This is preschool!  Why am I stressed about preschool?  I have decided to plan “home days” on my calendar.  These are days when we stay home, go for walks, play outside, do art projects, read books on the couch, and some days we don’t even get out of our pj’s!  I’ve determined to plan at least one or two home days each week and one of them might be a field trip day where we go on a field trip—just us.  I get tired of play dates and having people over.  I get tired of going places and having to meet someone at a specific time.  I hate working on someone else’s schedule.  We’re scaling back and going to enjoy some summer days, just our family.  After all, what is the point of homeschooling if you’re not together as a family (and home on occasion)!

How do you all balance school and play and outside commitments?  How do you know when it’s too much or not enough?  Am I crazy to plan home days—days where I refuse to leave the house?  How else do you get any school work done?  I can’t get anything done as it is……..and we’re not doing anything formal!

We've been studying about butterflies lately, so we decided to make some caterpillar friends to help us.

Meet Analise and Caroline!!!!

Jaylyn was so proud of how she painted each segment a different color.

We have an abundance of crayons.......most of which are broken, missing the paper, or about 1/6 of the size they used to be.  What to do with old crayons?  Stained glass! 

Jaylyn had so much fun peeling the rest of the paper of the crayons.  I spent FOREVER shaving them into little shavings.  And then she mixed all the colors together and sprinkled them onto the wax paper.  Under the hot iron they went. 

It turned out rather cute!

But a few tips for first timers: 

Put the wax paper on a cookie sheet while you are working on it--it makes the project easier to move to the ironing board without losing half of your shavings on the way. 

Keep the iron turned on low.........

And maybe cover the project with an old towel unless you want a multi-colored iron.  That way you only have a colorful towel. 

Things you learn the hard way.  Hey, I'm new at all these preschool projects! 

Our favorite aspect of preschool is art projects, and more specifically, painting! 

Working together

The little painter

The artist

I created a template which lists each of our subjects, and then I put one or two activities under each heading.  Or, sometimes I leave one column blank for the week!  Gasp!  That is so hard to do sometimes! 

This allows me to have a basic plan and the flexibility to do the plan on whatever day I choose.  I don’t like being told what to do on a daily basis!  Coming to that realization was like a light bulb moment.  Now I can narrow down my curriculum choices even further.  Too much structure makes me crazy!  We might even be unschoolers on occasion!  Scary!

Week of

I felt very Charlotte Masonish the other day.  It rained for what felt like weeks and then during one of the thunderstorms it began to hail.  What a fun nature study, right?  So the kids ran out into the hail and began to play, splashing in puddles, running in the rain, collecting the hail.  We eventually had to come inside because it was COLD outside and the kids were still in jammies, or only partially dressed.  But we continued our observations by scooping up the hail, stirring the hail, feeling how cold it was, and watching it melt all over the tile floor and then cleaning it up of course.  (Who knew this nature study would produce a mopped floor?) 

Jaylyn tried to keep her hail in her princess cup and Jaxon just enjoyed eating it. 

Jaxon was a little unsure of the wet grass at first.....

Jaylyn added lots of hail to her collection

She was very proud of each piece

And Jaxon finally decided that wet grass + flooded yard = FUN!

As we do reading lessons, Jaylyn wants to know the meaning of each word.  We read the word, discuss the meaning, and I use it in a sentence.  We do this EVERY time, even if it’s for words we read yesterday.  This is why our reading lessons take FOREVER—even when we only do part of one!

Today she asked me what “no” meant.  How do you explain that?  No means no.  There is only one definition.  But she asks me each time! 

We came to the word, “or.”  “Do you want chocolate ice cream or vanilla?”

“I want chocolate Mom.  Can I have some chocolate right now?”

“No……….back to the reading lesson.”  (This was a good example of the meaning of NO).  (It’s also a look into why our reading lessons take so long.  She gets very sidetracked with each sentence).

Then we came across the word, “so.”  I used it in a sentence, “I am so very tired.”  (Which was a very true statement today). 

Jaylyn asked, “Like you sew something back on?”

“Well, yes and no.  The spellings are different but they DO sound the same.  “

Jaylyn’s sentence was, “I was so very sad when the button came off my dress, but I helped Meme sew it back on.”

Ok, that was pretty clever.  In one sentence she used both words; I have to give her some bonus points for creativity there.  But she still doesn’t understand that they are NOT the same word!

In doing some internet research for some ideas, I came across this listing.  It made me want to cry.  How many more of these do I have to explain???

Lapbooks are such neat ideas.  I think I'll be trying some of these Tot Books from this site.  They are simple enough and won't frustrate my preschooler but I think she'll have fun doing her own "project." 

PE Homeschool Style!! 

Jumping on the trampoline in our living room!

MAT

“Aaaaaaaaaaaammmmmmmmmm.  Am!”

Umm, not quite. 

“Sssssssssseeeeeeeeeet.  Seat!”

Ok, we’re WAY off. 

After a few days of lots of guessing games, we’re back on track and she’s sounding out the letters as they actually appear on the page.  She is even reading sentences! 

“The rat is sad.” 

Yay!  We’re on our way to reading!

This was one of Jaylyn's favorite projects.  We cut a hole in a paper plate and cut tissue paper into little squares.  Then Jaylyn enjoyed crinkling the tissue, dotting the plate with glue, and sticking her green and red tissue all over the plate.  I tied a ribbon to the top and this was one of our holiday decorations.  Jaylyn was very proud!

Jaylyn has spent so much time painting on her easel, finger painting, and using water color paints.  She LOVES to paint with brushes, sponges, q-tips………….anything!

During our painting times we’ve been talking about color mixing, and she is starting to understand how to mix colors to get new colors.  It’s no surprise that she loves to mix red and white to make pink!!!!

To practice our color mixing we’ve also had lots of fun with food coloring and water in clear glasses.  She’s made all shades of every different color you can imagine. 

We’ve also been working on scissor skills.  Jaylyn is really getting the alligator chomp down and is able to cut out big, simple shapes with relatively straight lines.  We haven’t yet cut off any fingers or toes, so we’re making good progress.

We’ve also had lots of fun with glue!  We cut out shapes and then glue them.  Jaylyn is still perfecting her glue dot but we usually keep them on the paper.

Jaylyn knows her shapes really well so we’ve been working with our numbers.  She can almost count to 20, she sometimes forgets 14, 15, and 17.  But no matter how many numbers she misses in between she always triumphantly reaches 20!

Now that we’re almost able to count to 20, we’re practicing number recognition.  She does really well with 1-12 but the teens still trip her up.

We go on special number safaris to practice number recognition.  I made number cards with the numbers 1-20 on them and I hide them throughout the house.  Jaylyn takes her bucket and collects all 20 cards and then we put them in their correct order.  Soon, we’ll make it all the way to 20 without any problems!

We still practice our letters and we play letter bingo to make sure we don’t forget any of them!

Jaylyn has also been very interested in spelling.  She wants to know how everything is spelled.  When she sees a word she wants to know what it says.  She has learned to spell her name, Jaxon, Mom, Daddy and we’re working on many others.  She LOVES to practice spelling.  And now, whenever she meets someone new, she introduces herself by spelling her name!  Her spelling ability has shocked many a person into silence. 

We’ve slowly worked through a few reading lessons and Jaylyn is doing great remembering the letter sounds and even sounding out a few simple words like sat, mat, at, and am.  We’ll keep working on her reading as she’s interested.

We’ve also ready many a Bible story from the Old Testament.  Jaylyn’s favorite stories are about Joshua, Daniel, David, Nehemiah, and Moses.  We read them over and over and spend so much time talking about each story.  I probably answer the question “Why?” about a million times a day. 

We also cook together and Jaylyn always asks what each ingredient does.  She loves to add baking powder or baking soda to muffins to “make them bigger” and of course, adding chocolate chips to cookies to “make them yummier.”  Jaxon is our official taster.   And as long as he has a glass of milk, he’s been very enthusiastic about our kitchen creations. 

Some of our goals for the next year are: to learn the days of the week, learn the months, learn the seasons, work on reading, work on simple addition and subtraction, do lots of messy science projects in the kitchen, make many more art projects, make many yummy kitchen creations, answer lots and lots of “Why?” questions, learn new Bible verses and Bible stories, spend lots of time outside learning about God’s creation, and play play play!