Friday/Saturday

Rachel here. Friday we didn't get much accomplished per Mother Nature. Here I am on Sunday feeling mediocre at best sitting down and downright miserable standing up. Okay I get it... I need to step back, sit down, and relax. If preschool gets done... awesome... if not...Reese won't become illiterate. If the grout in the bathroom gets scrubbed... awesome... if not... Bryan won't get hit by a bus. (Thank you Andria!) My children will be smart... or hell... I'd settle for just a little bit smartish, and my house will sell... maybe not the first day, but it'll sell. Because of my new found hopefully soon gone crippledness status, I'm not sure where we'll go with the preschool shenanigans. I guess I'll continue to put work boxes together when I can and we'll see where it goes. That's all I can do, and I need to be okay with that. I'm learning. :)

And so... here is what we did Friday... I didn't get many pictures, and I'm not entirely sure what the girls did after 1:00pm. :) I do know Emma Grace threw herself a tea party of sorts and soaked my living room floor. :)And then she walked away from said mess and created a coloring one in the playroom.
I did Reese's number assessment with her. After calling out "12", she was certain it was "20." That's the only one she mixed up... awesome. :) (CoaH) And we move to Saturday. Reese... roll one dice, count the dots, circle the number in the square... then do it with two dice. She REALLY enjoyed this. (CoaH)EG doing her e do-a-dot. (CoaH)Buckles, zippers, and snaps.
Shape silhouette match. (CoaH)
Reese worked on her cutting/pasting pictures. Shape puzzles.
Patterns. (CoaH)Letter tracing.
Bryan was working on windows and screens, and Reese wanted to join in. :)
Then there was some outside time before our annual St. Patty's Day dinner out and our first downpour for the next god only knows how many days.

A rainy Thursday

Happy rainy Thursday! Rachel here. The morning was pretty shot with our baby appointment and running errands, but once the girls got rolling... they were unstoppable. Of course we had to start with applying makeup like harlots. :) The girls love dressing up, and who am I to deny them?
Emma Grace got right to work on her letter e work. She actually followed the lines this go 'round as opposed to just coloring it in. PROGRESS! :) (CoaH)Reese worked on her numbers. (CoaH)The geoboard has become a favorite in the few short days it's been here. I should have bought two because I'm sure we'll have issues one of these days.
Reese worked on her number collages. We only tackled 1-3 today... it was easy peasy for her, but I want to make sure she understands the foundations before we get into anything too crazy. She's already adding 1 digit numbers at Montessori, but at least she's going with the flow and humoring me. :) (CoaH)
I attempted pattern work with EG. We're SO NOT READY, but she enjoyed using glue nonetheless. (CoaH)Reese didn't really enjoy this work much. The idea was to roll playdoh into a long snake and recreate the shapes of the numbers. She couldn't get the snakes quite long enough and wasn't willing to put the effort in. I think she got to number 4ish... it's back in her box for tomorrow... at least the remaining numbers. We'll tackle it together and see where we get. (CoaH)ELEPHANT and elephant letter tile matching. (CoaH)Reese cut out of her cutting book like her life depended on it. She did an AWESOME job. Once she's done coloring them, I'll post... you know... because I'm sure you're dieing to see them. :)Numeral to objects match 1-10. (CoaH)EG played with Reese's work playdoh. I wanted to show her how to roll it into a ball, snake, etc... she just wanted to smoosh it. SO smoosh it we did. :)Em started her uppercase e collage. I busted out the new M&D letter stamps. She didn't get far, so hopefully she'll want to finish up tomorrow. (CoaH)
Writing in the sand. :) While I was cleaning some school stuff out, we stumbled up my color test tubes. Emma Grace poured all the contents out and mixed them up with her rock crayons... and then left the mess. HA! It wasn't long before she realized I was going to make her sort the rock crayons from the tube contents, and then sort the colors. She had no problems with the work except that I'm sure she didn't learn her lesson. :)Here's to tomorrow being Friday! :)

Insects

Rachel here. I know for a fact I've already written and posted this bad boy, but alas it's missing... Hmmmm... Blogger has been up to some fishy shenanigans. ANYWAY... last week was bug week. I had tons of activities planned, but the girls kept busy with tons of other things besides what I had out for them. C'est la vie...

Reese is VERY in to quiet activities that she can work on by herself. Here are a few activities I printed off of Kidsparkz for her. She can be quite the little worker bee.
Emma Grace started this activity off by doing it for real. Matching the right colors together. Don't get too terribly excited though... it went downhill as soon as I put the camera on her. She's sweet like that. ;) Magnet bug puzzle.
Bug word puzzles from Kidsparkz.

Shape practice... creating a butterfly.

Ordering butterflies from small to large... Kidsparkz.

For Reese's Teacher Appreciation gifts, she used her finger prints to make little bugs... and a random fish... from her classroom... that she makes me say hi to every day. :)

Lacing bug patterns with pipe cleaners and beads.

Emma Grace's little hands aren't quite up to Reese's ability... obviously. She desperately wanted to bead, so I got out her letters, and she laced those.EG also pretended to master the color yellow. She's still telling me everything is yellow when I ask her, but she tells me what it is actually on her own accord. Yesterday I asked her what shape something was; she looked at me, smiled, and said "yeyow." She's going to be trouble.

New transferring activity I got from The Dollar Tree. I planned on using it this summer, but it had that new car smell, so I gave in. :)

Reese playing with her Alphabet Sensory Bin. She loved it but was way more intrigued with the tongs and lifting the items up instead of sorting them.

Here is Little Miss Independent... emptying her dishes from the dishwasher. :)She's growing up... and she reminds me of it everyday. :)

Christmas activities Part 1

Rachel here. Here are some of the Christmas activities we've done so far. The ever popular window clings. Reese puts them up, and 2.3 seconds later Emma Grace takes them down. ;)
Reese helped me make an "I Spy" bottle for her for her shelf. I just have to get the picture of the items to spy printed out and laminated, and it'll find a home on her shelf. We used some trinkets we found at Michael's, sugar as the filler, and a plastic water bottle. Super simple. I spotted it on many sites, so I knew I could handle it.

Bryan and I hit up the Dollar Tree down the street probably once a month for little things that the girls can do or play with that are inexpensive. I found this big felt Christmas tree and had the girls glue buttons all over it to resemble ornaments. I love it so much that it'll make an appearance ever year.

Thanks to my Gma Betty, the girls got this talking Santa that reads "Twas the Night Before Christmas." We happen to have a copy that the girls can look at while he's reading to them.

This little table is set up in their play room. Thomas the tank engine trains with their ceramic tree and snowmen that they can dress/undress.

A couple years back we bought a mini tree for Reese for her playroom. I pulled it out this year and have it placed with a small basket of cushy ornaments. The girls can decorate the tree over and over again whenever they want.

We also have the girls' wooden nativity set from

One Step Ahead (<-----Andria!). We love it, and the girls can't break it... it's a winner!

Today I hopped back on the Montessori bandwagon. Reese has been begging me to get with the program, so she worked on a red/green stone transferring activity.We painted these pathetic little sun catchers from DT... they weren't even worth the dollar we spent on them... horrid.

The stamp packs we bought though are great, and Reese even worked on color patterns with her finger prints. I turned it into a little caterpillar.

Perhaps we're not too young for the wonderful world of Ed Wemberly. :)