Thirsty Thursday

Rachel here. So my friend Heather and I had a texting conversation yesterday about how ugly we can be to our children when it comes to trying to teach them. When I taught 3rd grade, I never got frustrated because a child didn't "get it", or when they wouldn't do their work... because frankly... they did their work. It's TOTALLY DIFFERENT when it's your own kids and they are toddlers/preschoolers. Holy shenanigans. I shared with her one time about how I SCREAMED at Reese because she wouldn't glue a cotton ball onto a sheep I hand drew for her. Seriously. Seriously... who does that?! I've since gotten much better, but I do think I sometimes expect too much of them. I want them to be sweet and smart, and dammit if I'm putting the effort in... so should they. But again... we're dealing with a toddler and a preschooler here. Needless to say I'm currently enrolled in a "let it go you freak of a mother" crash course, and it can be terribly frustrating AND absolutely hilarious. Today I chose to take the "absolutely hilarious" route when dealing with my children's meltdowns. I even have a video for you Heather... if I can get it to load... on what a typical lesson looks like with Emma Grace. You'll laugh. So before I begin with today's "work"... I'm going to suggest a small drinking game. I've included photos of my children's meltdowns, and because I can't take a shot... maybe you could for me. ;) Let's begin.

Reese begins her day with dot-to-dots.Emma Grace's drug of choice... puzzles.We get all dolled up in our Thursday's best, and EG completes her uppercase a "collage" with apple jacks. (CoaH)Reese matches lettered clothespins to a picture wheel... working on letter sounds. (CoaH)EG matches both upper and lowercase letters to the word ANT. (CoaH)Letter a poke. (CoaH) Reese does these ALL THE TIME at Montessori and LOVES them.DRINK! Meltdown #1.After said meltdown, we move on to the game "Roll an Ant." Roll the dice, count the dots on the dice, find the piece that matches that number, and build your ant hill. It was cute. (CoaH)Reese worked on building her letters. I made the letter builders out of foam with the help of the Tired Need Sleep blog. She has the letter cards you can print and the template for the actual letter pieces. After building the letters, she had to then practice writing the letters in sand... which led to her having to write the letter on her mini chalkboard. It went REALLY well. I'd say she got through about 10 letters and never complained once.
There were a few letters she had a hard time writing... like the g. This opened up the chance for me to sit with her, dot the letter out, talk her through it, and have her learn the correct way.DRINK! Emma Grace doesn't wants to work on the upper/lowercase puzzle but refuses to clean up all of the others. I leave the room and ignore her. Oy vey.It gets VERY quiet. I go and check on her only to find she's decided to finish the ones that are out as opposed to cleaning them up. Meanwhile Reese decides she's over her work boxes and chooses to go on a measuring spree. With her little tape measure in hand, she measures things in miles, points, and finally after some convincing... she decides to measure in inches. :)As you can see, Emma Grace finishes the world puzzle, so I give her the puzzle she's requested. She gives it a hell of a go for a good 15 minutes before she requests another.Still avoiding her work boxes, Reese wants to work in her new workbook. She finishes the intro page and two pages on circles.For the picture of herself, she originally had a picture of 4 jellyfish. I told her it was supposed to be a picture of her, and she said "but I want it to be a picture of 4 jellyfish." Um... whatever. I give in and she IMMEDIATELY changes the picture. And it starts.Here is where we break. We headed to the library for some fun videos and books... oh and some computer time. We then hit up the Caboose Park across town. I'm not sure when my children became daredevils but holy moly.There was Carol Lee Donut purchasing, lunch eating, napping, Pocahontas watching, and snack eating before getting back to work.

Emma Grace disappears long enough to play dress up. She then decides she's ready to continue working. Ant shape matches. (CoaH)
DRINK. It's hard being 4 years old and naked.EG works with me on graphing ants. Out of 10, we get to 5 before she's done. This is where the video comes in. HOPEFULLY I can get it to load. It's a gem.Reese is back at her work boxes and practices her writing. (CoaH)EG ends her learning experience for the day reading her library books.
Tomorrow is a teacher workday... aka... Mommy is leaving town with her girlfriends. :) Daddy will be home with the girls all weekend. I will miss my little ladies, but I will enjoy myself. Even if it kills me. :)

Non-Easter on the shelves

Rachel here. There were a few activities not on the shelf that Reese was interested in. One was working in her workbooks... but first... sharpening her pencil... for 10 minutes straight. :)

Working with her moveable alphabet on a few red words.

The ever famous... washing of the dishes. And finally, shape sorting from smallest to tallest. Reese struggled with this until I told her to do the outer frames first, and then move to the inner shapes... then there was no stopping her. :)

Reese... Mon/Tues

Rachel here. We started this week with a review of the /t/ sound. Every time I showed Reese the /t/ sandpaper letter and asked her the sound that it made, she looked at me like a deer in headlights. She definitely needed the review, and HOPEFULLY we've nipped that in the bud. We revisited the sound, the letter book, and Reese's letter book. Reese also did two more /t/ crafts that turned out super cute. First she made a turtle mosaic. Thank you Pearl for the green sparkly paint... she adored it. (The Attached Mama... which is where I will more than likely be getting MOST of my alphabet crafts!)
She also made a Fall tree out of a toilet paper tube. (My Montessori Journey)

Reese is really starting to get the hang of the mouse now. She still has a long way to go, but she played on the computer for about 30 minutes without getting frustrated (and with some assistance by me)! We're big fans these days of Starfall... she loved watching the little letter videos, and I helped her play the games.

This is from last Friday. I put a few Halloween cookie cutters, paper, a pencil, and spooky colored markers out for Reese to trace and decorate. FAIL. I had to trace them for her, and then all she wanted to do was trace what I had drawn with a colored marker. It turned out to be a great activity for her... just not what I planned.

She traced her own hand. ;)

I pulled out our red word set (downloaded from My Montessori Journey)... the 8 letters we had been working on... and Reese used my makeshift movable alphabet to practice spelling the words. We sounded out each letter as we put it down, and then again to read the words. I printed the consonants we've learned so far on red paper and the vowels on blue... the closest I can get for now. :)

I googled "Montessori Activities Images" and found this idea, so I have no idea what site it is from, but I thought it was great. There are so many different ways to present the same information... I love it... even if it means I have to create 5 different activities for the same idea. :) Reese did well... when she took her time.

This picture turned out HORRIBLY, but Reese is doing a matching puzzle game where you match the mommy animal to the baby animal. This was an AWESOME find for $2 at a consignment sale.

This was another consignment find. Numbers and dinosaur puzzle pieces that fit into a book. I thought it was cute, but Reese didn't have enough patience to continue pulling the pieces out and putting them back in on each page. Emma Grace likes to play with it though. :)

Not an activity set out for her, but Reese decided to unwind a ribbon spool, put it in Emma Grace's toy, and pull it back out. At one point she told me it was like a volcano... whatever keeps her entertained.

The wooden number puzzle is AWESOME. I think I paid $2 for it at the consignment sale. It's really nice, and Reese is currently putting it together for the 4th time today. :) After she got each number put together, we put the numbers in order.

Number matching puzzle.

Also a consignment find for a few dollars... these wipeable cards. It's a pack of 40 double sided words with pictures. I pulled all the colors out for Reese to practice with today. She's very detailed and takes her time. It was really cute.

And this week's art projects from Art Class.