Preschool Week 1: The Letter A and Genesis 1

 First week of preschool/daycare is in the books! The kids love it! I didn't really want to do a craft every day, but they ask for it, so I try to find something to do, most are pretty simple and the kids can do on their own. I decided just to do the 'ol ABC order, even though it may not the easiest way to go through the alphabet. Some of the curves might be a challenge, but I'm doing this more for exposure and letter recognition anyway. So this week we worked on the letter A and did Genesis 1 for our Bible study time. Here are our crafts!

Paper plate apples. Let the kiddos tear up the red, brown and green construction paper then let them glue it on a paper plate! Super easy!! I like to write the words on most of the crafts, the more words they see everyday the better!

Alligator A. This one took a little more work on my part, but I did all the cutting during nap time the day before. Drew a block letter A and cut it out, then made a bunch of white triangles, and a few white and black circles. Let the kids glue everything together. 

My day I didn't have a craft planned! We had read Where the Wild Things Are, so when we were done I had them look at the pictures again and draw their own wild thing! I think they are pretty cute! 

Our Bible study craft. Genesis 1. Start with a small coffee filter, have the kiddos color all over blue and green. I explained that's what Earth looks like from way up high, because they were confused. We haven't read/watched too much about outer space. I then sprinkle the colored coffee filter with a small amount of water. A spritzer bottle would work great but I didn't have one. Get them wet enough so the colors blend but not too wet so they take forever to dry and most the color is left on the table. While those were drying and the kids napped I traced the coffee filter on black construction paper then cut about 1/2 inch below that line. That way there will be room to glue the earth on. I wrote the verse and stars with white crayon. They put glue around the circle I cut out and then put their earth on. This project is also great to do on Earth Day.

Preschool: Ready to get started!

Well time to change careers! After a year of subbing I decided I really enjoy staying home with my kids, so when the opportunity came up to do daycare from home I was ready. I loved teaching 4th grade, I love upper level learning, but right now I need to be home with my kids. So after a couple of days of daycare with a 2 year old, 3 year old, and three 4 year olds, I realized we need some sort of a schedule and organization. Because after a few hours of nonstructured play they always seem to resort to running, chasing, and screaming. With a new baby coming in October we needed to get things together! Or I'm fairly certain I would lose my mind, (if I wasn't getting close enough already). To occupy these kiddos for a while in the morning I am doing preschool. You can't make a teacher quit teaching ;) Then in the afternoon we will have a bible study time. (I love this part of daycare over being a public school teacher, I can freely and openly talk about God with these children and fill their little hearts with his love and truth!!) Anyway, here's my set up and a few ideas I've stolen, then changed a little to make work for me!

The green and blue dry erase/magnetic boards are from Target for $7 each. The calendar was from a teacher supply store. The colors and numbers are from Walmart for $.88.  I made the weather page myself on white computer paper.

Our prayer to start our day. Obeying is a huge part of a toddler's life!! And obeying parents, teachers, etc. will help prepare them for a life of obeying God! 

What we will try to fit in each morning. Pretty sure we won't get all of it everyday, but this will help keep me on task. I will do preschool Monday-Thursday and then I think Fridays will be our craft day.

A close up of my weather chart. I need to run to the library and get this laminated!

Our practice pages that we'll do everyday. I put the printables in sheet protectors and bought some washable dry erase markers so I wouldn't have to print some may copies. We will work on 1 letter a week. Here are the links to the pages I got from Pinterest.
Handwriting Practice: Names and Sentences
Bible Study Curriculum
Alphabet Practice Printables

Project Stay-At-Home-Mom: School Shopping on a Budget

Well the kids just keep growing, and with me staying at home, money is tighter this year. So the clothes were getting smaller and I needed to figure out a way to buy them on a budget that has...well...no room for clothes. So I hatched a plan. I would take in some of my clothes (my dressier ones that I hardly wear since I'm done teaching for a while) to a consignment store. There is a great store called Plato's Closet, they only take name brand, in style clothes, but pay you cash for them within the hour!! So I took some of my clothes in there and got some cash, then turned around and took my kids to some other great second hand stores in Lincoln. Here's my haul, all for $84! That's 10 pairs of pants, 23 shirts, 2 pairs of shoes, a belt, 2 skirts, 2 skirts, and 2 dresses! Booyah!!

Going to second hand stores instead of buying my kids new clothes is one of the changes I am making in our lives so that I can continue to be at home with my children. Which I think will be MUCH more important than the clothes they wore as children.

Preschool: Shark Week

So, it's Shark Week on the Discovery Channel!! I LOVE Shark Week, maybe it's because I'm a poor landlocked Nebraksan who, I think, was born to be somewhere near an ocean. I love water, swimming, and just sitting near or having a view of water. Maybe someday (I don't think I'll ever make a lifestyle change to get to live on the ocean) I can get a home near a lake or stream :) Anyway, I am a huge fan of Shark Week, it's on all day, so for preschool this week I thought why not do some mini lessons/crafts on sharks. We took a walk to the library to get some books on sharks for story time. And today we did a torn paper collage. Super easy and what small child doesn't like to tear paper and use glue sticks?

 Materials:
half-2 sheets of blue construction paper (different shades) depending on what size, mine were only 1/2 so we only needed 1/2 sheet of construction paper. But if you did a full sheet you would need one and I think two different shades of blue would look nice.
white paper
cut out shark from black or gray construction paper
cut out fish from various shades of construction paper
glue stick
 
We did half a sheet, since I was low on blue construction paper. It's hard not being a teacher anymore and having a fully stocked supply closet down the hall :( I started with 1/2 sheet blue construction paper (If I had more I would have done a full white sheet and two or more different shades of blue). Told the kids to tear it up. Then I got each of them 1/2 sheet of white computer paper and had them glue the blue scraps onto the white, covering as much of the white as possible. I had cut out sharks and little fish ahead of time. You could let them cut the sharks out, but with preschoolers we usually loose a fin or two when there are sharp corners like that. Gave them the sharks and fish to glue onto the paper. They loved it, purple glue sticks are so much fun :) and it was easy for all of them to do.

The other shark craft. A water color resist. I should have taken a picture of the older kiddos, but you draw/print a shark/sea life scene. Have the kids color it, really well, color white where you want white. Then let them paint with water colors over everything. Where you colored with crayon the watercolor won't stick. Kids love to paint, it was a hit and easy!

A Coaching Wife

I love sports! I loved playing them in high school and I love watching the Huskers on TV. So I was drawn to my sport loving husband, I met him while he was in college and wrestling (a side note - I did not love wrestling, in high school I thought the sport was gross-the uniforms they wore, where they grabbed each other, the whole not eating before, all of it. Then I met this boy and fell in love, and now of course must learn to love the sport, and I'm getting there :) He loves sports so much he changed majors in college just so he could become a coach. So now here I am learning the joys and struggles of being a coach's wife. Last year was his first year as an assistant varsity football coach and the head varsity wrestling coach. He also runs the weight room and helps with FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes). Sports through and through. We didn't see him from the middle of August until the middle of February, he's gone by 5:30 in the morning and gets home between 6:30 and 7:00 at night. So now that the shock is over I'm ready dive head first into this being a coach's wife stuff. The kids and I love going to practice, so we will continue to do that. But this year I really want to focus on pouring out love onto his team, the other coaches and the players. To do this I will make sure I'm praying over everyone of them and I want to provide some food. What better way to mens' hearts than food, right? But we're building athletes, I've seen a lot of great granola bar recipes on Pinterest I want to try. The guys meet in the morning on game days so I'll send them with the hubby in the morning. The first recipe is one off Pinterest called No Bake Energy Bites from Gimme Some Oven.  Amazing!!

No Bake Energy Bites