The weather outside is frightful

     The temperatures here are in the single digits during the day and in the negatives at night. So, needless to say we aren't spending much time taking walks or even running errands around town. I'm finding that the homeschooling is helping to break up the cabin fever and gives my son and I something fun to do during the day. We spend our day singing songs, playing with play dough and watching the "Alphabet Factory" DVD. My son loves that video, which is a nice change from watching "Cars" and "Robots".
     Tomorrow we might make some sugar Cookies and form them into the Letter, Shape, Number and Theme of the week. I think we will be able to handle making an A, a square, and the number 1. However, making a cow shaped cookie is going to require us to put our artistic abilities to the test.

So far so good!

     So far so good! My son is really enjoying learning things! So far this week we've gone over quite a bit of information and my son seems to be picking it up. In fact he woke up this morning and came into my bedroom and was talking about cows (this weeks theme). He really enjoys every activity we've done.
     Today I introduced him to the Leap Frog Alphabet DVD and he loves it. He even came up to me and said,"mommy the S says ssss like ssssssssilassssssssss! I haven't talked to him about the sounds in words, so I was amazed that he is putting the phonics together so easily!
     Later today I will be headed over to my former school to coach the Science Olympiad team. It is overwhelmingly time consuming, but I had a lot of students that would have been disappointed if I hadn't come back as a coach. So I'm going to brave the single digit temperatures and do some science with middle school students this afternoon.

First weekend of the New Year!

     My daughter is 6 months old and wears 18 month clothes, so most of the clothes people gave her for Christmas were too small. So yesterday we went out and exchanged them for sizes that fit her.
     One of my goals for the new year is to get more organized. So, after the shopping trip, I decided  I would go through both of the kids baby clothes and consolidate them by making one tub for each size, I also filled two giant bags of clothes to take to a consignment sale and one bag to go to the trash. I also organized the hand me downs that my son oldest got from his cousin. I ended up with 10 storage boxes of clothes ranging from NB to 5T!
     Somehow during my clothing adventures I managed to strain my back. Unfortunately, I'm now in a lot of pain! I've taken some pain killers and muscle relaxers just to make laying on the bed tolerable. Hopefully once they relax my back enough I can do some stretching exercises to relieve the pressure and get to feeling better soon. Thank goodness it is a Sunday and that I have a wonderful husband to care for the kids while I try to mend. He is a wonderful husband and father, and he is even making Brisket in the Crock Pot with a recipe I showed him!

Happy New Year!!!

     Last night was New Years Eve and we had a great time with the kids and with my mom! My mom came over with some Fillet steaks and I made some roasted potatoes and corn on the cob. We cooked together in the kitchen and drank the wine my husband, Alan, had brought home. The kids had a blast playing with toys and Silas munched on the cheese log, crackers and Shrimp. After eating dinner we played the Wii Fit and Band Hero until it was time to ring in the New Year.
     As for the Preschool prep, I've ordered some books at my local branch of our public library. There is a 25 cent fee per item to do this. But, I figured the books I wanted were at various different branches and this will save us time, as the library will have all the books delivered to our branch and have them waiting for us. Now when we go to the library I can just pick up the books at the counter and Silas, Sydney and I can spend time at the library enjoying ourselves and not searching for specific books.
     I also spent some time yesterday printing off letters, shapes and other items for activities. There is a multitude of free printables online so I was able to find a lot of nice things. However, I want to make a number book that has weekly themed pictures and a place for stickers so I made my own number pages. I'm going to include a picture of the 1 and 2 page for you to see. I'm really happy with how they turned out!
    Finally Happy New Year to everyone I hope this year and decade are wonderful for everyone!

Number pages created for Preschool number book