Stream of Consciousness

This week was the letter “A” at preschool.  Baby A was taking a picture of herself, wearing an Alabama sweatshirt.  She drew a picture of an airplane, and she colored pictures of an astronaut and an alligator that I printed from the computer.

Baby B found apples and avocados from the grocery store sale paper.  She also thought about “ants”, but we knew it would be tough to find a picture of ants in a magazine.  I remembered seeing fingerprint ants once upon a time.  A quick Pinterest search reminded me what to do.

The girls were tickled to play with the ink pad, and I let them use my pen (which is always a big deal to them!) to draw the legs and faces.  [Our ants all had smiling faces, of course.]

As we were constructing our ants, we talked about them having three parts to their bodies…

…this led us to think about our book on butterflies and moths…and our book on bees…both of which detail the parts of an insect’s body…

…that conversation turned to bees and ants both living in colonies…

...and that morphed into a conversation about the 13 original colonies of the United States.

I think about this all the time, how one thing leads to another.  I just love being able to follow the girls’ minds and spark their interests.  Never underestimate the power of a preschooler’s brain!

The Elusive Letter "X" - {CRAFT}

One of the hallmarks of the girls' preschool is the study of letters.  Each week they focus on a different letter...doing crafts...painting...and saying alliterative rhymes.  Each week the students are asked to bring pictures from magazines and newspapers showing things that start with the focus letter.

My girls LIVE for that activity!!!

First, we often start off by brainstorming things that begin with a given letter.  Sometimes it's easy...and sometimes we pull out our many alphabet books to use as a reference.

We usually start looking for some of the things we've brainstormed, and that often leads to other finds along the way.  I try to encourage them to look in different kinds of publications...magazines, newspapers, and sale papers.

We usually spend the better part of a morning in search mode.  We pile our findings (and I try to keep A's separate from B's), and that afternoon or the following day, we enjoy lots of scissor practice, cutting things out.

Lastly, I have the girls decorate an envelope for their letters.  They aren't always interested, but sometimes I can encourage them to draw a picture of something that begin with the focus letter.  Other times I might give them small stickers to outline the shape of the letter.

And then they use approximately half a roll of tape -- each -- to close their envelopes.

As we've progressed through the alphabet, it's been a way for me to roughly mark the passing of the year.  The letter M happened just after the holidays...and it's downright unbelievable we're on the letter X this week!

Speaking of the letter X...it was our most challenging to date.

I know I've seen a picture of an x-ray before (some kind of advertisement for bone health, I think), but we just couldn't put our hands on it for this week's letter poster.  We also searched the toy ads and catalogs for a picture of a xylophone, to no avail.

The girls weren't feeling 100% on Tuesday, so I kept them home from school.  They were up for some crafts, so I decided we'd just make our X picture.

Their xylophones turned out pretty cute!

They glued ribbon for the base, and then they organized construction paper strips in order from largest to smallest.  I turned them loose with the glue stick (one at a time...I had to have some control!), and they got everything in place.  We used the hole punch to make the dots for the pegs (???).  I'd hoped to find something more tactile for the sticks (probably not the right word?), but we ended up making them out of construction paper, too.

I don't know if these got included on the letter poster at school this week, but we were determined to get our "letter fix" in one way or another!

I'm linking up with Charlene again at "Hey, Mom! Look What I Did!"  She has so many great crafty and educational ideas on her blog every week! 

Super Stuff on a Monday / Tuesday

Even though I'm late to note it, I'm so thankful for another week full of notable notes!

1)      The girls have [FINALLY!] started asking, “How are you?” on the phone.  It’s so stinkin’ adorable to listen to them…another element in such an “adult”-sounding conversation.

2)      The girls and I agreed we’d put up our snow-related books the end of this past week.  (Little did we know it was March 2^nd that we’d finally get SNOW!)  I told them we’d read “Frosty the Snowman” one last time on Thursday night.  I sat down with them on either side…but instead they read to ME!  They recited almost every single line, word for word, in almost-perfect unison.  It was the best present ever!

3)      On Saturday, we finally had a little bit of snow…on a day when my girlies weren’t fighting the sniffles.  It wasn’t nearly enough for a snowman, but the girlies and I still enjoyed a peaceful walk through the neighborhood, and some good snow-stompin’ when we got home.  And the girls were seriously excited for some homemade hot chocolate after our romp in the snow.

4)      The girls were talking (at random) about Halloween.  I asked if they’d thought about what they want to be.  B said, “A kitty cat,” which is not a huge surprise.  Baby A said, “A pudu!”  We’d just looked up a series of animals out of a new book (“Hug Time”) and she’s brought up the pudu several times.  It is some kinda cute, and I’m sure she’d make an adorable pudu…HA!  Now if only Old Navy will stock that costume…

5)      On a related note, B showed me her drawing pad one morning.  “Look, Mommy!  I drew a giraffe and a baobab tree!”  I love seeing how the girls incorporate new knowledge into their playtime.

6)      The girls and I had to pick up something at the toy store on Sunday, and they asked if they could look around.  We rarely “browse” in any kind of store, so I decided that would be OK.  They did such a great job looking at things, but not asking to buy anything!  In the seasonal aisle, we spotted the cutest spotted ladybug Frisbee…a soft one that felt like the girls just might be able to use.  I couldn’t resist…and we’ve already had so much (indoor) fun with it.  The girls have seen their daddy and me play Frisbee several times (we’re pretty competitive!), and they can’t wait to join in the fun.  I’ve been impressed with their “form” – relative to throwing in our den – and their incessant giggles just top it off.  I can’t wait to get outside with them!!!

7)      After a week of unseasonably cold weather, Monday was relatively mild.  We had a fantastic walk through the neighborhood, on which we saw a record 12 DOGS.  I love-love-love how the girlies delight in seeing the neighbors’ pets…they coo and make the sweetest gestures.

8)      I had to run to the post office on Monday afternoon, and the girls were golden.  Not only did they wait patiently while I had to fill out a form and address and envelope, but they were polite and conversational with the ladies behind the counter.  It certainly doesn’t always happen that way…but it’s nice when it does!!!

9)      I finally remembered to write down something that makes me chuckle without fail…when the girls play hide-and-seek, they always count in Serbian.  When A gets to 14, she always interjects “turtle” into the middle of the word...too cute!!!  And both girls call their Uncle Vladimir, “Gladimir”…HA!

10)   And a couple of my favorite quotes of the week…

A: "Mommy, seven is more than six." Yes, you're right. Having seven cookies is more than having six cookies. "Yes, but you would never give me seven cookies."  She’s got it!!!

B, to A: "Sissy, you need to eat like a Galapagos turtle!" We had been reading that Galapagos turtles eat very slowly...in contrast to Baby A, who sometimes seems to be practicing for an "all you can eat" contest. ;)   

Picture Pages, Picture Pages...and Other Things That Occupy Our Girls

(OK, who's singing and craving Jell-o right now???)

I have waited for this day for so very long...the day that our girls finally discovered the joy of coloring books.  I LOVED to color as a kid (and I may have even bought a few coloring books along the way, well into my college days...of course I did that under the guise of my one semester as an education major...but they were really for me!).

The girls still don't much like to color for coloring's sake...they most often scribble an entire page one color...but give them something to do in a coloring book, and I've recently discovered, they're golden!

The girls worked for over an hour one day last week.  You'll see B correctly drew lines from four bees to the number "4", and on the opposite page she counted the apples and then colored 1/3 green, 1/3 red, and 1/3 yellow.

Baby A counted 13 bolts, in five different shapes, coloring each shape a different color.

 

I was so impressed how they followed directions, and for how long that held their attention!  And they were beyond proud to show their daddy what they'd done.

The girls also love to practice with their scissors.  They asked me to draw some shapes on construction paper so they could cut them out.  They worked and worked, and then asked me for two additional pages!

Here are some shapes that Baby A cut.

Here's B, so proud of her star.

 And the magnetic foam shapes are still a HUGE hit, too.

Baby A designed these flowers herself!  And here's her new "pose" when I ask to take her picture with something...HA!

During the last 20 or 30 minutes of our "quiet time" together, when B is still upstairs (hopefully) napping, I've pulled up this website a few times.  It has patterns for letters and numbers from the foam shapes.  Baby A LOVES-LOVES-LOVES to follow along.

Just wanted to share some of the fun around these parts.  I'm always looking for new ideas...what's keeping your kiddos engaged these days? 

Pre-Reading Skills

I never sat down and said, “I’m going to teach my girls the alphabet.”  They’ve had a pretty good working knowledge of it for a long time now, which I largely attribute to a handful of books and a couple of puzzles.

When the girls were a little more than two, they got really interested in puzzles…the wooden ones with the chunky block pieces.  After they’d mastered the handful of animal puzzles we had, I found a couple of great alphabet puzzles.  They first conquered this uppercase one.  

 

I’m sure at first they were just filling in the slots by shape, but after a while of me cheering, “Yeah!  You just found the ‘S’!” or “Only two letters left…who wants to put in the ‘R’?” they started naming letters on t-shirts and signs.  I’ll never forget Baby A galloping past the dishwasher, barely slowing as she called out, “B-O-S-C-H!”

I later introduced this puzzle, which helped the girls learn their lower-case letters.

 

In addition to puzzles, we have been reading several alphabet books, such as Dr. Seuss’s ABC and B is for Bear, since the girls were teeny-tiny.  Curious George’s ABCs is my very favorite, since the illustrations show the letter drawn into a picture.

Starting when the girls were about 21 months old, they have been able to fill in the blanks with many of their favorite books.  All I have to say is, “Big B, little b, what begins with B?” and they easily spout off, “Barber, baby, bubbles, and a bumblebee!”  [The entire line came later than 21 months, of course, but that marked the start of their completing sentences from books.]

Finally, one of our favorite children’s CDs has a great A-B-C song.  After a few standard renditions, it names one word that begins with each letter of the alphabet.  “A, apple…B, boy…C, cat…D, dog…”  The girls have known that song for quite a while, too.

So…where are we now???

At 3 ½, I think the girls have a pretty good start on pre-reading skills.  The know all their letters – upper- and lower-case – and they are also pretty good at identifying the sounds different letters make.

“Mommy, what does ‘happy’ start with?”

I can feed them a couple of clues…”a HOUSE on a HILL”…or ”HUNGRY HORSE, HEN in HAT”…and they’ll proudly proclaim, “H!!!”

I’m challenging them now by asking them, “What do YOU think it starts with?”

Just another progression…fitting the pieces together…making it fun.  There again, I don’t think they realize they’re learning!