"A"

We’re doing the letter A today and tomorrow. Since we just got back from a 3-day weekend out of town, we were a little behind on our preparations, but we’re sticking to the schedule.

Jock picked up groceries for A and B on his way home from work, and started dinner, while I took the kids to the library to pick up books for A, B, C, D and E (this week and next week's letters).

For supper, we had Alfredo sauce over Angel hair noodles (we threw some meat in there too). Our vegetable was Asparagus, and we had some Asiago cheese bread to go with too. Then we had Apples/caramel for dessert. We'll have the left-overs tomorrow.

We’re reading books about Animals, Apples/Applesauce, and Airplanes. We also have a couple Alphabet books at home we’ll probably read.

I found and printed our coloring page here and our letter-writing practice page here - I chose the D'Nealian handwriting worksheet with the Apple on it. We only did the first one today - we'll work on the handwriting tomorrow.

ABC Summer

A friend of mine the last couple summers has done an "ABC Summer" with her kids. She started the summer before her oldest started kindergarten. I decided a while ago to do this with Elijah & Josephine this summer. I’m going to give Kaylen the option to participate, be my helper, or work on her own things. I think it will bore her though, and I do want her to keep up with reading at math at her own level too. For the little kids, I thought it would be a fun way to learn their letters.

We’re going to spend about two days on each letter. We’ll take Sundays off or to review letters. We’ll also take a few days off around the 4th of July, which will be just about mid-alphabet for us, so maybe will use that time to review as well. We should finish up the first week of August, then we’ll have a few days to review the last half of the alphabet before Kaylen starts school and Elijah & Josephine start their preschool curriculum at daycare.

For each letter, we plan to do the following things:

• Read books with subjects that start with the letter we’re working on
• Eat foods/snacks that start with the letter
• Color the upper and lower case letters (printed in block format), and practice writing the letter
• Point out/stress words that start with the letter as we’re going through our day
• Depending on timing and the letter, possibly do a special activity that starts with the letter

So, we’ll be going to the library about once per week. I’ll have a book list to choose from, and probably let them choose a couple books as well. I’ll let Kaylen choose her own fiction books, but maybe suggest a nonfiction book about something that starts with the letters we’re studying that week.

Each week, I’ll have our menu planned (some are more difficult/creative/healthy than others). I’ll also have the coloring/writing pages printed out ahead of time, and will have to take some time planning the fun activities too.

We’re looking forward to it! The kids have no idea what’s in store for them, but I hope they’ll have fun learning their letters!

I'll post about what we did for each letter as we go through the summer.

Swing Set

Jock’s been working hard on the swing set! Our old one was made out of 1x4s, so it was VERY unstable, especially when we got three kids, 140 lbs-worth, on it. We knew last summer we were going to have to do something before this summer, as it just wasn’t safe anymore! Jock took it apart about the first nice weekend, so nobody would be tempted to play on it and then get hurt.

Then we figured our budget and started pricing swing sets and swing set kits, and what we could get for our budget wasn’t much better or sturdier than the one we were replacing. So Jock set to work designing one himself!

I was a little nervous when it started going up. A couple of the neighbors made comments about how big it was. (My favorite was, “Is that your new guest house?”) Yah, it’s huge! The fort part is about 8’x8’, and the floor is about 5 feet off the ground. The base of the roof will be about 5 feet tall, so total height from ground to point will be about 12 feet! The beam for the 2 swings, glider, and trapeze swing is about 16 feet long. We still need to get some chain extensions so the kids can get on the swings/glider a little more easily by themselves, but we’re enjoying it already!Next up in assembly will be a slide and monkey bars – at a 90 degree angle from the swing beam. There’ll be steps coming up to the fort, as well as a rock wall. Then he’ll have to get the roof put on the fort.

I think we went over budget a bit with the accessories, but we were close. Still much less than buying a swing set or a swing set kit of this size and sturdiness. And it’s sturdy enough for mom and dad to swing on too! :)

Happy 4th Birthday Josephine!!!

Today my baby is turning 4! I can’t believe it!

I can so clearly remember the very first photo we saw of her, at 2 months of age.
And the first time I held her in my arms, at nearly 10 months of age.
Then my second trip to visit her, at 14 months of age.
Then our last trip to visit her in Haiti, at 22 months of age.
Then finally in our arms forever, at 33 months of age.
Then her first birthday celebrated at home, age 3.
Then her first Christmas home, age 3 1/2.
And now she’s 4!Yikes! We now have two four-year-olds in the family (for three months and a day).