Today is Brought to You by the Letter A!

Very, very beginning letter studies with Shane and Grace! Once a week Grace's teacher sends home worksheets for her to trace letters. Gosh, that's exciting. And, seriously, homework for preschool?? (No, we don't do them.)

It seems a bit counter-intuitive to have a child with fine motor issues trying to trace letters she can't identify, so we are starting with just recognizing letters - no sounds, no writing, that can come when they are ready. Shane already knows some of his letters, while Grace just guesses "G" for each one (it is the most important after all!), so we are starting at the beginning. These are just some fun activities we did to help cement that first letter in our heads:

These are free printables found at totschool.shannons.org

She has all sorts of fun activities, and you have to love her tagline: "Because I can't handle another episode of Barney." There aren't any posts from the past few years - I hope that doesn't mean Barney came calling - but she still has her old posts up to explore. It occurred to me recently that we haven't used our dot markers in a while, so this was a great way to introduce the letter and practice motor control.

Anything with foamy shapes is a win. I just opened the tub and challenged them to see how many As they could find.

Grace is an all-or-nothing kind of gluer. Some got barely a dot, while others...

While they were working, I did a Google image search for "letter a", and printed out a few pages of results. I cut them into strips and told them to pick out the ones they wanted to cut out and glue on another paper.

The choice seemed to be "all of them", which was great! They are both doing a super job with scissors, and Grace kept running to me to show me "I cut in the lines!"

Ignore coil of wire, I was supposed to be putting up a chicken fence.

They had so much fun, they both wanted to do multiple pages, so I told them to get more paper out of the art drawer. Somebody apparently had already used this one. 

Shane refused to cover it up.

I printed out several "A" coloring pages and we did different things with them. This one was supposed to be colored in one color per space, but they decided at this point they weren't doing what the teacher told them to:

Sheridan helped Shane cut out his (purple) one, while Gracie did her own. Her scissor skills are actually coming along, not too long ago she would have cut right through the middle!

That pretty much signaled we were done for the day, but we will continue later by coloring the other A's in different ways - painting, thumbprints, and gluing cereal on them. Next up: snack time with Scrabble crackers, during which we will eat all the "A"s we can find!

S is for Science and Silliness!

When Christopher and Sheridan were learning their letters, we had fun taking a letter each week (or so), and seeing how we could explore with it. Logan recently started showing an interest, joining in with calling out things that start with a given letter, so we decided it was time to have some fun again!

Logan picked "S" to start us off. Actually, he picked "Q" first, but mean Mommy made him switch. We began with food, because - duh, food! The kids planned the menu for the week. I cheated and gave them a list of meals I wanted to make, and let them assign them to days. We talked about who would be home when, and which days we would have less time to cook. For the few lunches we would be home we planned sandwiches, Spaghettios, and soup with sourdough bread.

Alphabet soup, of course!

Please ignore mess on floor. Shane has discovered emptying shelves, and I gave up trying to keep up with him.

For supper we had sausage bake, sesame chicken, salad (with leftover chicken), smoked sausage-spaetzle-and-sauerkraut, Sloppy Joes, and spaghetti.

For dessert all week: snickerdoodles!

Which involved sifting and stirring, as well as sugar and salt. We shared some with our church family on Sunday. I also made a strawberry cobbler type thing, but that didn't get shared with anyone:)

I wanted to try the sand foam I have seen all over the internet, but I wanted to do it outside - cloud dough is one thing, but sand + laminate flooring = bad, bad, bad. Unfortunately, the weather did not want to cooperate. I thought, surely, if I just put a big rug down first, and stress to everyone that it needs to stay in the tub...

Some colored sand plus shaving cream...

a little mixing...

and then there was Shane. While everyone else was mixing, he was happily throwing handfuls of sand.

All over.

 And then he got up and left.

Still covered in sand. Ah, well, sweeping starts with "s" too, right? I decided to give him some water to rinse off with, and to keep him busy for a bit. I added some of his bath toys.

and, knowing what letter we were studying, he got into my tools and added two screwdrivers. He also added the lid to my deep fryer, but I took that out because a) doesn't start with "s", and b) water + deep fryer = bad, bad, bad.

Meanwhile, the new puppy snoozed through the whole thing. 

"S" is also for sisters, so we made sparkly sun-catchers to send to ours.

Logan got his all the way done and brought it to show me...and dropped the wrong end, so the beads went running everywhere. Poor guy! We got it all put back together, though, good as new.

Then, science, using the book I reviewed Friday! 

Daddy cut open the shiny stones (aka geodes) we got on our trip a few weeks ago. Look at them sparkle in the sun!

 One of our favorite parts of exploring a letter is going on a walk to look for things that start with it. We saw lots of stumps, including a two-seater,

We stopped to put on a silly show.

saw signs, sticks, stormy sky, 

and dozens of other things, and then got to a friend's house.

Ohmigoodness.

OhmiGOODness! When did you get THOSE?!

I took a million pictures, none of which turned out because everyone was moving so much.

Daddy kept teasing me that goats don't start with "s", but they are small and sweet, so there!

Kela wasn't so sure,

but the kids liked them,

 and Shane tried to take them home!

We also made word lists, watched Sesame Street, sorted shoes, and added a sparkly "S" to our Willy Wonka tree:

Next week: "G" is for Grandma!

Dancing Naked Covered in Pear Jam

See, that's where commas become really important. Those are actually three different events from the weekend - sorry for any disappointment!

 

Hooray for three-day weekends! I wanted to spend a lot of time with the kids, so first order of business was getting the rest of the Bountiful Baskets haul taken care of and out of the way. After Sunday's Cooking Marathon, I was only able to pick at it here and there (darn job getting in the way!), and still hadn't really touched the 38 pounds of pears.

 

So, I made a huge batch of Bartlett Harlequin Jam, an equally large batch of Apple Pear Cranberry Relish, and this Pear Honey.

 

 

Fortunately, they all required lots of simmering time, which gave me a chance to play with the kids in between. The Pear Honey was really good over confetti cornbread muffins - just regular cornbread with leftover corn on the cob, bell peppers, and hot peppers that hadn't already been used up. Those will both be going to the fire department meeting Tuesday (assuming there are any left).

 

I made this Pina Colada Jam with the pineapples, but I haven't tasted it yet due to the rum in it - I know, most alcohol may have been cooked out, but I don't take chances there. I'll have some in January:) I did have to add a lot more pectin than it said, but it looks and smells good!

 

Having pesto on hand is proving...well, handy, so I was happy to find this recipe for Spinach and Kale Pesto (not to mention a new blog to follow!). It even used up the half bag of slivered almonds that has been sitting in the cupboard since Christmas. I froze a bunch and used some with a medley of potatoes, tomatoes, bell peppers, celery and onions, which I baked for supper this weekend:

 

 

Yum!

 

Okay, enough heating up the kitchen, time to go play outside!

 

 

 

Yes, I used to be one of those childless people who shook her head at other people's children's mismatched outfits. But I love her sense of style! Why NOT wear snow boots with your halter dress?

 

We spent a lot of time climbing around and using C.'s tools to measure things,

 

and making sure they were level (um...they're not.)

 

Saturday night there was a street dance in a small village north of here. We told the kids we were going "some place special", and they drove me NUTS all day trying to guess. Next time, I just pack them into the car and start driving! They were pretty happy with the surprise once we got there, though.

 

Of course, L. is not fond of loud noises (unless he is creating them), and shares my taste in music. He spent the first twenty minutes like this:

 

And C. pretty much concurred:

 

L. loosened up a bit when he discovered he could dance with pretty girls, though!

 

And even more so when he got some 7-Up in him.

 

Dang, kid, it didn't even have caffeine in it!

C. discovered places to climb and jump off of and swing around, so he was good. S., on the other hand, ran around and demanded dances most of the evening:

 

 

She even made Daddy dance with her to "Cotton-Eyed Joe", which for some reason didn't wear her out as much as it did him. All three littles fell asleep on the short drive home, and I don't think S. fully woke up until the next morning. As I was getting her out of her car seat, she stumbled to me saying, "Mommy, I want to dance with you," then collapsed into my arms.

 

In 'school', we are learning the letter "N", which of course is easy to confuse with "M", so this weekend we did a lot with both letters. We still haven't put the new flooring in, so I had the perfect canvas for a game:

 

I call out a letter or a word, and they all have to stand on the right one. You can do this with tape or chalk if you don't want red enamel paint everywhere:)

 

C. has started school again - second grade! - and brought home his first spelling list of the year. We came up with sentences together, trying to include words that started with "m" or "n".

 

We seem to be partial to the word "naked" for "n".

 

Getting C. to write is like pulling teeth, so I just made him write the actual spelling words:

 

 

then S. went over all the "m"s and "n"s with her own markers.

 

"M" is for "mailbox", so we made these to leave each other notes. I picked the kits up a week after Valentine's Day for something like 30 cents each.

 

 

I LOVE when kids do the Picasso thing.

 

Back outside again! The kids dug for dinosaur bones for a while (you'll want to be careful walking around our property), then S. decided she wanted to come back in and help me make dessert. We used up some leftovers and made individual brownies,

 

with the cans of frosting that only had an inch left each, and the malted milk balls that everyone seems to pass over.

 

S. is very generous with her toppings. These definitely did not lack for sweetness; holy sugar coma, Batman!

 

And then back out again, where we found a new friend.

 

Poor guy wanted to run (slither) away, but wasn't sure which direction was safe. Every time he thought he could make a break for it, C. had to go check to see if he was still there.

 

He finally headed downhill and away from the crazy noisy place.

 

Monday started with coed naked math:

 

 

Try that in public school! Over the course of half an hour we had sorting, patterning, bartering, and greater-than-less-than.

 

Then they suddenly remembered the mailboxes, and there was a frenzy of coloring pictures for each other.

 

 

Um...hello? Where'd everyone go? Mess on the table?

 

 

Busted! And you two, don't even try to act like you weren't standing on the bed, too, when I walked in.

 

Do your kids do this? When you remind them they are supposed to pick something up when they are done playing with it,

 

 

they just decide they aren't done playing with it after all? We went back and forth with the shapes all day, interspersed with play-do and books. It rained on and off ALL DAY. We did go out and play in the mud in the evening, followed by much-needed baths, then chili for supper. Kind of a lazy day after all the activity over the last two! Sometimes we need lazy days, though. Back to work tomorrow - except for poor Daddy, who has been 'back to work' all weekend:( Hope everyone else got to enjoy at least some time off!