Merry Christmas

Hey everyone!

The baby should be coming sometime today!

In the mean time I wanted to share a Christmas quote with you.

Peace is not the absence of troubles,

But the presence of Christ.

The Christmases I remember best, the Christmases which touched my heart the most, are Christmases filled with love and giving and the Spirit of the Savior. . . . Bringing the Christmas spirit into our hearts and homes takes conscious effort and planning but can surely be accomplished."

-Thomas S. Monson Christmas Devotional 2012

I was looking for a heartwarming quote to share with friends,

and I couldn't quite find what I wanted,

So I made my own.

You can download it here for free.

Here are some fun Christmas Ideas:

We Three Kings:

Where we had fun making kings crowns and gifts for the baby Jesus.

 

Oh Christmas Tree

Where we made a felt Christmas Tree,

and Christmas Tree snacks

Shepherds and Candy Canes

Where we made candy cane scented play dough.

Santa Day

Where we made all things Santa

Reindeer Day

Where we did a few reindeer crafts.

Merry Christmas!!

Halloween Fun Part II

We had tons of fun during the Halloween Season!

We carved pumpkins...

Ha ha! Look of that face!

We went to the Witch festival.

I don't know why H. is crying...he's holding a cookie in his hand. What could be wrong?

We went trick or treating

And we had more preschool fun.

Have I told you yet that I LOVE my preschool co-op!

It's so fun and so easy.

The kids get so much variety.

and it's free!!

The kids loved painting so much the first day,

that we did it again the second day.

It's great for fine motor skills,

and we connected literature to art.

(Five Little Pumpkins, which we read for math last time.)

For the Letter Hh we used cereal with "holes"

and then when they were finished,

they used the do a dot markers to fill in the Hh.

These printables are of course from Confessions of a Homeschooler.

I had them write in their journals about what they were for Halloween.

And we read Three Little Ghosties

...eating their toasties.

And we made cinnamon sugar toasts.

H is for Happy Haunted Halloween

For Halloween in Preschool everyone was invited to dress up.

We started out introducing the letter Hh by painting some haunted houses with water colors.

Then on the black paper we added some spooky ghosts.

For our snack we made Haunted Houses

Or Gingerbread Houses made out of chocolate gram crackers.

I gave each person their own bowl of frosting.

Not economical, but more sanitary :).

This was great for their imaginations and fine motor skills!

And they surprisingly didn't eat very much candy,

well at least at school!

They all turned out fantastic,

M. was really proud of her house.

For Math we did a witches brew and sorted and counted our candies. We used monster fangs (candy corn), baby ghosts (mini marshmallows), and pumpkins (candy pumpkins) to sort.

We wrote down how many we had on our paper.

Which required lots of help from me, aka no pictures of that part. :)

For music time we read Ghosts in the House

By Kazuno Kohara

It's a non scary haunted house book about a witch who moves into a big house filled with ghosts.

She catches them all, washes them in the laundry, and uses them for curtains, table clothes and blankets.

For the music side of it, I turned on Halloween music and they acted out the book.  Here most of them are hanging their ghosts up to dry.

Then they lined up by the fan and let their ghosts fly through the room.

Happy Halloween everyone!

How to Start Your Own Preschool

School is underway, and maybe you've thought about starting your own preschool with your child/children in your home. 

I have a few ideas to get you started!

1. Create a Specific Space

If you have an empty room, use that, or just have it in the same place every day.  Create a place for your child to sit.  In our preschool co-op we use cloth place mats. It helps them learn how a school setting works, and makes them feel like they are in school!

2. Decorate Your "School Space"

Nothing will make them feel like they are really going to school more then by making your "school space" look like school.  A great place to go for items to create your school space is All a Dollar, they have tons of school posters and signs!

3. Create Curriculum Centered Around Your Child

Yay! This is the most fun part! This is the only time in their life (if you send them to traditional school) that you can focus on their strengths and interests and cater to that.  And, because they're your kids an added bonus is often that their strengths will be the same as your strengths!  If your child loves fairy tales and stories, then focus on story telling through puppets, dress ups, re-telling stories, and creating their own stories. If your child loves animals, nature, and the world around them, focus on non-fiction and learning facts about the things they love.

Here is a link to a mock calendar I created to give you some ideas!

Just remember, it's not about creating a genius, it's about enriching your child's education. If you push your child too hard at first, they will not have a fun experience.  Just take it slow and let them go at their own pace, and then if you see they need to be more challenged, give them more!

4. Stock up on Craft Supplies

I like having some supplies on hand.  That way, if we read a library book togethe, and I have an idea how to make the book come to life, I can do it without a lot of stress.  Here is a post on what I personally like to have on hand. {Scroll to the bottom.}

5. Go on Field Trips to Erich Your Curriculum

Go to story time at your local library, check out seasonal events in your area, visit local shops like pet shops, grocery stores, and bakeries as field trips. You can take what you are learning and turn it into real life in your children's minds.  For example, if you go to a local farm to pick berries you can read the classic book Blackberries for Sal.  Or, if you are learning about Jack-o-Lanterns, go to a local pumpkin patch and pick a pumpkin and go home and measure it and weigh it.

6. Don't Re-create the Wheel

If you are stumped, or looking for an activity, search online!  There are tons of sites already doing the leg work for you.  Some of my favorites are Preschool Daze, Teach Preschool, and Strong Start. They aren't too over the top, but they have great ideas.

Here are my favorite sites for free printables (You have probably already noticed I use these sites a lot!).  Confessions of a Homeschooler and 1+1+1=1 have some of the best free resources, as well as curriculum ideas to help you.

7. Have Fun!

This is the most important!  Use your strengths and make it fun. Make memories with your child and it will all be worth it!

Potty Training Fun {?}

It's that time again to start potty training baby H!

Yay!

{Groan}

Do you feel that way?  I do! 

It feels like it is a ton of work and mess...

We are just in the very very early stages with H.,

so here we go!

I feel like I learned a few things from potty training Miss Sassy.

(Don't ask me why she has undies on her head in this pic...)

I started potty training her at 18 mo, and it continued until she was 30 mo. old...

And I feel like I tried everything!

So it was a little grueling, to say the least.

Here are some things I learned

1. Read the book Stress Free Potty Training

Just check it out of the library like I did.

It has a personality test that you take for your child,

and based on that test, you potty train your child using different strategies.

It turned out Miss Sassy was strong willed,

so she had to figure out for herself that she wanted to be potty trained.  Once that happened, potty training was a snap!

2. Make sure you have the building blocks in place.

Just like teaching kids how to read, you make sure they know the basics, their letters and sounds.

With potty training you want them to have some basic skills: like being able the pull down their pants, knowing potty words :), knowing their anatomy, etc.

3. Start early with Potty Propaganda

aka before you actually start potty training, plant the ideas of potty training with books, movies, and other resources!

I had one friend ask a family friend who played Santa Claus, to tell her daughter that it was time for her to be potty trained.  It worked!

4. Don't push your child, let them dictate the speed they go.

5. Have power potty training sessions

Pull of their diaper, let them run around naked,

outside, or in a non carpeted room.

Bring in a potty seat, and lots of juice to help them pee,

and salty snacks to make them thirsty and help them poop.

Encourage them to go in the potty, and cheer like crazy when they do!  If the miss have them clean it up, or try to.

We did this a lot with Miss Sassy, and it really helped!

Just don't get frustrated when the day after a power session, they are not 100% trained.

6. Take a break from potty training if you need one.  It's okay! It doesn't mean you've failed.  Sometimes a little break is just what you need to have a break through in potty training!

Here are some of my favorite Potty Training Books:

The farm animals steal Suzy Sue's potty,

and call it a poo pot, when she can't find it she almost goes in the bushes, until the animals stop her.

It is a darling book, and toddlers pick up on the meaning.

This book is a board book, with a baby who doesn't want to go in his diaper!  He tries to hold in, and then eventually goes in the potty.

Don't you love Karen Katz!  This book as pages that are a bi-fold and flip open to reveal the next part of the story.

It is about a child who learns how to use the potty.

This book has a boy and girl version. I love the real life pictures! My daughter read the girl version over and over again,

she especially loved when the little girl got to choose big girl underwear.

This is my favorite movie, it's a little old school, but it is so to the point.  It shows the little girl having an accident, and then eventually succeeding by going in the potty.

There are so many other great books and movies, I just wanted you to have a little list so you could put it on hold at the library!

Children feel like they are being told about potty training by a peer rather than their mom or dad.

What are your tips for potty training??