Bb is for Butterfly

Well today was day number 3 on the letter Bb!  Abbie is getting really good at using the sound!  Abbie's room is decorated in LOTS and I mean LOTS of butterflies, so it only seemed fitting that we use butterfly in our plans this week!  I had started working on a mobile for Abbie's room a long time ago, and I punched out LOTS of butterflies from pretty card stock!  I put the project away, and probably never would have pulled it back out... but I needed some butterflies!  I pulled out a piece of white construction paper, and put glue on the back of the butterflies.  Abbie pushed them down all of the page!  She had a lot of fun smacking the paper, like mommy was doing!!  If I didnt tell her to smack them down... she was attempting to pull them up!!! 
I think the finished project actually looks really cool!  She did a great job, but most importantly she had fun!  Every time I would put glue on one, I made sure to call it a butterfly, just to reiterate the Bb sound, and why we were doing this! 

Here is a picture of her finished project!

I just love seeing all of her art projects on display in her room, but I love the colors on this project so much!!
I may leave it up a little longer!!

Bb is for Ballerina

This morning Abbie and I discussed the letter Bb!  Abbie loves making the Ba sound, so this letter is an easy one to learn about!  Abbie loves to do her "Ballerina", as we call it!  She will dance and spin with one arm in the air!!  I thought she would enjoy putting that concept with the Ba sound!  She did!  We did a coloring activity... which she of course LOVED!  This child would spend the whole day with markers or crayons if I would let her!!  She colored the Ballerina, and then I tore up pieces of tissue paper (unfortunately I forgot to check and see if we had pink tissue paper, so we used red!) and crumpled them into balls.  I put glue on the Ballerina's tutu, and let Abbie stick down the tissue paper!  She has a great time doing it, but I think she had more fun coloring than anything!

Ba Ba Black Sheep

This morning Abbie seemed excited about getting back to preschool! It was really cute. I told her to come sit with me so we could do our circle time... She came running over, and smiled and clapped the whole time!! This week our theme is Nursery Rhymes, and our letter of the week is Bb. So, I decided that Ba Ba Black Sheep would be ideal for our first nursery rhyme of focus! Since this particular nursery rhyme can be a song, I sang it to Abbie and she danced!! She liked it!
We worked on a black sheep for her project! We were going to trace her hand, but she really wasn't feeling it, so we traced daddy's hand instead! It all worked out for the best though, because Abbie's hand is really small, and daddy's made a better sheep! We cut the hand out of black paper, and Abbie glued on cotton balls and eyes! Abbie did well with the Ba sound! I am glad that she is getting excited about learning, and am looking forward to tomorrow!!

Returned to Richmond...

We are finally back in town, and very glad to be home!  This past week has been a CRAZY mess of natural disasters in Richmond, and fortunately we were only home for 50% of them!  On Wed, there was a 5.8 magnitude earthquake about 34 miles from Richmond.  If I had of been home, I would have been under a table somewhere, crying like a baby!  Thankfully we weren't home, and upon return found no damage from the quake!  Unfortunately the drive home on Saturday was a bit rough.  We drove right into Hurricane Irene.  On the upside... it had gone from a Category 3 to a Category 1 before we met up, but its not a lot of fun to drive in a Category 1 Hurricane!  We did make it home safely, and just in time!  The storm hit its worst soon after we arrived back home.  Fortunately we didn't have much damage here.  A few stray tree branches scattered amongst our yard, but nothing that cant be cleaned up!  Some of our neighbors were not as lucky, and our prayers go out to those in need.  Most of the Richmond area is still without power.  We were very grateful that we never lost ours.  Some have large trees through their homes or on their cars, and we escaped with nothing!  We are truly blessed!  We are looking forward to getting back into our preschool lessons tomorrow!

"Vacation"

We leave today for our week long "vacation"!  We are going to visit friends and family for the week in Greensboro, NC!  We are looking forward to visiting with everyone we love!  We will be back on Saturday, August 27th, and will resume "PreSchool" on the 29th!  We will use the August Week 4/5 Lesson Plans, and I will get to work on the plans for the weeks ahead!!  Hope everyone has a great week!

18 Month Doctor Appt

We took yesterday off because we had a playdate in the morning and we had some friends of our over for dinner that evening, so the day was very busy and a lesson plan just didn't make it's way into the day!  Today, Abbie had a routine doctor visit for her 18 month check up!  She did great at the appt, and even though she had 2 shots and a finger prick... she is all smiles!  She is now 25lb 9.6oz and 32.5in tall!!  She is in the 75% in all categories which is a huge improvement!  The doctor said that with 16 teeth we can begin giving her Flinstones vitamins instead of the yucky Poly-Vi-Sol vitamins!  He also said that she is beginning to show early signs of being ready for potty training!  So... we will be working that into our schedule each day!  Very exciting, and very surreal all at the same time!  We will be on vacation and out of town all next week, and will begin classwork again on Monday, August 29th!
I have begun working on lesson plans for week 2 of September, but I haven't finished them yet.  I have posted activities, but I have no idea what books we will be reading yet!!  Hope to get that together soon!!

Aa is for Ant...

The letter of the week this week is Aa!  It is our first week doing this, so naturally Aa came first in the alphabet!  Our number of the week is, you probably guessed it, 1!  We worked on Aa is for Apple, Aa is for Abbie, and now Aa is for ant!

Today I had Abbie past and ant onto construction paper!  She did a great job.  At her age, all I really let her do was push the pieces that had glue already applied to the paper, but she did a great job!  She gets really excited about arts & crafts time each morning!!  Here is a picture of her masterpiece!

We did NOT work on a theme this week, because I wanted to focus more on the letter and number, but next week... we will add a theme as well!  I am working on the lesson plans for next week, and I hope I get them all done!

I am going to attempt to blog about life...

My life is no longer a "Dear Diary" kind of story to tell!  My life is a whole mess of crazy that I would like to try and explain to the world!  Let me start by saying I am a Stay-At-Home Mommy to my beautiful daughter, Abigail, who is 18 months old!  We are also expecting our second baby, due to arrive in February!  Before I was a mommy I taught preschool, and really enjoyed it, and it dawned on me that I should be teaching my children!  So, I have recently embarked on the "Home PreSchool" adventure!  I also love to sew, scrapbook, and create anything that I can!  I consider myself to be a very crafty person, and I would also call myself creative!  I am hoping that I can use my creative and crafty side to make PreSchool fun for my kids!  However, I want to make sure that I am giving them the basic educational foundation they need before going to Kindergarten.  We are a Christian family, and I will use my relationship with God to help teach my kids.  I want my kids to learn to love Jesus too!
Well that about sums me up!  I am not going to say that I will be completely consistent with this blog, but I am going to try my best!  I think blogging about something that you enjoy doing is a big bonus!