A is for Apple

It's time to start the alphabet again and hopefully this year make it past 'N'. The girls have a good grasp of the letters and their sounds thanks to LeapFrog but I thought going through the alphabet would be an easy way to plan crafts and lessons. So here we start with A.

Our theme for 'A' has been apples. Here the girls are making their apple craft that I found on the fabulous Totally Tots website.






In preparation for our field trip we read through the book How do Apples Grow by Betsy Maestro. This book is very detailed and a little advanced for Anna and Maddie but we still enjoyed looking at the pictures and seeing how an apple tree grows. On Saturday we went to our friend's house to pick apples. Mr. Scott would shake the tree and the girls would gather the apple off the ground into their baskets.










Tomorrow we will be talking about apples in the context of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden with some resources from Lapbook Lessons.

Sense of Style

Anna has never been overly opinionated about the clothes I put her in but lately she has been very opinionated about which shoes to wear. This is what she calls "mix matched feet". She never wants to wear watching shoes anymore!



Maddie wanted to share her cool sense of style too. Here she is sporting her shades and silly bands (all of them!)

My Sound Box

Everytime we go to the library to check out books the girls run to the section with the Sound Box books by Jane Belk Moncure. I first starting using these books with the girls last fall when we were working our way through learning the alphabet and we have since checked out each letter book multiple times. The concept is simple - the child in the story (Little A, Little B, etc) finds items that begin with their letter and put them into their sound box.

Last night when I came home from my aerobics class I found pictures of the girls making their own sound boxes. Anna had an 'a' sound box and guess what she put into her box, herself!

Sweetpea Beauty

The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart - 1 Samuel 16:7

My girls, just as most 2 and 3 year old girls, are into princess stuff. Princess movies, princess dolls, princess dress-up clothes, etc. and sometimes I wonder what message they are taking away. My girls may be a little young to notice but as a mom I'm very aware of the messages of the world that you have to be pretty and thin and popular to "be somebody".

VeggieTales recently released a movie Sweetpea Beauty which does a great job explaining that it is what is on the inside of one's heart that matters, not their outward beauty. It is a takeoff of many of the well-known princess movies so it is entertaining as well.

I pray that I can teach my girls that they are beautiful and perfect just as God made them. I want them to know where their true beauty lies.

Here is the song by Nicole Nordeman that was recorded for the movie. The chorus is a reminder of how God sees us. It says:

Has anybody told you you’re beautiful?
You might agree if you could see what I see
Oh
‘Cuz everything about you is incredible
You should have seen me smile the day that I made you beautiful for me

MOPS 2010

This past weekend I spent some time at a planning retreat for our local MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) group. This is my first year in the "inner circle" and with that has come new information and a new perspective. Stories of moms who were sitting at home riddled with depression and came to MOPS and found new friends and hope. Moms who felt a longing in their hearts for something more and came and responded to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Moms who just wanted to know they were not alone on this motherhood journey.

I first started attending MOPS after Maddie was born and I was desperate to find other moms who desired to raise their kids in a way that pleased God... and to get out of the house. For that first year I just soaked everything in - the speakers and most importantly the fellowship with other moms. It has been a wonderful, encouraging experience for me and so I urge every mom-of-a-preschooler to come check it out. Feel free to leave me a comment or check out our local MOPS website for more information. I hope to see you on September 14th!

Writing

Anna's favorite thing to do these days is to write letters and make cards for her friends. While she can write many letters well, there are a few that give her problems and usually end up in a meltdown. So I've gotten a few resources to help her work on her writing skills.

First I made laminated writing practice cards that I printed off of the Confessions of the Homeschooler blog. Anna enjoys tracing over the letters on the card with a dry erase marker (I prefer the washable ones since the marker inevitably ends up on clothing).

Then I saw a Leapfrog toy on another friends blog that looked like fun. It is the Leapfrog Scribble and Write. The toy displays shapes, upper and lower case letters in red lights and the child then traces over the shape. I especially like that it tells the child where to start writing the letter and then where to put the pen next. We bought this for Anna but we have found that Maddie loves it as well and the only problem for us is that we only have one :).

Friday Tradition

It's the little things.... I tend to think big when I think of family traditions. Some ideas come and I quickly let them leave thinking of all the work that would need to be done to "keep up" the tradition. But yet there are other "things" that just simply start and morph into a tradition of their own. For our family, Friday lunches is one of those.

I am not exactly sure when it started but from as long as I can remember Erik has worked at home most Fridays. He has a little desk in our guest bedroom and so he can close himself off from the chaos of squealing girls and sisterly fights and actually get some work done. And then around 11:30 he emerges and screams LUNCHTIME and off we go. Lunch out on Fridays with Erik is one of the highlights for the girls and myself -it is usually the first meal eaten out since the previous weekend and it is just fun. We rarely venture past the three restaurants at the front of our neighborhood and so the people know us well and we have "our" table. Uncle John joins us often and so it is also time to catch up with our friend.

Friday Lunch is our little family tradition.