Kidlet Hilarity #3

As usual, the kids have been hilarious lately!  Just thought I'd share! :)

I love hearing my kids pray! Natalie prays now, at bedtime mostly, and she loves to thank God for all the members of her family.  One day, when she was having a particularly hard time obeying, I asked her to pray & ask God to help her obey.  So she closes her eyes, folds her little hands, and in her sweet little two-year-old voice, says, "God...help...obey"  So sweet!!

Zachary and I have been doing our geography for school lately - we're working through the countries on the Operation World prayer calendar (link here).  It is a good lesson about geography along with a great reminder to pray for those in other countries around the world.  Each day we look at the facts about and the maps of a country or two, and then we pray for the needs listed for that country.  It has been a good opportunity to talk about different religions around the world, too.  One day, Zachary prayed, "God, please help the people in Bahrain to know you as their Savior, especially the Muslims." :)

Natalie says so many hilarious words now - broccoli is pronounced "bonky bonky" and weirdly enough, raw broccoli (with ranch) is one of the very FEW things my picky daughter will eat!  She also calls the walkie-talkies she and Zachary enjoy playing with "Hockey-hockeys". One day she hurt herself and kept asking for a "day-day" - turns out it's a bandaid!  She still mostly calls Zachary "Bubba", but she has a name for him now - it is something between "Goggy" and "Gacky". :)

Speaking of pronunciation, we got some fruit cocktail recently, and Zachary was calling it "fruit cottontail".  It cracked me up every time.

One day when Natalie was trying to tell Daddy something, I answered her.  She turned to me, put her hand out towards me, and said so seriously, "Daddy. Daddy."  I guess she wanted to be clear that she wasn't talking to me!

Joel to Zachary: "You have great ideas."  Zachary, matter-of-factly: "Yes, I do."

Davey has been growling a lot lately, and now when you growl at him, he will growl back.  And he has started babbling sometimes, especially when he's bored or tired, he goes, "Daydaydaydaydaydaydayday".  It's so funny. :)  Natalie likes to talk to him in a squeaky little 'baby talk' voice, which is so cute. :)

One night Joel asked Zachary to read a book to him, and Zachary declined by saying, "I don't want to waste my breath reading."  Where did that come from?

Natalie fake cries now, and it is hilarious.  One day she was being shy at MOPS and wasn't feeling great, so I brought her upstairs with me.  Every time she started to get a little loud, I would say, "Do you want to go downstairs to your class?" and she would say, "No! I sad. I cry."

One morning Z kissed Natalie on the cheek and she said, "Yucky, baby!"  He loves to give her hugs and kisses, and is very affectionate with her - which she does not always appreciate.  We have been having discussions lately about respecting her when she doesn't want to be hugged...

Natalie also likes to boss Davey around - she is quite the little mama.  Every time Davey has something that isn't a baby toy (even if it's fine for him), she goes, "Ohhhh, no, Davey. No wipes. Ohhhh, no." and takes it away!  She even tries to roll him over if he's fussing, and it does NOT help - we are working on that one. :)

One day when we were having a random conversation about shapes, Zachary said, "I think that's a parallelogram." Oh, really! :)

Z: "Natalie, will you come jump on the bed with me?"
Nat: "No."
Z: "But Mommy can't jump on her bed and David doesn't even know how to jump yet, he's too little."
Nat: "Oh, ok."

Natalie pauses as she walks out of the living room and says to me, "I leave. Be back. No cry." :)

Zachary shouts from the back of the van one day, "When the music is loud, I can hear the horns! It sounds like there are horns all over our car!!"

Zachary is hilarious when he tries to teach David things - one day there was one of those stinky brown ladybugs crawling on David and I said, "Wow, I'm glad he didn't eat it!"  Zachary said, "We don't eat bugs!"  When I explained that David didn't know that, Z said, "David, we don't eat bugs. There, now he knows it because I taught him."  LOL - if only it were that easy!  He was also spending time trying to teach him how to play with a toy that had buttons on it (one of those where you press the little buttons & switches and the doors pop open across the top with the animals inside...).  It was super cute. :)

Natalie says "Mommy? Are you?" or "Daddy? Are you?" for 'where are you' now!  She likes to say this after bedtime when she's supposed to be sleeping...

One morning Zachary came in to wake me up, and Joel was already up, so he jumped into the bed, laid his head on the pillow next to me and said, "Wanna talk with me?"  A few minutes later he wanted to get up and I said I was having a hard time getting out of bed.  Very matter-of-factly, he said, "Well, you take your head off the pillow like this, then throw the blanket off, then put your feet down and stand up."  Thanks for the advice!! :)

David knows his own name now - he looks all around when one of us says it, and one night he was eating & almost asleep when someone on TV said, "David!"  His head popped up and he looked at the TV, it was so amazing! :)

In other family news, we have decided that Zachary will be going to school at home this fall!!  I know, I've taught him preschool at home for 2 years now, but this is the first year he's old enough to go to Pre-K at school, so this is the first year we had to actually officially decide whether or not to send him.  We're researching curriculum now, and so far the one I am loving is called Five In A Row (FIAR).  A friend of mine uses it and loves it - does anyone else have any experience with it?  I love that it's literature-based, and I love that it's made up of unit studies & can be used with all ages of kids - I think by this fall, all 3 of the kids will enjoy being involved in the activities! (Well, Davey might be a little young to do much this fall, but maybe next spring at least). :)  From what I've heard, we will need to supplement with math & phonics, and I want to do something for Bible, too (possibly the FIAR Bible supplement? Has anyone used this?) so any curriculum recommendations along those lines would be welcomed, too! :)  I am excited to re-organize the schoolroom this summer, and get all organized and set up for the fall! Lots of great ideas on Pinterest...and so little time! :)  We only have 5 more weeks of school for the year, and one week of Easter activities while we get ready for vacation coming right up! :)

Preschool - Letter T!

Our family has been very busy with all kinds of fun- like a grandparents visit, LOTS of hours playing out the GORGEOUS, 70 degree MARCH weather (what? Here in western NY we regularly schedule SNOW retreats in early March!!), and even a Mommy & Daddy getaway to Niagara Falls, Canada!!  Anyhow, we somehow managed to squeeze in a week of school about the letter T!

I actually remembered to take a picture of our circle time center this week: The kids still love to use this every school day! :) 

Here is our Bible time board - Our song was Nothing Better than Jesus from the Sovereign Grace CD To Be Like Jesus.  Our verse was Jeremiah 10:6, which says 'No one is like You, O Lord. You are great. Your name is powerful.'  Our Bible passage was Jeremiah 10, about the difference between God and idols, how He is the only true God!    

Z did a great job on his verse puzzle, as usual. :)  He still really enjoys this activity each week, and he even works on it independently while I get craft stuff ready or work with Natalie.  

We made birthday cards for Daddy!! Z loves to use my circle punch (for scrapbooking), so he punched out some circles and glued them in his card. :)  He wrote the 'Hi' himself!! :)

Natalie drawing a heart for Daddy. :)

Zachary's first attempt at writing!!!  It says Happy Birthday (the bottom line is ay, though it looks like gn). :)  

We made Tree T's!  We colored the trunks brown first. 

Natalie coloring

Natalie adding some glue while Z glues on his leaves.

Our finished Tree T's (idea here).  Also, I couldn't find a T craft I liked on the blogs I usually check, so I searched Google images until i saw one I liked, and it worked really well!!

I love this picture. :)  We made these tiger paper bag puppets - we glued the pieces where we wanted them the first day, then drew/colored on them the 2nd day.  Z is growling/smiling. :)

Natalie growling with her puppet. :)

Their paper bag puppets (Z did a lot of his own drawing & gluing & his puppet is on the right.  I helped Nat a lot & her/my puppet is on the left. :)  (idea here)

This was a Saturday morning fun activity, not sure why it ended up here but I'll take it. :)  This is some sticky 'Yuck' stuff that my husband got sent a sample of - the tagline for this product was "It's just like snot!" and, um, yes, it was.  Totally gross but the kids loved it - messy cleanup though!!!  

We also did shaving cream printed paper (Pinterest idea!) - here Natalie is swirling some paint around in her shaving cream...

And Zachary is swirling his around...

And of course after we printed it on the paper, they swirled & played with the rest of the shaving cream for a little while. This was MESSY to clean up, though!!!  And my kitchen smelled like a man... :)  Also, I didn't get a picture of the finished product, but it was cool, all swirly & everything. You'll have to take my word for it, I guess! :)

Natalie concentrating on cutting apart her cut & paste pieces.

Natalie gluing - her favorite! While Z cuts. :)

Natalie drawing with a wipe off marker.

She loves to draw hearts! :)

So, we did a lot of playing outside, too - a LOT!!  Here are the kids wading in a creek at camp - it was in the 60s this day -and this week has been even nicer - in the 70s even!!  I can't get over how gorgeous it is! Such a struggle to stay in and do housework when I could be outside... :)

Earlier in the month (when there was still snow on the ground, apparently), we found a 'fuzzy wuzzy' caterpillar on our back porch - Z was very excited but Nat, who is currently afraid of all animals, cried and said, "Bug!" and refused to touch him. :)

Davey!! :) He loves to be outside!! He is currently rebelling against ever being put down or being even a foot away from me, so the fact that he can swing in his little red swing on the porch with Zachary gently pushing him (Z is so amazing with Davey!!), and then I can get something done, is totally awesome.  I am trying to work up my strength to wear him more, but he weighs 20 pounds, so I can't do it very long yet! He loves to be in the baby backpack, though, and shopping with 3 is a LOT easier now that he's big enough to ride in the backpack!! :)

Well, we didn't do a ton for the letter T, but I think some learning took place! :)  To check out everyone else's great activities, hop on over to Preschool Corner and Tot School! :)  After a week-long break, we're back to school this week with the letter U!! Only six weeks of school (and an easy Easter unit while we get ready to go on vacation) left!!  Then we can play outside even more! :)

Preschool - Letters R & S!

Well, we've finished up two more weeks of school - we studied letters R & S! It is hard to believe we only have 7 letters left for the year - plus a light Easter unit, and two separate weeks of vacation, so ten more weeks till school's out for the summer, but still - we're so close to the end!

So, we studied the letter R - again, I failed at getting pictures of our circle time & Bible time board, but our Fruit of the Week was patience, and our song was Gotta Wait from the Sovereign Grace To Be Like Jesus CD.  Our verse was Ephesians 4:2 - Be patient with each other and lovingly accept one another.  We talked about showing patience but we had kind of a crazy week and I didn't catch them displaying it to each other very often... :)

Natalie dot painting an R page

Z dot painting his R page

I was super proud of both of them - Z's is on the left, and Nat's is on the right - she even dotted in some of the holes - great fine motor skills! :)

We played with playdough, they both love to cut it with knives. :)

We made Rainbow R's (idea here).  We glued strips of paper on a page with an R drawn on it, then after they dried, I cut out the R's.  I thought they turned out cute!

This was Z's rainbow Color By Number (from Confessions of a Homeschooler's LOTW curriculum). I thought he did great on this, too!

Z traced the number 18!

He circled all the things that begin with R - www.beginningreading.com(worksheet here).

Sorting rockets according to size (I got this here, but due to copyright issues, she had to remove all the printables from her blog - sadness - her stuff was SOOOO cute!! :( ).

Natalie surprised me by doing a great job sorting by size, too!!

We made rockets out of old bottles - first we painted the inside of the bottle with acrylic paint (but I only had a little, it was metallic black & sparkly, so then we used tempera paint for the rest, it never did dry, I finally gave up after 3 whole days & just hot glued the lids on so the kids could play with them).  Then we glued on construction paper wings & windows & a door, but they fell right off, so we had to tape them on & then Davey ate one of them....okay, don't tell the kids but I already threw these away. But it was a fun craft & when they weren't falling apart & refusing to dry, the kids had fun playing with them! :)

Our finished rocket bottles. :)

Natalie gluing her R cut & paste page (from here).  

Z cutting out his cut & paste things.

Zachary playing playdough - has anyone else had issues with Blogger uploading their photos in RANDOM orders lately?  I don't know why this one is here and I'm too lazy to switch it now. :)

Natalie pinning a clothespin onto a number flashcard.  The clothespins have the numbers on them & the flashcards have a number of items on them to count & match.

Z playing the counting/matching game.  These flashcards were $1 at Walmart & the clothespins are super cheap, too, you could probably make this game for about $2 & 20 minutes total. :)

One Saturday morning, we made paper bag puppets - Z made a dog. :)  

I love the eyes he drew - here's a closeup! :)

Whoops - while I was taking pictures, Natalie was gluuuuing away! :)  We decided to add buttons to her pig since he had glue all down his belly. :)

Our paper bag puppets! :)

 Next, we studied the letter S.  Our fruit of the week was kindness, and thankfully the kids did better at showing kindness to each other this week.  They ended up getting Twizzlers for showing extra kindness at least a couple of times. :)  Our song was You Show Me Kindness, and our verse was 2 Timothy 2:24 - A servant of the Lord must not quarrel. Instead, he must be kind to everyone.  What an awesome verse to use in discipline situations!  I will definitely be referring to it in the days and weeks to come - as anyone who has more than one child has surely experienced, we talk about being kind to your siblings A LOT! :)

Zachary practiced his cutting - this is from Confessions of a Homeschooler's LOTW curriculum again.

Z practicing cutting while Nat writes (scribbles) on Z's letter hunt paper. :)

Pinterest Idea!! I buried the letters from this foam puzzle in some rice (I only had brown & it is kind of messy, it gets 'dust' on the puzzle, I think white would be better in the future), and the kids had to find the letters and put them in the puzzle.  They just really enjoyed playing in the rice more than anything. :)

They did put some letters in the puzzle, though!  

We made Superhero S's for our craft!  I just noticed Nat's (the white page) was upside down - whoops!  This idea was from No Time for Flashcards - I love her crafts!!

Here's Z and his finished verse puzzle - he consistently loves this activity, and it is SO easy to make!  He is getting better about working independently on his puzzles and seatwork, so that is nice. :)  

Natalie LOVES to glue! :)  She's working on her cut & paste page again!

Gluing on her S items!

Z is concentrating on cutting out his S things.

And carefully arranging them on his page. :)

Matching snowflakes together - Z also came up with a game where he hid these around the schoolroom and I had to find and match them - he loves to make up games! :)

Another Pinterest idea - we painted on the inside of cereal boxes with homemade puffy paint!  The recipe includes just salt, self-rising flour, water & baby shampoo & food coloring.  

We had a lot of fun with it!

Here is Nat's picture before we put it in the microwave for 30 seconds to dry & puff up.

And here is her picture 30 seconds later!  The kids LOVED this activity & when we were talking through our week, Z said this was the craft he'd like to do again. :)

Here is my puffy paint picture! Now that you're all jealous of my artistic abilities...moving on... :)

Here is Z matching number clothespins with a counting wheel (game here).  

rolling it like a wheel...of course. :)

One perk of being the kid of a program director is that sometimes he gets samples of fun stuff that people want him to buy to use at camp!  And sometimes he brings them home for you to play with! :)  Here are the kids playing with a sample of something called Saucy Yuck.  It was really fun, I was just worried because you're not supposed to let it go down the drain (it starts out as little crystals that absorb water), so I was wiping the kids with paper towels instead of washing their hands, etc.  It ended up working out okay, and the kids loved it! :)  

Here's my requisite Davey picture!  He has grown up a TON these last couple of weeks!  He now has two teeth (bottom middle), is getting some cuuuute spiky blond hair on the top of his head, and is rolling & scooting backwards!  It is so weird to walk into a room and think, 'Oh! Didn't I put him down here? Oh, there he is!' since he can motor around the room now. :)  He loves his baby food, puffs & now Cheerios, but he still loves nursing the most. :)  It's so fun to watch him interact with Z & Nat more and more as he grows! :)

Well, so that's what we've been up to around here for school lately!  To see what everyone else is up to, check out Tot School and Preschool Corner!