Preschool - Letter I!

We studied the letter I this week! This was kind of a crazy week for us - Daddy was gone to a conference from Monday morning to Thursday evening, and I was NOT looking forward to being home with the kids all that long without him - so I scheduled something for us to get out & do every single day - crazy, right? Well, yes, it was. :) The result was that we had 'regular school time' Monday and Friday, did a couple crafts on Wednesday afternoon, and finished up our last schoolwork on Saturday evening. :) But we got it all in! :) Plus we baked & frosted cookies with friends, played at a nearby McDonalds Playland for 4 hours, had an appt. in town one morning and visited a friend's new baby on the way home, and the kids spent Tuesday morning with an awesome friend who played on the playground & did crafts with them. :) And Mommy had some alone time while Davey napped. :)

Anyhow, I didn't do a great job of taking pictures this week, unfortunately. We did do circle time, but I forgot a picture of that, and our Bible time board, too. Our verse was "Let the thief steal no more, but rather let him work." And our song was Do Not Steal, from this cd. The kids really enjoyed the song, as usual. :) Our Bible story was about the sin of Achan in Joshua 7, called Because Achan Stole, in the Egermeier's Bible Story Book. I also didn't take pictures of most of our regular worksheets (handwriting, beginning sounds, etc.) but we did all those things, too. :)

We made Ice cream I's this week, too. Natalie's is on the right on the piece of paper. :) Just construction paper & cotton balls. :)

We dot painted.

We painted with ice cubes. I made these with food coloring and water, and froze them with popsicle sticks in it. This was one of the crafts we did on Wednesday afternoon.

I wanted to do it outside because I knew it would be messy and food coloring stains, but it was getting cold...and by the end it was getting dark - at 5 pm! I forgot about the time change affecting that! Anyhow, this was like the FAIL craft for the week. It just didn't work - the ice cubes were, um, frozen. Of course. And they wouldn't paint. We even waited ten minutes for them to melt, but they didn't.

Finally I went and got some water which I poured over the ice cubes and then they worked a little bit. :) So we painted on coffee filters. :)

Here's the finished product:

We cut them out in heart shapes & put them up with a sign telling Daddy how much we love him when he came home. :)

We also made this Welcome Home sign for Daddy. :) I let the kids color on these with markers, but then you couldn't really see the words, so I wished I would've used crayons.

Zachary played with bottle cap words - I made these a long time ago for Z, and he did a very good job of matching the letters with the words.

We got a package from Grandma & Grandpa this week - which had some Melissa & Doug wipe-off crayons and math fact mats in it! Z used the crayons to color on a M&D fire truck coloring wipe off mat that Grandma & Grandpa brought him a few weeks ago when they visited. :)

We talked about igloos this week, and we made igloos with half a paper cup, frosting glue, and mini marshmallows for ice blocks. :) Natalie just ate the marshmallows.

Zachary used a spatula to spread frosting on his cup...

then used his marshmallows to make an igloo! :) (idea here)

And then he ate it. He wanted to eat it all (lol!) but he just couldn't. He saved some of it for supper but still didn't finish it. :)

They both ate all of their frosting. After this craft, we went outside and ran around! :)

Here is a picture of the kids watching something on PBS kids. Z goes through cycles with his favorite shows - he loves Sesame Street consistently, and watches that almost every day. I love it because it's an hour long so if I need to go back to bed due to a rough night with Davey or take my shower & do devotions, it gives me more uninterrupted time. :) He was on a Dinosaur Train kick for a while, but now his favorites are Berenstain Bears (which is actually on Sprout, I think), Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That (much more educational than I thought it would be & very fun), and Super Why (very educational about reading & letters & very cute). I also think that Dinosaur Train is very cute, though they do talk about millions of years more than I'd like, and WordWorld is SUCH a cute show & a cute concept, I try to talk him into watching that some too. :) Natalie loves Bob the Builder and Elmo- she brings me the remote & says "Show. Bob." or "Show. Melmo." :) We've been watching Angelina Ballerina a little bit lately, too. :)

In other news, it snowed this week! Like, more than just on the trees. :) It actually stuck, and we went out to play in it - we threw snowballs and rode on our little sled. We made a tiny snowman but Natalie didn't understand what we were doing and kicked it over - which of course Z thought was hilarious and so we made & kicked over several more snowmen. :) Here's cute Z in his jacket & boots. :)

Nat has a jacket but no boots yet, poor thing, so she's just wearing shoes and her little ankles got cold! :( She also did not enjoy the sled but did enjoy kicking the snowman & throwing snowballs. :)

And here's Davey doing his newest favorite thing - sitting in his new Bumbo seat! I have always wanted one of these & then I mentioned to one of my awesome friends that I would love to have one, and she found one on a garage sale site and went and picked it up for me! :) Davey will let me make lunch while he watches from his seat and it is SOOOO helpful! Nat likes to play in it, too. :) Here he's watching Z color on his fire truck mat. I love how his darling little hands are folded! :)

To see what more organized people are doing for school this week, head on over to Preschool Corner and Tot School! :)