"Preschool"

My youngest turned 4 years old on Tuesday. He is the one I refer to as "Preschooler". He does have a name... I was kinda waiting until the adoption to introduce them officially. Also, I have decided that he is not going to do the preschool curriculum again, but is ready for Pre-K. I don't usually like to start my kindergartners until they are six, so I am not sure what will happen next year.

Anyway...Happy Birthday, Kid!

That Time Of Year

This is what's going out in tonight's "mail" ( I don't really mail it...just will mix it in with tomorrow's mail).

I think I have start dates figures: 

James, August 13

Jeanna, August 22

Jackson, August 27

Preschool, August 27

Jordan, September 4

I have all of my curriculum except 1 book which is easy enough to get, I just don't want to pay full price for it. I am a very frugal shopper. I am currently working on my portfolio folders. They have become messy and unorganized over the years. 

I am kinda looking forward to getting back into the schedule. Jeanna is very excited... the rest are kinda ready. 

Delivery

Triple bunk bed.

This is being delivered to our home today. They boys are very excited. I am a bit overwhelmed with what it will take to get it into my house, down the hall and into the bedroom. An adventure to say the least.

UPDATE!!!

Wow... It's here. How will we get that into that room? I will take pictures.

4 Cans of Black Olives

Someone donated a case of canned goods to us and there were several cans of black olives included. We tried a can and the children did not like them, so I separated the cans out with the intention of seeing if someone at church would be able to use them. Well, last week my 3 1/2 year old started playing with them and he has played with those cans more than I have ever seen him play with any toy. He stacks them and rolls them and spins them. He puts them in and out of a bag, a box and the back of his truck.

Ahhh.... cheap entertainment. ~Smile~

Preschool Picks

My preschooler's new favorite books are the Scanimation Picture Books by Rufus Butler Seder. Last week at the library we read, 

and then we borrowed:




They are very cool books as the pictures "move" when you turn the page. Tomorrow is library day and the summer shows have started. I am looking forward to tomorrow as the marionettes are a favorite. Tomorrow is also Entertaining Angels day. Looking forward to that too. 

School Outdoors

Vacation Pics

1st graders working on 1000 pc. puzzle, James reading.

Preschooler watching "Big Screen" nature show. He yelled out with excitement for every duck, goose, boat, bird, swan,  and blade of grass that moved!

Napping in sun!

Rut roh....I got caught!

Football with Uncle

This Last Week...

was a doozey. Preschool's speech got changed to Monday which really threw us off and I had to go to the bank (which I avoid usually) so we did not have our normal Monday morning start.

Tuesday I got another check in the mail (Ha!) and had to go back to the bank. I also had to get another TB test because my last reading did not get done. We had to shop for Entertaining Angels which was fun because when the kids got to the store, the staff there had free bags waiting for them and was so happy to be a part of the ministry.

Wednesday was a blast! We had 3 new families to sign up for personal needs and they were all referrals from other families so people are telling others. We ran out of most things within the first 15 minutes of being open. We probably could be "bigger" but the space we are working in is pretty small, so it would be hard to service more people right now. Afterward, I took the 3 big kids out for dine in lunch and ended up seeing one of the boys case worker that helped with their adoption.

Thursday I got a chance to escape on my own for almost 2 hours. I went to have my TB test read, got drive-thru breakfast, parked and read for almost an hour, KID FREE!!! I actually don't feel like I don't get "away" from my kids as much as others think I need to "get away". We had another home visit Thursday to finish up our Home study. This one is the longest, most emotional, and somewhat traumatic adoption of them all. Worker visits are triggering all kinds of fear in 2 of my kids every time she comes and that does not include the 2 that are being adopted. One of my older kids admitted that worker visits make them feel like they might get "taken" from our family. Sniff!

Friday night I have 2 extra kids in the house, 1 of which we found out at drop off does not sleep through the night. LOL! Jordan is babysitting him so I gave her a grin and mouthed, "ha ha" wink!

Peace to you all!

Getting Ready...

Corrected

I think the PS hit their hundred day mark sometime this last month as Jeanna brought home a sheet and a booklet that talked about counting to one hundred. We have only had 88 95 days of school so far this year. When I first started homeschooling I made sure to hit the 160 days, but now we go for content instead of meeting hours.

It is about time to do progress reports again and I hope to get that done this coming week. I also want to do some preschool testing with my 3 1/2 year old to see what I want to do for his preschool curriculum next year. I cannot not believe he will be 4 years old this year.

Jordan has to work tomorrow and she is at her desk reading back over her childcare and first aid class materials. It's very cute the way she is taking this so serious. She is looking...oh.. just found a neat little art project to take with her tomorrow.

Mom Cake & January Board

Started back to school today and it was a good day with no tears. 8th grade's computer is still in the shop so she worked on some essays. I must admit that writing is not one of our strong areas here so I try to sneak in as many practice opportunities as possible.

Jordan loves to bake and surprised me with a chocolate cake the other day using some of the cake decorations that she got for Christmas. She wanted me to show it to you all.

I did January's bulletin board in kinda of a boring way, but it got done.

The preschooler starts back up with speech this week. It is somewhat of a joke as he sits in his class and kinda mumbles and parrots the teacher some and then as soon as we start walking back to the car, he starts talking up a storm, freely and about everything, including bossing people around and telling us what he wants and won't do! Little stinker. LOL!

For the Record

Busy week coming up.

8 th grade Monday doctor appointment, Tuesday morning appointment, and Friday morning out-of-town dermatologist appointment for preschool. School hours will be short this week, but we are pretty much on target for all grades.

Screeech....Changing Lanes Again

We made changes to the start dates to stagger each grade a bit more. Orientation is still on for tomorrow even though our new school shirts won't be here for 2 more weeks. I kinda went shirt shopping crazy because the Mart of Wals had such a great sale on school polos with free to home shipping and then I ordered the new shirts with our school emblem as the other shirts are over 3 years old.

Old school emblem

New school emblem on navy polos

Fourth Grade still starts Monday, August 15th. James is excited.

First Grade will now start Monday, August 22nd. Jackson says he is happy and is very excited to get to his new Lifepacs. My foster daughter will start with him on the same date as Public School does not start until September 6th. She does not state how she feels about going back to school, but if I were to let him start and not her, she would cry and say she wants to come to school too, so I take that as a sign that she likes to be a part of things.

Eighth Grade will start Wednesday, September 7th. Jordan has been offered an invitation to take part in a small class offering group piano lessons, but I am not sure if she will be able to take it as our November vacation would cause he to miss so many classes. She is not looking forward to school, but is kinda excited about her new math curriculum (we are changing to Life of Fred.)

Pre-School. I am back to having a pre-schooler. My foster son will be 3 yrs old next week and he is already learning so much that we have decided to let him join in slowly. When Jackson first came home, I thought it would be good to start him at a preschool level to give him a chance to bond and mature. Jordan basically taught him and has offered to teach this level again. We use the Brightly Beaming Letter of the Week and I think my 3 year old will enjoy many of the activities. Anyway, he will start September 15th.

 

Happy Birthday

Today is preschool's 5th birthday. Jackson is the sweetest little guy who is such a lap-baby. He is huggable and melts right into you when cuddling. He is currently in preschool here at MHS and is looking forward to using his Pre-Kindergarten books that have arrived in the mail for next year. He has told us that he plans to eat the entire box of ice cream this afternoon...

Happy birthday, Kid!

Patterns

Because I am taking it very slow with preschool, I sometimes find out that he has a delay in an area. Once we teach him a new skill, he is usually pretty quick at learning it and loves to repeat what he is learned. As mentioned before, I am not big on worksheets for preschoolers, but he really loves having "scoo wuk" like the bigger kids. This particular unit on patterns comes from the Harcourt Brace Math Workbook.

Look What Preschool Learned

I have to admit that first of all... I can be kind of cheap. I would imagine that there are great learning tools out there to teach these things, but all of my kids learned using cardboard and shoestrings. I showed him about 10 times and then:

TAAA DAAA!!

Art Class & The Up-Right Horse

Ist grade is studying about the angel Gabriel and for art class and made a toilet paper role angel. This template can be found at DLTK-kids along with many other great crafts.

Preschool's theme this week is horses, the letter N and the color brown. Here he made a TP role horse that had me rolling on the floor because he made the "arms" and legs so that the horse could stand up like people. Too cute and very funny. Oh, and there is a tail on the back of it.