PBS Kids Play!

I have bought Olivia a preschool computer game.  It is the PBS Kids Play one.  I really like it and she LOVES it.  It comes with 3 months of internet...then I have to decide if I'm going to pay like $70 for a year so she can keep playing the games.  If she hasn't beat all the levels by then I think I might.  It would be worth it.  She has learned so much from it already.  It has every subject on there with tons of games.  It tracks her progress in a progress report to the parent.  Plus whenever she beats a level it posts it to my facebook.  :)  I really love the games and how everything is set up.  She is 2 1/2 and can do everything by herself.  I have another preschool computer game that she wasn't interested in.  They have a 2nd edition as well I may buy after this expires and then I'll get another 3 months that way...then I'll get my PBS subscription after that.  Keep in mind though in order to keep playing the games after 3 months you have to subscribe to PBS kids.  I really think it is worth it.  They have a 10 day free trial offer (no credit card needed) so you can check it out first to see if you like it.  I LOVE IT!!

I got some books at the library, 3 of them are aesop fables.  The Sun and the Wind, The fox and the crow, and the goose that laid the golden egg.  When I read these books with Olivia I pick out a word in the beginning and sound it out and read it to her and have her read it back to me.  Then throughout the book whenever that word shows up I stop and have her read that word instead of me.  Usually I pick two words so she has to look at the difference and figure out which is which from the letters.

Olivia has been having some major temper tantrums.  All day screaming fits.  So what I did was I found some behavior charts online and printed one out.  I wrote down some things on the chart like "No Screaming", "listens", and "Says Sorry", so everytime she goes a day without screaming and she listens and says sorry when she needs to she gets a sticker.  It has actually worked wonderfully.  The first day she just got a sticker on the "says sorry" line.  It has been 3 days now with no screaming (this is after a couple weeks of her throwing a screaming fit EVERY day).

For me now, I've had a crazy past few days.  Apparently I'm allergic to work.  No really I am.  Near the end of my shift at work I started getting what looked bug bites, then they started appearing all over.  I had a red bubbly looking rash right above my armpits and on my thighs.  It was hives.  It didn't get really bad until I got home.  I took 2 Benadryl and it was gone in the morning.  The next day at work my eye got red and irritated, I thought maybe I was getting pink eye.  I got a couple hives on my arm near the end of my shift again and by this time my 2nd eye was irritated as well.  I got home and noticed I had hives under my chin and on my neck.   I took one benadryl this time and waited.  I started getting more hives on the back of my neck and behind my ears.  Then my lips started feeling numb and puffy and the skin on my face started getting tighter.  So my boyfriend drove me and my daughter to the ER.  I was having an allergic reaction.  We don't know to what though.  I can't go back to work until I am cleared by a doctor.  The earliest I can get in is thursday...so thats a little crazyness.
Olivia just woke up from her nap... :)

3 hours at the park....

This morning I was hosting a playdate with our playgroup.  It was a "Park and Carseat Check".  I offered to check peoples (in our group) car seats (I'm a car seat tech) while we were at the park.  It turned out to be a beautiful day.  It really warmed up outside!  I think 6 mom's with their kids showed up.  One person had to leave though before I could check her seat.  100% misuse rate which is normal (unfortunately).  Everyone was very grateful and took the information well.  Tomorrow morning I am participating with ACTS Oregon at Kohls for a car seat check even for the community.
We ended up spending 3 hours at the park.  It really takes anywhere from 15-45 minutes per car seat check.  The fastest was 15 minutes but she seemed to know a lot already, I just had a few pointers with the harness tightness and chest clip position and she needed her seat a little tighter in but it was already almost perfect.
This pic is from the park.  Olivia is in the pink hat.

After the park we went home and I grabbed some library books to return (while my neighbor stayed with Olivia at the car) and we drove to the bank so I could deposit some rent money and then we went to the library.  I got a bunch of new books for her.  I also got 2 new signing times that she has never seen.  She wanted to read a LOT before bed.  We didn't really do any "official" schooling today.  We read a ton though and she watched signing time and learned new signs.  She also played outside at the park with my other neighbors while I ran to the store.

I made steak with pepperjack cheese on top and one of the pre-made chicken taco salads, and also garlic bread.  It was soooo good.  I've tried giving Olivia steak before.  She usually just takes a bite and chews it a little and spits it out.  She had about half a steak tonight (and they were fairly thick steaks).  She ate some salad and garlic bread as well.  This is the best I think I've ever seen her eat! She got chocolate pudding for desert and got PJ's on and thats when we read about 4 books sang her usual 3 songs and she went to sleep.

I'm super tired.  I'm going to bed.  I have to be up early for my car seat check tomorrow!!

No days of rest :)

Today Olivia and I went grocery shopping.  First I had to stop by the DMV to get my drivers licence renewed.  We went and got some food then came home.  Olivia watched some signing time and we read a few books.  She really liked the book Scaredy Cat, we read that twice today.


  We also read a book that is called "Tall" it is a book about the opposites small and tall.  Its mainly a picture book but this little monkey wants to be tall so he climbs on a rock.  A lizard comes up to him and stands on his legs and they monkey says "small" again. Then the monkey climbs on the lizards shoulders and the monkey says "tall" again.  Then more animals come along and the monkey alternates between "small" and "tall".  I had Olivia read the words in the book for her to learn to recognize them.

We also read "Rain Forests" again.  This was Olivia's request.  We went over every animal in the book again

Then I took out a couple worksheets for Olivia to do.  First we did a "God heals me" worksheet.  She had to mark on the sheet where she has gotten hurt and so she marked both knees (she fell down 3 times yesterday on her knees) and her face (where our neighbor Lauren threw the baseball at her) and she marked her feet too but I'm not sure when that was, she may have just been coloring the shoes at that point).

Then we did her letter matching worksheet.  She does really good on these, the only thing I have to do is keep her in the correct collum. 

I was only going to do 2 worksheets but she asked for more so we did a line tracing activity.  Tracing the waves.  She was more following the motion with this rather then tracing the lines...

But she did SOOO well with this next one.  She has only done this once before and it didn't look anything like her name...more like scribbles on the paper.  She is a fast learner and I'm surprised as how well she did with this! She is 31.5 months old.  On these she is tracing her name. 

Then Olivia saw our 3 year old neighbor Alex outside and she wanted to go to.  So we went outside and his mom and I talked while Alex and Olivia played in his big motorized truck.  We were outside for a while, maybe a little over an hour, then Olivia said she was cold so we came back inside.  

Then Olivia and I read a couple more books and I made dinner.  While dinner was cooking we worked on a collage with things that she likes.  The collage is about her so I had her pick things she likes out of some "family circle" magazines.  She did pretty much all the cutting and gluing (I trimmed some excess off of a couple pictures to make them fit better).

Then my phone died so I came upstairs to charge it and Olivia fell asleep on my bed.  Nic was out visiting his boys so I was holding off dinner until he got home.  

Right now with preschool I'm following her cues as to how much to do and how much she wants to do at one time or in a day.  Especially with her only being 2 1/2.  I do let her watch Leapster Letter Factory, Numbers Ahoy and other leapster vidoes, plus signing time as other educational suppliments.  The past few days though she has only wanted to watch signing time.  She has pretty much learned all the signs from those two movies though.  We just got them a few days ago.  

Tomorrow I'm hosting a playgroup "Park and Carseat Check".  I'm a car seat tech so there are 7 people coming to this event to go play at the park and then go to get their car seat checked one on one.  If it is raining there is also a library at the park.  Then after that I invited my neighbor to go to the library with me.  She wants to look for a job (she doesn't have a computer because her's crashed) and our kids get along really well so I'm driving us all to the library instead of taking 2 cars (because I have a minivan).  Tomorrow will be busy again.  I'm very glad I've had vacation all this week though.  I've been so busy but I have been able to get so much done!

   

A couple neat books

Today we had small group for church.  It went very well and Olivia played well with the other kids.  Then we had to run a couple errands.  We didn't get home until about 3:30.  Olivia wanted to go outside and play baseball, so we did.  While we were playing a neighbor of ours came out (she is 4) and wanted to play baseball too.  Olivia and her played a little bit, but it ended when the other girl threw the ball and hit Olivia in the face...Then our other neighbors came out.  They were trying to go to the park (an elementary school across the street) but there was apparently a science fair going on there so it was busy.  She has 2 kids.  One just turned 3 and the other is 4 months.  We just met them 2 days ago.  Our neighbor told us about this park within walking distance but a little further away.  We decided to walk to it together since she is new and Olivia and Alex love playing together.  The whole way it was threatening to rain outside.  When we finally got there the kids played for about 10 minutes then it started sprinkling. We packed up to go home.  Apparently though we weren't paying attention on our way there because we missed the street we were supposed to turn down and took a LONG way home.  We probably waked 4 miles (there and back..one mile there 3 back). I got some good springtime pictures on the way back though.
When we got home I read Olivia a couple of her "Math" books and we read "The frog with a really big mouth" and another rainforest book.  We are working on learning rainforest animals.  And what a rainforest is.

We also read "10 red apples" which is a pretty fun counting book.  Olivia wants to read it again and again.  I like reading it because it is fun.

We read Math Fables (yesterday I shared math fables too) this is a good "math" book with fun little stories

And one of our fiction rainforest books, this is one of Olivia's favorites that we got at the library.  This frog eats the "biggest fly in the whole world" so he goes to different animals (animals of the rainforest) and brags about his ability to them.  He asks them what they are and what do they eat?  Olivia wants to read this one all the time.  She used to call Jaguar's "tigers" but now she gets the difference after we started our rainforest study. 

We have another rainforest book we read..I think it is just called "rainforest" but I really don't feel like going downstairs to find it (its 1:09am and I'm about to go to bed).  It talks about the rainforest and shows pictures of lots of animals and insects from each of the floors of the rainforest.  It gives names as well so Olivia and I can learn the names of the animals and insects.

Olivia also watched signing time twice.  Its a new one we got from the library.  The sports one so she is learning the signs to all the sports.  I was making dinner when she was watching it and she came in after every sign to show me what she was learning.  :)

Also we worked on the rubiks cube.  Olivia can now solve it if you mix it up a little from turning in both directions.  (not mixed up all the way)

Pics from our walk from the park

Making Friends today

So today we have playgroup.  We went to Munchkin Playland.  As soon as we got there when I went to unbuckle Olivia from her carseat I told her "we are here to play with some friends!" and she looked at me and said "take turns." This is a concept we are working on...well this and sharing. She did really well and had a lot of fun.  We went right to the library after the playgroup was over.  She checked out "a dozen and two" books.  A lot of good ones.
One of the books we got is "Math Fables" (we also got one called Math Fables too" This is a book of short fables that have morals but also include math and grouping.  I really like this book.

 

We also got a few longer stories to start reading at bedtime.  I got books about opposites and some non-fiction as well.  Plus I let Olivia pick out a bunch as well...AND she got 2 signing times DVD's (her favorite).  A plus is one of the signing time DVD's is "Days of the Week" and we are already working on that everyday with our day of the week wall.  We have also added a vowel and number chart to the wall near our day of the week wall. 

We have added an alphabet banner to our homeschool area as well.  We don't really have much wall space for it though lol.

Olivia also is working on cutting with scissors.  We worked on this a bit today, helping to build her finer motor skills.  

So this is all we have checked out at the library...

And this is just from today....

It was such a busy day we didn't work on much else.  Olivia played with our new neighbors son in his truck for a LONG time.  Maybe an hour and a half.  Then we came inside and I made dinner and I read her a book while it was cooking. She fell asleep while I was reading and she wouldn't open her eyes for dinner.  Oh and dinner was SUPER good.  I got the recipe off the back of a box of the Safeway brand cheese its.  Its basically tuna casserole but with cheese it crumbs (mixed with butter) sprinkled on top.  It was soooo good!

End of the day

Today was a good day.  Olivia wanted to read EVERY book we got at the library.  So we did :).  We got a ton of books on rainforests and I plan on getting some more, probably tomorrow, at a different library.  I'm teaching her the different animals of a rainforest and basically what a rainforest is.  She also painted today and practiced cutting with scissors.

We also did a fun little activity that Olivia now loves.  I believe I got the idea from "No time for Flash Cards" I adapted it a little to make it more for springtime.

I cut out shapes of different colors

Then I filled a flower pot with pinto beans

Next we put the shapes into the pinto beans

Then Olivia went digging for shapes!  I would call out a certain shape or a shape of a certain color and she had to find it in there.  She really enjoyed this activity.  

Olivia also played Chicktionary on my andriod phone.  She loves this "game" and I call out letters for her to find to spell words.  She knows all her letter so this is a good review for her.  For this video I did take it after she had been doing this for about 10 minutes and was about ready to be done.  Next time I'll try to get a better video :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxYZYT0a4qw

I love the library :)

Olivia and I went to the Portland Central Library today.  It has over 17 miles of bookshelves and they have so many books they have a basement full of books they call "the stacks" I had have them get me 2 homeschooling books from "the stacks" today.  Unfortunately the library is located in downtown Portland.  I CANT STAND driving in downtown Portland.  Parking is near to impossible and you have to drive around the block forever to find a parking spot.  I was lucky today and got a spot RIGHT in front of the library.  I am very thankful for that because we ended up getting a tall armful of books and I forgot to bring anything to carry them in.
I wanted to get a bunch of books on butterflies, both fiction and non-fiction but I was having trouble finding them so Olivia and I ended up getting books (non fiction and fiction) about the rainforest.  So we will learn about the rainforest for awhile.  I personally got about 8 different books on homeschooling.  There were more but I had books in my arms as all the way up to my head and I couldn't carry any more lol.

Olivia and I got a "Lets read together" book.  It has a sentence on one page and the next page has one shorter word that rhymes with something on the first page.  Its awesome because Olivia can figure out the words on the next page this way.  If she isn't sure I had her sound out the letters and she was able to read the words.  I was excited to find that book.  I wish we could go to that library more often but that will have to be a "once a month" trip...
I did find out though that as an educator (because I homeschool) I can get an "educator library card".  This card allows you to check out materials for 8 weeks instead of 3.  Which is AWESOME! I sooo love the library.  We then came home and Olivia wanted cereal for lunch...so we did that brushed teeth and I read Olivia 4 books before she went to take a nap.

Now that Olivia is asleep I NEED to do the dishes.  We accumulate sooo many dishes when the boys are here!! And this is just from one day!

Another busy day.

Sundays are always busy for us.  We were late for church..again.  Trying to wake up and get 3 kids ready for church by 8:30 isn't easy.  Finding socks is usually our biggest issue.  Then stalling and trying to get everyone out the door at once.  We got there right as the music was ending.  Nic took Jonah to the 1-5 grade room and I took Austin and Olivia to the Early Childhood building.  Olivia didn't want to go because they were in the nursery because there was so few kids (its the first service so not many parents with kids go).  Church was great as always though.  I love our church.  I've been to many with all the moving I've done in my life and it is the best one I've been to.  After the first service I grabbed some coffee and Nic and I separated to go help out during the 2nd service.  We always go to the first church service then volunteer with the kids for the 2nd service.  If we don't have the boys (Nic has them every other weekend) then we sometimes stay for all 3 services.  Olivia loves it.  She gets SOOO excited to go to church.  I'm a floater so I help in either the nursery, the 2-3 year olds room or the 4-5 year olds room.  Lately I've been in the nursery a lot.  Today was busy for the nursery! Olivia was SUPER excited when I picked her up.  She was gabbing away telling me everything she did.
We came home and I had to go to the store to buy some mac and cheese and hot dogs for the kids lunch, and milk...I also bought some glue sticks and 2 pairs of safety scissors from the dollar tree.  I also got an alphabet banner.
Olivia did 2 worksheets today.  One was a letter matching worksheet.  The other I cut out some pictures of clothes and pictures of food.  I had her tape (this was before I bought the glue sticks) pictures of things we eat on one side and tape clothes on the other side.  This was very easy for her.  She is getting so much better with concepts then the last time I tried working on them with her (months ago).
We went outside and played baseball after her nap.  She stands correctly and hits the ball when I throw it about 50% of the time.  She is a pretty good thrower as well.  She threw the ball to me and I hit it back to her.  We also met our neighbor today who just moved in a couple months ago.  She hasn't really been outside though since the weather had been rainy.  Small world though.  She is the same age as me and we apparently went to the same middle school  (which is about 70 miles from here).  She has a 3 year old son and a 4 month old daughter.  She says her son prefers to play with girls, which is perfect because Olivia prefers to play with boys (I have no idea why but with girls she gets very bossy...).
I did a load of whites and then a huge load of laundry...I love having a huge washer and dryer.  Its soo much faster then our old smaller washer and dryer.  The only problem now is keeping up with the clean laundry...
Since today is Sunday we mainly made it an outdoor play day.  I fell asleep putting Olivia to bed..but I have to go downstairs in a few minutes to put the stuff from the washer into the dryer so the boys have clean clothes to wear to school tomorrow...
Tomorrow Olivia and I plan on spending the day at Portland Central Library.  It has over 17 miles of bookshelves.  Its huge.  I love it!

Getting Started

So today I went to the dollar tree and bought a pack of 30 nameplate style things.  I also got a few bins for organizing our craft stuff.  I wrote out the days of the week on the nameplates and also all of the months.  Then I cut the rest of the nameplates up into quarters and wrote the numbers 1-30 on each one (one number per square).  I made little paper holders for them and put them up on the wall so Olivia and I can do the day of the week every day.  This is in a corner of our dining area.  We have no wall space in our craft corner.

Then we worked on some worksheets.  We practiced tracing for the first time.  She traced lines and circles (pre-writing skills) I think she did very well for her first time tracing.  She is 31.5 months old.  I did the first line to show her how to trace and the last circle.  She did the rest by herself.

We also worked on tracing her name which we will work on periodically.  She also did letter matching/recognition.  She did excellent on this.  She got every one right!  (the other mark on the paper near the g is when she was done and was starting to color)

We also did a "Big and Little" concept.  I asked her to color the little raindrops orange and the big raindrops blue.  I wasn't sure how she would do on this because a few months ago when I tried this concept she didn't understand.  BUT she knows the difference now.  She had no troubles with this worksheet either.  

Olivia is napping now but when she wakes up we will go outside and play baseball with her Pink Easton bat and pink softball.  She loves playing baseball.  Then we may work on music with her keyboard and if she wants she can help me cook dinner.  

I've found Olivia likes doing the worksheets.  If she gets bored of them we just stop.  I have them organized by subject into different file folders. 

Olivia also did AWESOME at gymnastics today.  She did very well listening and taking turns.  She has improved so much since her first day/month/few months lol.  She is doing very good forward rolls doing the whole routine..(arms up in the air, head down, roll and tuck for 3 seconds).  She even tried to balance on one foot by herself standing on the balance thing...One thing she did today was they have this doughunt looking mat.  It is probably as high as Olivia's mid-ribs.  Usually the just climb over this but today she wanted to have them do something more challenging.  So Olivia did this first.  They put their feet up on the mat and with straight arms walked themselves around the mat using just their arms with their feet up on the mat.  Olivia loved it.  I didn't take any pics today...but I did a few weeks ago!

Planning Preschool

I've always known I wanted to homeschool.  Well I'll state that differently.  I've always know I did't want my child going to public school. I had thought about private school but the cost is too much plus even private schools have the same issues as Public schools do.
I'm still trying to gather resources and read all the info I can before I start.  I printed out about 150-200 worksheets to use throughout the year some are crafty type worksheets.  I love all the free resources I am finding  Right now my project is organizing our part of the living room that I would convert into our schooling area.  We have a corner right now that would work great but its crowded.  I'll try to take pictures of the "before" so I can save them and share the "after" pictures as well.  It's pretty late now so I am going to bed!!