Preschool Prep, Week 4

This week was about field trips!

I had a doctor appt. in St. Louis on Monday. Senpai and I figured out the last time I had an appointment down there that the Science Center was reasonably close to my doctor's office. So we did this time what we did last time: Senpai drove to the Science Center from his work, I dropped the kids off with him, and then I booked it over to my appointment. Rosemary was looking forward to this ALL MONTH. She kept asking to "go dinosaurs with Daddy." In reality, the true-to-life-size animatronic t-rex standing over a bloody herbivore (I don't know dinosaurs...) scares her, but she still loves to go and watch the thing move its head from side to side while she's being held by her Daddy. Poppy just enjoys the excitement of being around other kids. (I don't have pictures from this trip as I was at the doctor appointment, of course.)


Look, somebody else (thelope.com) took a video of the t-rex. Looks like he's standing over a triceratops. Yeah, I know that one. :-p


Tuesday and Wednesday were rainy days filled with activities at home such as cutting and pasting. We didn't do worksheets this week because our printer ran out of ink. I can't photocopy the worksheet pages out of the preschool book until I go buy more.


Thursday, Rosemary, Poppy, and I went to the zoo with a friend from out of town. We had lots of fun!


We rode the carousel.


Rosemary's favorite part was the elephants. Poppy was just happy not to be sat on by her sister.



On Friday, Rosemary worked on tracing letters with drafting paper. She did really well for a first try!


I traced F to show her how, then I guided her hand for A, B, and E. She did the rest on her own. :-)


We also read a book about butterflies.


Every page has the word "butterfly" on it, so I asked Rosemary to point the word out on every page. She was so proud of her ability to find it that she wanted to go through the book again.



I have to admit, by calling these posts "Preschool Prep," it's setting me up for the idea of sending Rosemary off to preschool eventually. I've got one place picked out that I really want to send her to, but she has to be at least four years old to attend, which means she can't go until Fall 2014. I don't know what to do with her until then. I was given a huge list of names of preschools in our local area and I don't know where to begin. How do I know which one to send her to? I admit that I am overwhelmed. I do much better with fewer choices; I need to start narrowing down my list.

Preschool Prep, Week 2

Well, we've got another week of lists and stickers under our belt. As much as I want to just wing it as we go, I find that our days go so much more smoothly when I pre-plan the night before.

For Monday, I looked up what the Storytime book would be about and then planned our activities around that. The book was "The Red Boat" by Hannah Cumming. So when we got home I folded a red origami canoe for Rosemary and let her paint a lake for the boat to float on with some of her toys inside.



On Tuesday, we voted! I carried Poppy on my back and pushed Rosemary in the stroller to our polling place. Rosemary got a sticker, seen on her hand below. A fire truck was in the parking lot and Rosemary talked to a fireman and sat in his seat in the fire truck. She declined putting his helmet on her head. We then went home and voted on what we would eat for lunch. I voted for leftover hamburgers, but Rosemary and Poppy won the vote for PB&J sandwiches.

Decorating the voting box.

Tallying votes.


We also played Chutes & Ladders. Rosemary won!


On Wednesday we went to the craft store to pick up supplies to make a "calm down jar." I call it a Sparkle Jar. I had seen the tutorial on Pinterest and wanted to give it a go.

Making the jar.

Giving it a good shake!

This is what it looks like at rest.

Falling stars.

I won't lie; we made this jar for me. I'll often shake it up when I'm stressed and then instantly feel my blood pressure drop along with the sparkles.


Poppy wanted to get in on the tong transfer activity that day.

We also went outside. Man, Wednesday was a great day!


Thursday wasn't as productive. It was obviously a "let's not plan ahead the night before and see what happens" day. Well, nothing much happened. It was also too cold to play outside. Fail. Too be fair, we were in the basement for an hour waiting out a tornado warning on Wednesday evening, so that got in the way of planning time. That's my story.

I at least have some cute pics from Storytime.



Today, Friday, I started the morning by testing Rosemary's knowledge of the alphabet. She can recognize 9 capital letters!

I also decided to try a sensory bin. It's like an indoor sandbox! It kept Rosemary entertained for at least 20 minutes, which Mommy really needed. It was a rough day.

Sensory bin with white rice, barley, chickpeas, and measuring cups.


Poppy is enjoying her new-found mobility. Here she is exploring the toy area.


That's it for this week. Tune in next Friday to see what else we put on our lists!

Preschool Prep

In trying to establish some order to our days (and not leave R in the complete care of the tv), I have started making lists of the things I would like R to do. This also ties in with me trying to prepare her for Preschool. She has a rebellious streak that prevents her from following directions. I hope the more I give her these projects with the expectation that they will be completed, the less resistant she will become. And not to mention the fact that I would like to be able to teach her something! She'll pick up random things I say, but when I make an effort to specifically show her something, she acts like I'm trying to feed her poison. With that in mind, I've started singing my cell phone number to myself. Since I'm not directly trying to teach it to her, she just might learn it!

Each day, there are four items on her list: do a page out of a Preschool workbook, have an outing to Storytime or a grocery run, practice a life skill (more below), and the last is a special playtime activity like going outside or doing a game. When we mark off all items on the list, she gets a sticker.


The life skills are where I have fun. We started on Tuesday with tong transfers, a task I've seen on Montessori blogs. She is using big tongs to move cotton balls into a bowl. I need to find smaller tongs for her to use. Right now she has to use both hands to manipulate the huge thing.


On Wednesday, she practiced using kid scissors for the first time. The goal was to cut confetti out of crepe paper. At first she utilized both hands to manipulate the scissors, but the next time she tried she was able to use only one hand.


On Thursday, she baked! I had seen a recipe for a single-serving cookie that I thought would be fun to try. Unfortunately, the recipe was wrong; it called for one egg yolk when really it should have been an egg white. So the cookie didn't turn out that great, but Rosemary still attempted to eat it. [Update: I tried the recipe using an egg white and it still came out weird. The cookie was like a dense sponge; very odd.   I hereby put the single-serving cookie idea to rest. Next time we bake cookies, it will be a whole tray.]




Today, Friday, she painted with watercolors. The paints were old and didn't cooperate, so it was more like water play. The waterlogged, still white watercolor paper was promptly recycled without getting its picture taken. I did take this picture, though. This is the back of her Letter Jj worksheet. The front showed several items that started with the letter j. She was supposed to color all of the items and then circle whichever one she liked the best. Getting her to complete the worksheet was a challenge, but when it was finally done, I let her turn the paper over to free color. Look what she did! She was super excited about the "footprints" she made, but I was even more excited about the cat she drew! This is her first time drawing a face!

If you're a little lost, follow this link back to flickr and you will see a note placed directly over the spot that is the cat. 


So that was our week. Some days were pre-planned, others we figured out as we went along. Some days were executed better than others. I hope to come up with more fun things to do next week. I sense a trip to the craft store is in order!