March 2011

We are well into our 8th week of the letteroftheweek.com curriculum. I've decided that for some of these vocabulary words, I'll just improvise. I can't figure out how to teach the word "prism" successfully to a 2 year old, and some of these other words are clearly more for the older kids. Last weeks information was: Theme- Sun, Vocabulary word- Ray, Yellow, H, 8, Nursery Rhyme- Hickory Dickory Dock. She's doing really well with most of the curriculum and I feel confident she's learning lots of new things each week. We've already gone through several more themes- stars, rainbows, Lighthouses, etc.

I can't wait for Spring to finally get here so we can play outside and get more exercise. I think I'll feel better about giving her a more well-rounded day if she can get some fresh air every day. I'm guilty of hibernating in the winter- I hate the cold on top of being paranoid about driving when it might be icy. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that within two weeks we can have the backyard set up and ready to play in.

Pics-

Stars-



Some of her Artwork hanging over her art desk-


The beginnings of her reading corder:

I needed a fix to keep Kylie away from the paper books (she eats them). The play kitchen used to be in this corner, but since it's up a step anyway I switched the books and the kitchen giving Kayla a little nook to read in. I'll spruce it up, maybe get a cute sign for her. I also added the letter of the week cork board. She's terribly uninterested in the letters and their sounds as of yet, so I'm trying to get her more psyched about it by giving her a board to hang things that start with with whatever letter we're working on. We'll see how it goes.

My feltboard-



I'll be making some fun things to play with on there, eventually. The other night I dreamt in feltboard stories, and although it was the most boring dream I've ever had, I took it as a sign to make on of these bad boys. I got a cheap frame from Walmart, although I'm sure I could have found a prettier one for cheap at a thrift shop. I bought some felt from the fabric store and let Kayla choose the color- she wanted green. This frame had a cardboard back and a flexible plastic where nicer frames would have glass. Remove that glass, but I left the plastic to make it sturdier. Then I just hotglued the felt to the cardboard and put it back in the frame. Yay!

Anywho, I have two babies getting into shenanigans again so I'm off!

I'm not sure how I've been doing this a month so far and still have yet to tell anyone aside from a few friends and my dad. My dad is all about it. In fact, he ranted for quite a while about how preschool is just an excuse for parents to get rid of their kids, any parent can teach a 4 year old what they need to succeed if they tried, they can get socialized everywhere, not just in a classroom, how parents are suckered into paying expensive preschool costs for fear of messing up their children, etc. I know it's mostly just his tendency to hate the 'establishment' and see corruption in everything, but it certainly made me feel happier hearing someone support us.

I know that there have been a bunch of studies that show the benefits of sending your children to preschool, and that's exactly what made the choice so difficult. Much like breastfeeding, the advocates make sure that you feel like an evil, ogre-parent bent on setting your children up for failure in life should you choose another path than what they are explaining. Formula-feed your child, and you are poisoning them (and that's not an exaggeration, I've had someone on a message board tell me I was poisoning Kayla by giving her formula). Don't send your child to preschool and watch them falter and fail in all things academic and social.

When I discuss this with the families, eventually, I will not bring up the other studies that I've read that show that while preschool's short-term effects are well-documented and are the basis for all pro-preschool outcry,the long-term effects are non-existent and that the vast majority of children who showed some advantage over others because of their attendance at a normal preschool even-out with their peers in a few years and go on to score the same in all aspects of their schooling from then on. That'd just cause a fight. But it will be a nice, secret little knowledge that I keep within me and whenever I doubt myself or our decision, it will be my confidence and boost to keep on going.

Oye.

Second Week

Well, our second week of 'preschool' is in full-swing. Since it's Wednesday, we've already changed the theme, colored in the square to the color of the week, and changed the letter of the week to "b". The more that I do this, the more I realize that she's already very comfortable with most of what I'm teaching to her. I'm using these tools as a reinforcement method more than anything else.

This week's information (courtesy of letteroftheweek.com and slightly changed for our needs is:

Theme- Jungle
Vocabulary- vines
Color- red (instead of the their suggested green)
Letter- B
Number-2

I know that green makes more sense in correlation with the theme of 'jungle', but it's Valentine's Day next week and we'll be doing a ton of appropriate projects for the holiday, too. I figured that it would be just as productive to work with red as it is green. And besides, she knows green so much better than red already. For some reason, red and yellow are the hardest ones for her to grasp and she often confuses them. Green will be much more appropriate for next month when we're making St. Patty's day things anyway.

So far for this week we've drawn and colored several pictures of Jungles and jungle animals. I am in the process of helping her make a diaramma of a jungle- I just need to get some pipe cleaners to really get going with it. I found a bunch of little cut and paste projects to make jungle animals and puppets. I have a big board book called "Jungle Animals" that we've been reading. I will, at some point this week, put on Jungle Book for the first time and let her see some jungle creatures in action. Our Disney Journey is slowly beginning with Toy Story and a handful of other movies that she's enjoyed, so maybe Jungle Book will also hit home with her.

I lucked out with the vocabulary word, because one of her favorite shows- Dora- shows her swinging in on- yep! vines! in the opening song. Every time she's seen the show this week I've been repeating- Dora's swinging in on vines! Look! Dora's swinging on a vine!

This Sunday I was thrilled to find an area rug on clearance for Kayla's room- with letters on it! Yay! And so we've played with letters several times already! We jump around on the rug looking for different letters.


So for 15 bucks, I think it's a win!




And here's a few pictures from last week... nothing spectacular, but may as well post while I'm in the mood!

Hello, fine motor skill development:






("How Many apples, Kay?" ".... FIIIIIVE!"



Since it's been freezing, snowing, and I'm not interested in attempting to drive and get back up the drive-of-death, we've been kind of stuck inside a lot. Aside from the normal dancing, running, and shenanigans in general, we've called in the big guns and brought up the best investment we've made so far for Kayla....




The Step2 Up and Down Roller Coaster. Thinking about getting it? Do it. Easy to assemble and disassemble, lightweight but sturdy as heck. Hours and hours and hours of entertainment. We take this up every once in a while from the basement and let her play with it. On those days, she can ride this thing easily 50 times. Here it is in action:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7qGV9R4gF0
Then, of course, there are the other random things we did through the week:


Her finished poster:


Letter A:




Cut, paste, color cows



Random





There was a lot more done, but it's almost nap time, and I can't keep sitting here all day!

In conclusion... so far this preschool thing is going well. I'm very happy.

Mid-week thoughts

So it's Wednesday of the first week of the 'preschool' thing. I can't really judge so far how useful it's been, but Kayla seems to enjoy what we've done so far. It hasn't been too much, but I also think this is more of a review for her, honestly. She's really good with recognizing shapes, letters, numbers, and a lot of animals already so those things aren't too much of a challenge. She still is learning the colors but she's much better now with them than a few months ago.

So on Monday, we put a picture of a cow and the word "CALF" on her learning poster. We colored pictures of cows, made a popsicle stick cow puppet (which, incidentally, is already in the garbage because she kept ripping the limbs off!) and I've been repeating the word "CALF" as much as I can think to do. We've read Click Clack Moo Cows that Type and looked at other pictures and books with cows and calves in them. I showed her videos of cows being milked online. She's pretty good with the whole cow thing and if you ask her what a baby cow is called, she says, "yalf!" so we're getting there.

On Tuesday, 'square' day, Kylie wasn't here because of the snow so we did an art project involving pasting small squares on a paper. We colored things with squares and we found things around the house that were square shaped (napkins, dish towels, etc.). She really recognizes the shapes super well, so I didn't feel the need to force much of that on her. We had a lazy day of square-searching and that pretty much sailed us easily through the day until bedtime. Of course we kept talking about cows and finished up one project from the day before... a paper plate cow.

Today is the Letter A day. She really does know how to identify the letter without hesitation, so I am taking another easy day with her. We will color some pictures of A's and pictures of things that begin with the A sound. I'll look for the letter A in her books with her at some point today, and maybe fingerpaint later so she can trace the letter A with her fingers.

So far this week has been fantastic! I'll update with pictures soon.

First week

Well, this is Sunday, the first day of the first week of the preschool thing. I am getting excited and nervous at the same time. I am going to start doing this without telling our families I'm doing it. I decided that I can't deal with negative criticism at this point. Brian said last night that he's on board if I want to do this but he thinks it won't work because I won't keep up with it. I guess I have to prove him wrong, then, don't I?

So today I'm taking the time to prepare for the upcoming week. I've already organized a binder with information and a calendar breaking down the week and days. If I take a look each day, I will know what I'm supposed to be focused on and that should keep me on track. And if I don't get to really work a lot with her during the day on a particular thing, I can always use the night after Kylie goes home, or spend more time on the weekend before we change the information. The way the program is set up gives you an entire week to really spend time on a subject.

Here's the information for this week, courtesy of letteroftheweek.com :
Theme- Cows (Monday)
Vocabulary- Calf (Monday)
Shape- Square (Tuesday)
Letter- A (Wednesday)
Number- 1 (Thursday)
Nursery Rhyme- Hey Diddle Diddle (Friday)

I also decided to go ahead and buy her a book involving cows since it's a special milestone- the beginning of her schooling! We bought Click, Clack, Moo Cows that Type by Doreen Cronin. I have several songs on CD that we can play involving cows and letters/numbers/shapes/colors. I've already cut the pieces needed for a few art projects and have color pages ready to go. I am going to look up videos on youtube of cows being milked, mooing, etc. We will probably play a lot of games involving a hunt for squares, and she has a sticker book where she gets to put the correct number of stickers on a page. That last one I'm a little nervous about trying this week only because she loves stickers and won't appreciate doing only one.

My most pointed effort needs to be getting her out to play with others more often. We hardly have gone out for a few weeks because it's been so cold. I finally got a library card this past weekend and got their monthly schedules for lapsit story time.

Here are a few pictures of the things I've done so far to prepare. I hope to have better pictures once we get more involved in this.


This is a picture of the Learning Poster we made. Each week, every day, we had the week's information. Monday we had pictures of the theme and vocabulary word, Tuesday the Shape or color, Wednesday the Letter, Thursday the number, and Friday the Nursery Rhyme. The poster is now hanging in our living room and is easily visible as a constant reference for her. The pictures stay up a whole week and are only changed when the new theme, shape, number, etc. change.





This is a set of number-matching cards I made for her. The idea is supposed to be for her to count the number of stickers and know the right number written on the other card, but I also read it might take a while for her to actually get it. I figure I will start by showing her what I want her to do, and hope she catches on. I also might start out by only giving her two or three of the cards and asking her to try to count them and match them to a certain number. We shall see. There are a few options for these.



Here is a look at our little 'preschool corner'. I only call it that because it happens to have a few things over there that we will be using. The poster, obviously, and her CDs and Books on CD, and her "Feed the Bunny" game for fine motor skill development. Of course there are some random books, puzzles and blocks over there, too!




I went to the dollar store and got a few things, too. Dollar Store= awesome.

Some posters...







Baskets. For each new color that we learn, I figured I would get a basket or container in that color and use it for a scavenger hunt type game where we collect different objects of that color. The first coming up in two weeks is green.



And although I don't have pictures of it, I made myself a binder to keep myself organized with this stuff. I have several folders in there with coloring pages and art projects ready for the week ahead, as well as future projects. I keep her number matching cards in a zipper pocket with a small book where she will be able to put stickers on pages in the number of the week. I bought a Monthly calender that fits in there and on each day, I've written what I'm supposed to be focusing on with her. I think I'm more than organized at this point, I just hope I stay that way.

VERY Tentative Preschool Plans

Since there is nothing set in stone at this point, I think I'll just share my thoughts and the goings-on around here.

Brian and I have been talking about doing preschool from home for Kayla. I know that when I mention this to the families, it will cause an uproar. To put it simply, they are all very pro-preschool. The expected her to be in one by the age of 3, so I know the topic will be coming up soon.

Financially, it's just ridiculous. We have looked for some options that wouldn't put us in the poorhouse in two months, but it's just not happening. So, we decided to look into just doing preschool at home. Surprisingly, I'm loving the things I'm reading and the prospect of it. I'm so excited that this may be happening that I can barely focus on anything else lately. I've stayed up late to work on projects for it, putting together information and organizing papers and outlines. I have found two websites that I really like and have been using them as my basis for 'lesson plans'.

Five in a Row-
http://fiarhq.com/fiveinarow.info/index.html

and Letter of the Week-
http://letteroftheweek.com/

Both are awesome, awesome sites. Since my original goal was to have her in preschool at around age 3, anyway, I figure that I will begin immediately with the preparatory curriculum from Letter of the Week. I have plenty of time to go through all, or at least, most, of that before September, when I thought would be a nice time to begin the Five in a Row curriculum. I would also continue the Letter of the Week in addition to the Five in a Row, too, because I just love it, and it's very simple and easy to incorporate. Five in a Row is highly literature-based, so I am loving that aspect of it. I also have a friend who's has first-hand experience with it and is even sending me one of the Volumes. (Thanks, Jen!!)

Since I don't really feel like taking and uploading more pictures at the moment, I'll do that soon. I raided The Dollar Tree today and found a bunch of cute things to help with some lessons I've already been working on for week 1 of the the preparatory Letter of the week program. The great thing about this entire thing is that it's mostly based on play. A toddler learns best through play, so it's not difficult at all to teach them things. All I have to do is think of creative ways to keep her interested in the themes and subjects I'm focusing on that week. I also love that this program breaks things down into days, for some of the topics, and gives a few suggestions for activities to reinforce those themes. The first week's theme is Cows. The vocabulary word is 'calf'; the shape of the week is a square; the number is 1; the letter is A. On Friday of each week you learn a nursery Rhyme or song that pertains to the them, so this week's will be "Hey Diddle Diddle" and throughout the week, you sing songs, read books, and do art projects all about that particular theme- in this case, cows. I'm very excited about all this.

Since socialization is an important aspect of preschool, as well, I have to make it a specific effort to take her different places on a regular basis, especially once the weather warms up a bit. I have posted on a several message boards asking for advice, and a preschool teacher responded to one of my posts explaining that most Kindergarten teachers can't expect much more than at least a 10 minute attention span and for them to be potty trained. Aside from the INFORMATION aspect, which will be much easier to provide for Kayla, there are certain other things that she needs in order to be successful in Kindergarten. She has to learn how to play with others, how to share, and how to take turns. She also has to be able to sit still for extended period of times when she may not really want to and learn to speak in turns. The poster suggested that I take her to story time at the Library, book stores, and other places that may offer it. That will not only give her time to interact with others but help her to learn to sit quietly while the reader is reading. If I also take her to parks, zoos, museums, science centers, activity/jumping places, and other public places to give her time to explore the real world, then I should do enough for her for Kindergarten. I can also plan 'field trips' for her by finding apple orchards or other places that are unique. For example, if I wanted to wait to do the theme on cows, I could have possibly taken her to a farm nearby (we live near several) to see actual cows in person.

Anyway, that's the general idea of it all. I will post more, I'm POSITIVE. I don't have a huge outlet for this stuff just yet so I'll need to vent somehow!!

Wish me luck breaking the news to the family!

Crying Baby

http://www.healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/baby/crying-colic/pages/Responding-to-Your-Babys-Cries.aspx


So, if you knew me personally, you'd know that Kylie has a bit of a crying problem. Not really a huge problem, but a problem, nonetheless. She's a baby who is blessed enough at home to have two older brothers and parents who are always around to immediately tend to her every sound. I truly, truly believe that the immediate and constant response to a moment of frustration for her has led to her being very sensitive to any obstacle. She's very inquisitive and loves to explore, but she will get frustrated over practically nothing and let out a wail of utter distress. And it's not usually something that she will get over quickly unless you help her with what she wants. In other words, she's very dependent on her parents and me to do things that other infants might not be so needy with.

I'll give you an example of some of thing things I've noticed with her. When she was a little bit younger, she would be sitting and holding a small toy. If the toy dropped from her hands and landed next to her leg, well within grasping reach, most of the time she'd just scream and scream until I handed it to her. Even though all she'd have to reach her hand down and pick it up, she wanted me to hand it to her. Since she's become more mobile and crawling, that issue hasn't been that frequent.

The other big problem is her sleeping. Nap time was a nightmare for a long time. She wouldn't want to be put down to sleep, so we'd have to get to her fall asleep (just holding her, rocking, swinging, whatever) and then try to transfer her to the pack and play. Problem is that Kylie is the lightest sleeper ever, so moving her up the stairs or placing her in the pack and play always woke her up. So we decided to keep her in the swing to fall asleep. For a LONG time, the only way she would ever sleep was if she was swinging, music playing, with me sitting in front of the swing pushing it past it's normal limits to swing higher and faster. I also had to be looking at her. If any one of those factors wasn't right, she would just cry hysterically. If I was sitting there but not pushing her, she'd scream. If I was sitting there and pushing but looking away from her for even a moment, she wouldn't sleep. If I thought she was asleep, but she wasn't, and I'd get up to leave she would scream immediately. Falling asleep took a process of sometimes an hour worth of swinging, opening her eyes every couple of minutes to make sure that I was still there. It was... as I said... a nightmare.

Now she is 9 months old. I have been trying to find information online for a while now about normal behavior for babies this age, and help with the situation. I understand a clingy baby, and I am a firm believer that babies cry for a reason, even if it's just to say they want a hug. However, I was convinced that this behavior wasn't normal, and was totally unnecessary. After many weeks of debating, I finally decided to try a day of letting her cry for short periods to see if she would calm herself. And honestly... she did. I put her in the swing on that first day, and told her it was nap time. I gave her a kiss on her head, and I put the swing on. When I walked away, she cries as I expected. But I stood around the corner of the room and waited. After 3 minutes, I walked back in and gave her more kisses, calmed her, and walked out again. After 5 minutes, I went back in and did the same. The third time that I left, she cried for only a couple of minutes and then fell asleep. And it was the first time in... I couldn't even tell you how long... that she managed to get a nice, refreshing nap in. So from that point on I do this to let her sleep. At around the same time each day now (In the morning, it's about 10 AM, sometimes later; and around 2PM for her afternoon nap) she starts to act sleepy and sometimes cranky, I put her in the swing, and she almost always falls immediately to sleep now. Sometimes she gives a little fuss, but it never lasts more than a few minutes.

My point?

I read that article and it made me feel better. I think the most important part of it is that sometimes babies just have to cry a little. There's no reason to let a baby scream for long periods of time when you're available to console them, and I don't believe that crying-it-out is ever a suitable method for very small babies. But once a baby reaches about 6 months old, I do think it's important for them to learn to be frustrated a little bit. Not a whole lot, but just a little.

Kylie was also able to roll at a very early age, and she has always been a little ahead of the game as far as movement goes. But she also went through a phase where she would refuse to attempt to even move. She would fall over (gently, no injuries) and just lay there and cry unless I sat her up. She was more than capable of rolling and even sitting herself up, but because she was always sat-up by someone else when she fell over, she wouldn't try it herself anymore. I'm convinced that the only reason she even learned to crawl was because I encouraged her to work through her frustration and at least try it.

Needless to say, Kylie has given me a run for my money over the course of the months that I've watched her. She's one particular little baby sometimes, and knows what she wants. But I can't help but look at that little smile and love her!!