Playing in the Leaves!

Today we spent a considerable amount of time in the front yard playing now that the leaves have finally dried out after all of our rain! The kids went a little crazy playing in the leaves and I thought it was so cute! They were throwing them and playing chase and rolling in them and it was a great photo opportunity. So I took a bunch of pictures of them playing. Since the weather is supposed to be so nice this weekend, my goal is to get as many leaves raked up as I can (we'll see how that works out!) and so this might be one of the last times they have this many leaves to play in for awhile.

So I hope you enjoy the pictures of your kids playing and enjoying the beautiful Fall weather!

October in Review!

So I know I am still only good at posting once a month, but you'll have to forgive me for that. We have had a busy month learning the letters d,e,f and the numbers 3 and 4. We also learned about pumpkins, fire safety, triangles, and had our orange day!

We celebrated my birthday and Mila's birthday and Alex's is actually today! We also had our Halloween party on this last Thursday which turned out really well. We all got our costumes on and colored pictures, played games, had Halloween treats, made a pumpkin craft, danced and watched "The Great Pumpkin". Faith's mommy provided us with cute little Halloween activity books, and Alex and Matt's mommy made treat bags for the kids. Thanks guys, they were both a hit!

Also this month we have welcomed Skyann back to our house! We missed her and are glad that she has rejoined our group.

Below I have posted a bunch of pictures, so I hope you enjoy. I will again try and be better at posting more often, but I can't make promises yet! :)

Also, I am now 30 weeks pregnant with the new baby, but I still am not sure what days I will be taking for my vacation time until it gets closer. My mom will be coming that first week of Jan. I believe to help out and be my back up in case I go into labor when the kids are here!

The week of Thanksgiving I will be closed that Thursday (Thanksgiving day) and Friday. I do have paid vacation on Thursday but Friday will be an unpaid day for me, just as a reminder. Thanksgiving day and Christmas days are my only paid holidays off.

School Update

We have now completed our first two weeks of preschool and are beginning our third week! We have been very busy jumping right in and getting down to the business of learning. We have already worked on the letters A and B and will be working on the letter C this week. We have also been working on the color red and the circle and the numbers 1 & 2.

We have set up our library system (even though we did not check out books this last week), learned about ourself and our families and neighbors, and done some cooking. Each Friday is our cooking day where the kids get to help make their snack for the afternoon. Cooking not only gives the children a lesson in nutrition, but it also teaches them math skills like measurements, science skills like mixing liquids with solids, etc., and language arts skill like learning to read a recipe. It also teaches them responsibility like cleaning up after themself, following steps, listening to directions and working together.

Our first recipe was to make chocolate chip cookies, which we got to share with our families. I hope that they were delicious! Then last week we made Rice Krispy treats and the kids got to cut out shapes with cookie cutters, which was fun. This Friday, in honor of the apple and Fall, we will be making caramel apples! YUM!

In addition to all of these topics, we work on the days of the week, the months of the year and the calendar every morning during our circle time.

Another subject we have been working on is our pre-printing practice. Each time the kids color those fun coloring pages, I make them work on holding the crayons correctly and trying to stay in the lines, which helps with future writing. I also work with them on spelling and writing their own names on their papers. We will be doing a lot of tracing pages coming up, which may not look like much but straight lines, but it is actually a very difficult skill for children to master and one that is necessary in order to learn how to write properly. This is something you can work on with them at home. Also at home you can draw straight lines on a piece of paper and with child scissors allow them to practice cutting following the straight lines that you have drawn.

So as you can see, we have been very busy and will continue to be very busy! I would like to plan a field trip coming up, since we haven't taken on in awhile, but don't have details yet, so I will keep you posted as I make a decision.

I don't have a lot of pictures of the last couple of weeks, but hope you enjoy the couple that I do have. I hope the kids have been as excited about learning as I have been.

School Days, School Days!

They are upon us! It is that time of year again where will be starting our Preschool curriculum. We will be following a preschool program called Reach For the Stars. It is a great program that helps guide us through our Preschool learning journey.

As you all know that we have recently moved the preschool/play room to the basement. We are getting onto a good routine as to when we go downstairs during the day, but I have to confess I am not on a good afternoon routine yet after we pick up Owen from Kindergarten. They all want to be doing different things in different places at that time, so I cannot guarantee if pick up will be downstairs or upstairs for the moment. Follow the arrow on the door. If it is pointing down, then we are downstairs. If there is NO arrow on the front door, then we are upstairs doing something. My hope is that we will find a consistent routine with this after Monday when Raymond starts preschool and we can all play together.

I will be finishing up the Sept. newsletter to send home with you all on Monday with a calendar and other information of things we will be doing for the month. I would also like to start a library checkout program with all of the books that I have, so watch for more information on that. I am going to be a lot better with the blog and my goal is every Friday to update with a post on the week in review with pictures of things we have been doing.

I will be teaching midweek at my church the first semester of school on Wednesday nights, but they have bumped the starting time back this year to 6:30 pm so this should not interfere with pick up times or anything like that.

Last but not least for the moment, as you all know we are expecting a girl!!! A nice closing to our little family. Her due date is around January 15, and in the past I have taken 1-2 weeks off of work depending on the circumstances. Upon the arriving date my mom will also be here to help out if I happen to go into labor a few days early, your child will not be stranded at home by themselves! :) I will keep everyone posted as the time nears with more information as to the exact dates I will be closed. We are very excited to finally be adding a little girl to the mix though, but it will not change any of the lessons scheduled other than the month of Jan. will be a little more flexible on lesson plans and we will be extending our Christmas break until Feb. 1, where we will pick up our preschool stuff again.

I look forward to another great start to the Preschool year!

Summers End is Coming!

I can't believe I'm saying it seeing as it's only the middle of July, but the end of Summer is already drawing near. School starts on Aug. 17 which is only a month away and it's time to start getting back into our learning routine!
I have been spending the last few days starting my curriculum planning for the Fall. This summer really has flown by. Maybe it seems like it is going fast for me because my oldest son, Owen will be starting Kindergarten and it's something I am excited for but also dreading because life with Owen will change forever! :( That's just me being a sentimental mommy.
We will be doing lots of fun things this year and I will be using a new program called Reach for the Stars which has even more activities than I had before, so I am excited to introduce this. Plus I would like to continue to try and take the kids to story time at the public library as time permits and other fun activities as they come up. Momsofomaha.com is a great website that keeps you posted on all new activities going on in the area, so I check it weekly to see if there is something going on that I'd like to take the kids to. So I would like to keep an open-ended permission slip for field trips, if that is okay with all of you. If we will be taking an all-day field trip, I'll give you advance notice of that!
The schedule will change a bit this year. Because we live to close to Owen's school, he does not qualify for busing, so he will need to be driven to school and picked up daily. Hopefully as the year goes on and I meet some of his classmates parents, I might be able to get him some rides, but for now expect that I will need to leave the house every day at 8:30am and then again at 3:45pm to pick him up. I have no problem bringing all of the kids with me, just please be aware that I will not be at home from 8:30am-9:30am and then again from 3:45-4:00pm. So if you need to pick up your child please do it before or after these times.
I will be starting the newsletter again and will send home a note with all of this information in more detail. I just wanted to give you an initial idea of how this year will look.
I am very excited for this school year and anticipate exciting and new things to look forward too! Mid January we will be welcoming the newest member of our family to join in our fun! Early September we will be moving the daycare room back to the basement, so anticipate some minor but better changes there. I am having a very basic computer made for the kids to begin practicing computer skills and preschool games on. I am also starting the search for some new set up ideas for the playroom to help organize our learning better. I hope you will all like the outcome.
If you ever have any questions or concerns please don't hesitate to talk to me. As a side note, we will sadly be losing Skyann and Jacob as they are starting on a new venture of school, family, and perhaps a new home. So that will be exciting for them and I wish them the best, but we will miss them. So that is the current update! I hope everyone had a great weekend and enjoyed the nice cool weather.

Our Summer Days...update again!

Once again, I know that I am very far behind on posting an update! Time flies when you are having fun and before you know it, I am two months behind! :) We have been staying very busy this summer and enjoying our field trips. We have been venturing to the downtown library on Tuesday's for storytime, swimming in the backyard pool, flying kites, playing at the sprinkler park and inviting some new friends to drop in and play with us from time to time.

Unfortunatley we have also been battling a cold that has spread throughout the house and working hard at trying to get everyone well again!

This last week we also got to go to the summer movie festival and see a free movie, Surfs Up. I always have my eye out for new fun things to take the kids to do. I love taking them on new adventures and having fun.

My family would like to share with all of you our big news, which I have already started sharing with you this last week. We will be expecting our 4th and last baby around January 15! Please be assured that this will not affect the daycare in any way. I will plan on only taking no more than 2 weeks maximum off when the baby is born, but won't be able to give you exact dates until the time gets closer. I will definatley keep you all posted on new updates as we get them. We are very excited and can't wait for this next little adventure that lies ahead!

Without further ado, I will post some pictures of our adventures from the last couple of months! I hope you enjoy. I will try and be better at staying up to date with my posts, but with kids in and out all the time, it makes it hard to find time to get on the computer! So please forgive me in advance for my tardy posts.

Zoo Fieldtrip

Today we took our annual spring Zoo fieldtrip. We had our usual crew but unfortunatley we were without Matt who has a double ear infection. Along with the kids and I, we brought along our student Pastor's wife, Emily, and her baby Rhys, and Skyann's mommy. I thank them sincerely for the help that they provided in keeping the kids organized, safe and entertained!

Upon arrival, we ventured into the Aquarium, one of my favorites and I think the kids' too. After that we went to the see the Lions and Tigers, then the Gorillas, then we ate our picnic lunch. After lunch we went into the Kingdoms of the Night and saw all of those dark creatures! After this we made our final stops at the Giraffes and Zebras pens then headed home.

The really awesome part about our day is that the animals all seemed very social and active with us today! At the cat house we were able to "play" with a lion right by the glass. Then in the Gorilla house we interacted with a gorilla that wanted to be social with us. In the Kingdoms of the Night, we saw the alligators up close and swimming and right by the bridge, more than I have EVER seen them, then the beavers were hard at work and busy, which I've never really seen before either. The giraffes came to the glass to greet us and so did the Ostrich in the Zebra pens. They came to check us out too. It was really neat to get such a close up view of the animals for once! The kids really enjoyed it.

Of course I got a bunch of really good pictures too, so I have posted them for your viewing pleasure! I will start planning our next great adventure! P.S. see the post below this one for more pictures on our week last week!