Pssst.......

There's a buzz in the air and it's not the bees--it's the WII's!







Jumpstart is coming out with a brand new game for the Nintendo Wii called Pet Rescue and they are going to send out some pre-release copies soon. For more information click here to go to Jumpstarts blog entry about the new game, or click below for the blogs homepage and browse through all the Jumpstart has to offer. You won't be sorry--it's one cool website!

WordFul Wednesday and a Wordful from a sponsor....

OK, not really a sponsor, but I do have some interesting info. to talk about before I get to my WW picture.

I love all things educational-especially when it comes to my two favorite things, computer skills and reading. Well, while I am patiently waiting for Sophie's reading light to click on, I have noticed that she is incredibly good on the computer. So, when I was contacted about a new educational website-I of course checked it out---JumpStart.

I love JumpStart for many reasons. The coolest part is that not only is Sophie learning hand/eye coordination alternating between the mouse and the arrow keys, but ALL of the games she's played so far have required her to practice skills that will enable her to READ and do MATH. Sophie has already spent hours playing on this site. I LOVE IT! You can play on the website for free, or you can become a member and get access to a million other things available on this site. There are also CD-ROMs for sale. The CD-ROMS open a huge resource for learning, plus it offers ways not only for parents to communicate with other parents (awesome,) but you can also leave messages for your kids AND track their progress if they play without you present. Sophie is still closely monitored by me so that she doesn't wander off into a 'older' zone and get frustrated. I want her to keep loving this as much as I do.

This would be a great website for any pre-schooler, home-schooler, or even after school programs. The entire place is really neat--caters to a bunch of ages--and is a 3-D virtual world that can compete with any of those silly video games out there!

Here's a screen shot from something Sophie discovered last week in Adventure Land for ages 4-8. (I personally prefer Story land for the 3-5 year olds, but I let her choose where she goes first, so she will go to where I want her to after about 15-20 minutes or so.)



At this point in the game, she was looking for the treasure chest with clothing so that she can continue, and in the meantime she found this slide that she can crawl up and slide down. She's having so much fun--time flies when she is on this website.

If anyone is interested I can give out one 3-month trial membership. Just leave me a comment and I will get in touch with you. (Be sure to leave me your email so that I can.)

OK--on with my WordFUL Wednesday.......................

Lately getting pictures from Sophie has been a struggle.

This is usually what I get.

Nice!

Not really.

But I don't want to leave this post with a picture of Sophie's backside--So I put this picture up.

Washing her hands may not seem like a big deal--and certainly not a milestone--except that on this day when I snapped this photo it was because it was the first time I didn't have to ASK Sophie to wash her hands!

Hand-washing is just as much of an issue as getting a picture, so I certainly needed to document her fabulous cooperative spirit. I even asked, "Whatcha doin' Soph?"

She responded, "Well when I came in my hands were really dirty so I came in to wash them so you would let me have a popsicle!"

Work it baby---work it! (what movie?) I can honestly say she OWNS it! Great job mouses--you rock!

And YES, she got her popsicle. Couple of 'em!

Wordful Wednesday: The sunny side of things.

Last month Sophie and I were reading from her new magazine, Your Big Backyard, (recently upgrading from Wild Animal Baby) and we saw this idea in the back. Sophie got so excited she wanted it for dinner. So, breakfast for dinner was what we did.
Simply spray a small bowl with cooking spray and crack in an egg. Poke the yoke so it doesn't explode and cook for about a minute.
Cut a couple pieces of toast and viola! The greatest sunrise (or in our case sunset) you'll ever eat!
The coolest part is that every time we dress up food to look fun--Sophie eats WAY better. Now, how do I make chicken fun?
Oh, and I stuck in the links for the magazines so that if you have never seen them go check them out. Sophie LOVES both of them and they make it easy to send the subscriptions as gifts. The National Wildlife Federation website is also a great resource if you are looking for 'at home' projects to do with your little ones.

All Aboard Diner

When I was in college they taught us that in order to fully 'wrap-up' any lesson or theme used in teaching we had to create a closing culmination activity or field trip. What better way to wrap up our A's than to a field trip lunch at the All Aboard Diner?

They should rename the place the the Great Train Robbery. Or how about Choo Choo Cha-Chings. Good in theory and in gimmick, but the place was anything but what we expected. I don't have to tell you how Sophie felt about it--look at that face in this picture! She might have mirroring my face after spending almost $40 on a lunch for 3! At a diner. Not a steakhouse, or even just a Chili's for heavens sake. Ridiculous!!!!! The food wasn't even that good, much less that big. Come on.

Anyway, the next time I pick a field trip, I will have to do better homework before venturing out.
You can tell my hubby got a big kick out of the train that delivered the food. I think he had more fun than the two of us combined!

But, in all fairness to the afternoon, it did feel good to get out for a bit especially when February 2009 seems to have been the longest month in recorded history. Plus, I LOOOOOVVVEEE spending time with my two favorite people in the world, so no matter how much money or time we spend--it's always worth it.

*Oh, we finished the A's about two weeks ago, but I totally forgot to blog about them-so this post is just a touch late!

ABC's are here again!

Thanks to the help of an awesome website called Starfall Sophie and I are resuming our preschool activities until the it's time for her to actually go to school.

We started with the letter A because Sophie said she wanted to go in order. OK, so our ABC days are back.

First, we did about 30 minutes of computer time, and later after lunch we did these pages together--which are similar to some of the activities online. She got a lot of practice following directions (coloring the capital A's red and the lowercase A's yellow,) tracing her letters, counting the number of apples and finishing the sequence by drawing in the four picture, cutting and gluing pictures of things that start with A, and we even got lucky because we did this on Presidents Day and actually found a pic of good ole' President Lincoln himself--A is for Abraham.

Anywho, Sophie even helped me turn all of her cutout pictures into a silly sentence using all of the cutout words she found in the magazine: Awesome Abraham jumped Above an Ape in the A.M.

Stay tuned for more of our preschool adventures and a brand new website I'll be reviewing shortly called, Jumpstart. We've already had tons of fun there.

As for today, the poor little mouse woke up with a nasty case of the stomach flu. As of now, about 4:30--she can't even keep an water down. Poor thing--she's so thirsty!

I wonder what is the mystical force that makes me instinctively hold out my hand to catch her vomit? I really don't think I care that much about my floors--why in the world do I do that?

eeeewwwww!

A Monday Moment

I have to thank my KUMON workbooks for this one. Yesterday, once we were up, dressed, and fed, I decided I would just let the natural thing happen-whatever Sophie wanted.

So, I asked her, "Do you want to play something or do a learning activity with me?"

How thrilled was I that she picked a learning activity? Of course, Sophie will choose the #2 option I give her about 95% of the time so I admit I'm a little manipulative. Anyway, I was planning on doing some more practice with letter sounds on Starfall, but she didn't want to be on the computer, so I grabbed the workbooks instead. It turned into a solid 2 hours of scissoring, gluing, and tracing words with pencils. Sophie was having a ball using her scissors. We were using the Let's Cut Paper workbook from Kumon and ended up doing about 6 pages!

She only ended up tracing a couple of words, and it's hard to see, but when we got to the dog she insisted on printing the letters herself instead of tracing. I was shocked when she made the perfect lowercase letters--written upside down no less--to spell the word 'dog'. She figured out that if she made a 6 and turned it over it was a little 'G'.

I was amazed--Sophie was proud--and it was the perfect home school lesson I have never planned. Whoohoo for spontaneous teaching and memorable moments!

Preschool Puffs and Plugs: Week ending Oct.3

Homeschooling updates from a proud parent's point of view
*Puff: praise extravagantly; to publicize with often exaggerated praise; *Plug: the favorable mention of something,
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I needed some sort of catchy phrase to start summing up our activities-especially since I am having trouble with daily blogging-and there seems to be a lack of jazzy synonyms for words like summary and review. So, I dug a little deeper, stretched a little farther, and found 'puffs and plugs.' I know I could use 'weekly wrap-ups, or Saturday summary' but I wanted something a little brighter with the sparkly touch that seems to be all things --me.

OK, let's start with the PUFFS:

Monday, September 29:Craft Project

On Monday, Sophie chose a pumpkin patch scene to create with a foamies kit bought at the craft store.
She figured out how to put the two trees together by herself.Then using the box as a guide she created her masterpiece.The only thing I did was hot glue the tree, fence, and sign to the base-right where she told me to.
She's a perfectly proud-of-herself preschooler. I am perfectly pleased at her efforts. I'm even more thrilled with her ability to follow directions; her capability of sitting in her seat content and behaving for almost an hour; and I couldn't be happier with her tiny little motor skills getting all that tape off the back of the foamies and the fact that she was able to figure out how to assemble this practically on her own.

Tuesday, September 29: Bead Sorting and jewelry design.

The Montessori lessons** I was using said to pick four shapes with same or only 2 different colored beads. I decided Sophie could handle something a little more challenging.
With a bit of coaching from me, she made the decision to sort by color instead of shape. Each time she got bored with a color she moved on to a new color. This kept her busy for almost 20 minutes! I think she enjoyed putting the beads into this container the best. She was really excited that the box tops snapped in place.

Then it was time to make a necklace and 'jam' on her guitar with it on. I couldn't get a great pic of the necklace though. I'll have to do some editing and post in the future when I get the chance.

Wednesday, October 1: P.E. and a little tool-time.

Notice anything about this bike? (besides the fact she is growing quickly out of it)

Yep. No more training wheels. She fell gracefully though and seriously had more of a fit wearing the helmet and knee pads than she did when she fell over. She's one tough cookie.

After all of that great exercise (for me and her daddy) she decided she still wants the training wheels.
So she put them back on. I may have helped a little.

Now for a couple of plugs:

Also on Wednesday we did a Montessori exercise playing I Spy with one of the actual I Spy books--the Halloween version. It's great for teaching letter sounds (I spy something that starts with a B,) colors (I spy something black,) and even a some higher level cognitive skills (I Spy something that flies only at night.) A bat was the answer to those three--in case you were wondering. Anyway, this was a fantastic teachable moment while at the same time disguising itself as down time-getting Sophie ready for a nap. LOVED IT! We will be doing this one often. I am sooooo looking forward to the Christmas version. It will be a staple in our Christmas time activity schedule.

This is Sophie giving herself a plug once the training wheels were back on. Good for you Butter Bee~Take a Bow!

*definitions from dictionary.com
**I have decided to tone down the Montessori pressure I put on myself by picking one or two activities for the week and then just improvising on the rest-relying on my former teaching skills to help me turn play-time into learning time. She absolutely lives in a complete educational environment, so pretty much everything she sees, hears, and plays with will help her grow leaps and bounds educationally in some fashion or another. This week was a LOT less stressful than last week, and instead of scrambling to fill time, this week we ran out of time to do all of the activities scheduled. Plus, if I use Thursday as a wrap-up day, I won't feel so damn guilty about not posting everyday. Today we were going to do science and practice making bubbles, but we will postpone until next week.

Saturday Summary Part 1: 9.20 to 9.23

Last weekend: September 20

Buying a new car takes forever. We've been looking and looking and looking for weeks--and we still spent several hours over a two-day period at dealerships before we finally found the one that works for us. I wanted to be a 'green' mom and do everything I can to help the environment and save the polar bears. Well.........................

Yeah. BUT--and I do mean BUT, they are giving away these giant gas guzzling beasts at the dealers for practically nothing (seriously this was the same price that my new Camry was 8 years ago!) and we really need a second car AND I have always loved driving the big giant truck mobile.....AND--we literally drive about 50 miles/week--maybe 75 if we go to the zoo. So, the way I see it? I am helping the planet because I am taking this dirty pollutant emitter out of the hands of someone who will drive it the average 230+ miles/week, thus preventing almost 75% less gas emissions on the environment PLUS since we don't drive much we won't need to spend too much at the pump. It is only 2 miles to the grocery store.

It's a really pretty truck too and Sophie LOVES the fact that she can sit in all sorts of places in the back and still have lots of room for her giant dog and all of her toys. Now, if I can move along the growth of this family and actually have more children--we're all set.

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Monday, Sept. 22, 2008

We had to grocery shop in the morning, and I let Sophie help me bag the fresh fruit and work on getting the twist ties around the bags. It's hard for her to manipulate the twist ties, but she's getting lots of practice. Then she was being so good at the store, I felt compelled to take her to open gym for an hour before heading to the health club. By dinnertime we were both exhausted and feel asleep very early. It was a great day though and the elliptical machine is getting easier!

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Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008

There is something about Tuesdays. I don't have a clue why they are so trying, but they really are. Very. This was no exception. I have been behind on our schedule since last Friday, the day after the tea-party, so I feel a little overwhelmed with trying to come up with activities Sophie loves to do that will actually teach her something. On Tuesday mornings they have story time at Barnes & Noble so we headed over there, but we were late and missed most of the stories. We stayed for awhile though and read some books together and played with a couple other kids for awhile with the train set they have out. It's kind of a fun place to hang out when we don't feel like going to a gym.

When we got home, Sophie was itching to go outside so we decided this would be a great day to decorate the front porch for Halloween. Well, after about 10 minutes of trying to tether down the blow-up ghost and succeeding mostly in losing the tethers in the ground, Sophie got bored. Unfortunately for me right before she got bored she opened all of the boxes containing the 'stuff' and dumped it all out on the porch. I quickly changed the front screen to the glass door and let her decorate the door with window clings. This gave me about another 20 minutes of frantic 'let's get the stupid lights up and plugged in' time. Once she was done she gave up and went inside to watch Underdog for the trillionth time-leaving me to finish the front porch--or so I thought.

This is what happens when you leave a 3 year old unattended. She's done this before too--and I guess I just didn't learn my lesson the first time. She went out to the porch in the back--OK, no big deal right? I figured she could play out there until I was done out front. We have a fenced in yard so she's perfectly safe.

Anyway, when I first saw the chalk I quickly decided no use in getting mad and frantically trying to clean it up--I just let her be. I would have to clean her up anyway, so I might as well let her enjoy herself while I got dinner in the oven.

When I went back out to check on her I noticed that she had not only covered herself with chalk but had also decorated Jack with a bucket of yellow chalk. Poor guy, he just got over a round a antibiotics from an allergy to shampoo and here he was covered in chalk. My frustration level is quickly being bumped up to explode mode. But I hadn't blasted yet at this point.

I simply dusted out as much chalk as I could from Jack and then brushed his fur really well. I got it all out and let him back inside before she doused him with the bucket of bubbles she found while I was brushing Jack.

Now I should go back and say that I had made a homemade lasagna that day for Nate and the two guys that also work out of our house right now and part of the whole process was cleaning up the giant mess--including washing the kitchen floor--after it was all assembled and in the oven.

This is after an entire day of B&N, porch decorating, dog grooming, and now Sophie was a giant mess on the back porch.

I did what any normal mom would do and hand Sophie the hose and ran back in the house. I gave her the pleasure of washing off all of the chalk and bubble juice off the porch. Of course, her dress apparently needed cleaning too as well as the side of the house and all of the windows.

I had to yell at her through the back door to put down the hose, before I came back out.

Then I realized that Sophie needed a bath and some dry clothes before dinner and I only had about 20 minutes before it was done.

******sigh*******

I'm exhausted but "kept moving forward" as the Robinson's encourage and just got it done. Once Sophie was all cleaned up and changed, I was able to run downstairs and make the salad and get the bread out and set the table and serve the lasagna. I had given Nate and company a 10 minute warning. Then I had Sophie go downstairs and announce dinner. 10 minutes later I sat down to eat with Sophie. 20 minutes after that I had her run downstairs again to remind them that dinner was ready and getting cold.

They finally came upstairs and my top was literally boiling over with steam. I was super p/oed and wanted to scream--but couldn't do that in front of Nate's business partner. He knew how pissed I was though by the look on my face and the fact that I said nothing to either of them when they first came up. I sat with them though and chatted anyway while they ate their nearly cold lasagna before tackling again-cleaning the kitchen. I figured the best way to diffuse my frustration was to at least talk to adults for a little while, before the Wonder Pets came on.

At this point I was beginning to wonder if I would ever see my computer again--I'm just too jammed packed with things to do, and now I was too tired to even fire up the laptop in bed. At least Sophie was ready for bed. I can't remember how quickly we fell asleep that night, but I do know that both of us were in bed by 7:45 that night. I'm pretty sure I fell asleep before Sophie.

This picture doesn't do it justice--it almost looks better during the day because of the giant spider web--but it still looks pretty cool.

I think I just love this picture because of the possessed dog --his ears are sooo funny!

Saturday Summary Part 2: 9.24 to 9.26

Wednesday, September 24

Music Class and some Lemon Cake

We had music first thing in the morning and it is by far the best class we take. I'll be so sad when Sophie is too old to go. It's just that much fun. I wonder if they would let me go without a kid? Probably not-that might be a little creepy.

ANYWAY--we were feeling our usual post-music let down because we can't seem to get enough of our Miss Joan, so I decided we should make a quick trip to Walmart and peruse the Halloween stuff for a perk-up. On our way Sophie mentions that she wants lemon cake. I thought about for a minute and decided OK--as long as you make it yourself.

It was a success--even though we made a giant mess and managed to set off the fire alarms. The only downfall was the fact that she didn't want frosting (which REALLY surprised me) and lemon cake really needs frosting.

Here are the pics from the process......

using her pouring skills

using her stirring skills with her hands

using her stirring skills with a spatula

using her tasting skills once her hair is finally back

and finally, the finished products....a pumpkin, leaves, tulips and daisies. These would have been AWESOME if she wanted to frost them, but that's OK. I really don't need to be eating any cake anyway--especially with Halloween just around the corner.

Sophie was so happy that I let her make cake she decided it would be OK to go to the health club. She's starting to hate it and getting her to go is turning into a challenge.

That night instead of TV we decided we needed to start learning the music for music class better so we got out the instruments and the book and started jamming away. There is a really cool song about a canoe that Sophie and I loved. It has a really simple little beat and I can play it on her little recorder. After singing it for awhile Sophie suggested that we make a canoe to paddle down the river. So, a canoe was built!

Here she is trying to paddle the canoe with her pink recorder.

Once she got tired of playing music Sophie decided to take her toys for a ride on her canoe-turned-sailboat. She goes, "Bye Mommy! We're off to Egypt! Love you!"

I think the Little Einsteins had been to Egypt that day.

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Thursday, September 25

Painting Pumpkins

With super-human energy I decided to invite my neighbors over to paint some of the pumpkins we had picked up last week at the pumpkin patch. My usual peppy self was starting to show signs of tiring though once the paints were out. I think at this point I had officially run out of steam and I even forgot to take pictures! The pumpkins got painted with as little effort from me as I could get away with. They are cute and I'm pretty sure the kids had a good time painting-so that's all that really matters.

My friend and I just ended up chatting for a couple of hours before she took her little ones home for a nap and Sophie and I snuggled upstairs and watched a movie. I was beat. So was she because it was another GORGEOUS day outside and neither one of us felt like doing anything. She even choose to take a nap after the movie instead of going to the health club with me. I was grateful for the day off the elliptical. I'm a little sore anyway.

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Friday, September 26

Yesterday I dropped Sophie at my mom's for the day and headed over to the gym for a stress-free workout. Not sure if it was just my busy week or my fuzzy brain but I got a huge case of the clumsies yesterday. I tripped, dropped my towel, almost had my ear ripped off when I stepped down to retrieve the towel because I forgot about my ipod, then TWICE I came dangerously close to falling over when my hands slipped on the handlebars while trying to take my heart rate. I . was . horrified!!!!!!

I spent 73 minutes (1 hour 13 min) on the elliptical yesterday burning a whopping 750 calories. My legs are really hoping I gain some confidence soon. I literally could not even look in the mirrors much less get off the machine until I knew for sure that no one who might have seen me would even remotely still be there. Like anyone is looking anyway right? Oh and I came home too exhausted to even shower again, so I sat around and watched a movie and TV for the rest of the day--until bedtime.

Yeah, I think I'm going to actually lose some weight here. Oh and speaking of tired, I totally forgot to post not only the wordful wednesday the PhotoStory Friday as well! jeez--I had better try to get a little more organized this week. AND schedule some reading time. How did I get so busy so quickly? I can't even figure out what changed!

Thursday, September 18, 2008

"Tea Party Breakfast"

Because we are doing these activities at home and there are no other children for Sophie to play with-I am trying really hard to make all of the basic Montessori lessons I find as fun for her as possible. When we sat down to have this tea party breakfast, I had already made her crust less toast in little heart shapes with her favorite strawberry jam. I put the crust in her crown plate and added a few dollops of jam to dip in if she preferred. (I also stuck in her little box of cookies she wanted from the store that week because they were pink and looked cute on the table.)

As far as skills go, Sophie practice pouring and was even able to hold the saucer while she poured. She really had fun pouring (I used sugar-free cranberry juice in the teapot and we pretended it was our favorite passion herbal tea from Starbucks) and kept offering me more tea. I ended up drinking a lot of tea that morning, but that's OK, she really had a good time.
We also practiced some manners and used lots of words like, "May I" and "Please & Thank You." She was also getting a kick out of being the 'hostess' and kept offering me and Belle more and more things.
The only flaw was that she wouldn't take 'no thank you' for an answer and kept pushing. Hmmm, I wonder where that came from?
After breakfast I showed her how 'bus' the table and take everything to the sink where Sophie went ahead and washed all of the dishes. She had a ball!
We were spending way more time than planned on this activity, so I jumped in and dried the dishes for her.
I think it was a great success. She has excellent manners AND can manage to pour very well. Every bath time since she's had tea parties with her tub toys and has even added some 'foam' (suds) like they do at Starbucks.

If only I had stopped there for the day....... but oh no, not me............

Sophie grabbed her binkie/bunny right after she finished the dishes and said she wanted to watch TV. Well, I had already planned an afternoon at the pumpkin patch-including a fun little car picnic for lunch. I intended doing this for fun rather than using it as a learning activity. However, the petting zoo was empty and the workers really wanted someone to 'educate' on all of the animals as we walked through--the result was we were bombarded with TMI and by the time we got home we were exhausted and more than a little overwhelmed! We fed goats and pet the baby chicks and saw a giant pig just about to give birth and even pet the little baby horses and tried to feed them some corn as well. It was one LONG day! We did have a good time though.

The hay ride was her favorite part.

She sure does love these giant jumpy things though.



She got a big kick out of the train ride too.