Pre-K Update 2

We are now 10 weeks into school, and B is doing wonderfully.  He is reading all number words one through ten, and can read all of the primary and secondary color words.  We spent the last four weeks working on the letters G, H, B, and P and the numbers 7-10.  We also read the books The Three Billy Goats Gruff, The Little Red Hen, Barn Dance, and Mr. Pine's Purple House.  B is slowly gaining some appreciation for writing, but he really loves doing math.  He loves to count objects and write numbers.  His fine motor skills are improving as well.  His handwriting has improved by leaps and bounds, and he is gaining better control when cutting with scissors as well.  He knows his letter sounds very well but really struggles with putting the sounds together to make words.  He is hit and miss with rhyming words as well, but we are still working on it.  I keep reminding myself that phonics is a developmental thing and he might just not be ready for it quite yet.  We do little bits at a time to keep both of us from getting too frustrated.  haha

Here is his (and C's) work for the last few weeks:

We made gumball machines for the letter Gg, little red hens for the letter Hh, bats for the letter Bb, and pumpkin patch pictures for the letter Pp.  I also added in a couple of pages that I had left over from teaching Kindergarten:  the Little Red Hen sequencing page and the cut and paste sorting by initial sounds page which he loved and had no trouble with.

I just can't wait to see how far he will have gone by Christmas!!

Operation Christmas Child Shoe Boxes

Every year I participate in Samaritan's Purse's Operation Christmas Child by making two shoe boxes.  These shoe boxes are given to needy children all over the world as a Christmas gift.  I usually do a boy box and a girl box, and I typically choose the oldest age group because I assume that is the category that gets the least amount of boxes turned it.  But in all honesty, my shoe boxes are usually pretty generic and will work for almost any age.

So the kids and I went shopping for our shoe boxes today, and here is what we came home with:

Each shoe box contains:

• a flashlight--$1 from Dollar Tree
• 6 D batteries for the flashlight--3 for $1 from Dollar Tree
• 2 toothbrushes--$1 from Dollar Tree
• a tube of toothpaste--$1 from Dollar Tree
• hair brush--$1 from Dollar Tree
• a bar of soap--3 for $1 from Dollar Tree
• 12 colorful pencils--$1 from Dollar Tree
• small stuffed animal--$1 from Dollar Tree
• a yo-yo--$3 from Wal-Mart
• a package of socks--$2.88 from Wal-Mart
• a deck of playing cards--2 for $2.47 from Wal-Mart
• a washcloth--$0.47 from Wal-Mart
• a 1-subject notebook--$0.97 from Wal-Mart
• a pencil sharpener--$0.50 from Wal-Mart
• a box of crayons--$1.47 from Wal-Mart

I bought the plastic 'shoe boxes' from Dollar Tree, but I would not advise someone else to use them.  They are not very sturdy and I can't fit everything in them.  I plan to return to Wal-Mart and get a higher quality box.

Usually, I buy the school supplies for my shoe boxes in July when they are on sale and stash them at the top of my closet.  Apparently I forgot this year, because the only thing in my stash was the pencil sharpeners.  The crayons would have only been $0.25, the notebooks would have been $0.15, and the pencils probably would have been less than a dollar as well.  With the $7 for shipping that you are to include in the box, each box costs me less than $30.  Samaritan's Purse puts information in each box about Jesus and the salvation that is available to everyone.  This is an amazing ministry opportunity, and all you have to do is take one look at a testimony from a child who has received one of these boxes (which you can find easily of YouTube) and you will be heading out the door to shop for a precious child in need.  Be sure to go here and find out all the details about how to pack your own shoe box.

I {heart} Pumpkin Spice Cookies

One of my favorite things about the fall is pumpkins.  I love the way they look and, as you can see from my fall decor, I collect them and display them in the house.  But I am not crazy about the way it tastes.  I don't care for pumpkin pie or many of the other pumpkin flavored things.  However, I LOVE the Betty Crocker Pumpkin Spice Cookie mix.

They are easy to make, I usually have all of the necessary ingredients, and they are ready to eat in a matter of minutes.  You can make them small or large, and there are cook times on the package for both sizes.  I made the smaller sized ones and here is the finished product.  I may or may not have eaten a couple of them before snapping this picture.

They have just the right amount of pumpkin flavor and the cinnamon and other spices are just perfect.  B is a picky eater, but C is not as picky.  He is not a fan of these cookies, but C loves them.  And as you can see from this photograph, the dough is pretty good too.

Get to the store and grab some of this cookie mix fast!

Costumes on a Budget

I literally pulled my kids costumes together the day of our Journey with Jesus event at church.  I had big plans for the kids to be Jonah and the whale, but life got away from me (as it tends to do sometimes) and I had to just go with what I had.  So once again, here is the final look:

I will start with C's duck costume.  The actual costume part was a hand-me-down from friends, so I just decided to go with that.  I put a white short sleeved shirt and tights with it.  I grabbed her yellow bow and my feather stash.  I pulled all the yellow feathers from the stash, bunched them together and stuffed them in the bow.  I cut the feet out of orange construction paper and tied them around her ankles with orange polka dot ribbon that I had left over from a sewing project.

B's David costume was really easy to throw together.  My mom had recently given me two old pillow cases for just such an occasion.  I cut the side seams out of the pillow case, trimmed off several inches of the length, and cut a neck hole.  I used some of the excess from the length to cut a strip for the head band.  I had some brown flannel for another project, so I cut a strip of that for the belt.  The Hubs decided B needed a  slingshot, so he grabbed the flannel, cut out a slingshot, and tucked it in the belt.  Pic to come.

Journey with Jesus

For the second year in a row, our church offered a Trick-or-Treat alternative called Journey with Jesus.  Basically, the kids travel around the church, knock on doors and get candy (just like trick-or-treating), but the difference is that each room is a different location where Jesus went at some point in his life.  Someone is there to tell about what Jesus did in that place.  After listening to the story, the kids got candy and traveled on.  It was a super fun night, and my kids loved it--as did the Hubs and I.

B wanted to go as David from the Bible, and C went as a duck/chick.  I would call their costumes this year "Halloween on a budget" as I did not spend a dime on their costumes.  Everything was stuff I already had on hand from other projects or hand-me-downs.  More on that here.  They posed for a picture in front on my fall display by the kitchen door.  Please ignore the mostly dead mums and the bag of potting soil.

  

We arrived at the church and headed straight for the room where my mom and dad (aka Pop and JuJu) were sharing about how Jesus was tempted in the desert.  Then we went on to the rest of the rooms.

Jesus's first miracle--turning water into wine

Learning about Jesus from Uncle Jay

 

 Learning about Jesus's baptism in the Jordan River

Since B was dressed at David and conveniently had his "sling" tucked into his belt, he decided to slay Goliath (one of our youth boys) between room visits.

 I really loved this event at church, but there was one thing in particular that made it really great for me.  Typically, something like this is all about the kids.  But this event easily involved the entire church.  We had youth kids, college students, singles, married, young couples, grandparents, and everyone in between involved and actually sharing the gospel with the kids of the church.  It just doesn't get much better than that as far as I am concerned.

And P.S.  Happy Reformation Day!

Teacher Treats

Since B is homeschooled, I don't really get the opportunity to make all the cute little treats for his teachers like I would if we were sending him to school.  So, I decided that I should take some time to appreciate all of the great people who work with the kids at church.  I took yet another page from the book of Amanda at Dixie Delights and used both her recipe and free printable for Scarecrow Crunch.  It is quite yummy and made a super cute little gift for some very under-appreciated people.

If you decide to make this, there are a few things you may want to know.  This makes A LOT!  One cookie sheet was not enough--it easily made two full pans.  Because I had to split the honey and oil between the two pans, one pan had more honey and kinda burned a little bit.  Not to point of necessarily tasting bad, but it was still a bit darker than I would have liked.  I should have switched my pans around in the oven sooner than I did.  I also should have taken them out of the oven altogether.  But, it was still fine.

Here it is all dumped out on my counter with the candy pumpkins added in.  Like I said--there was a lot of it!  It made 12 of these little treat bags that were really the perfect size for treating the special people in your life or your kids lives.

Thanks, Amanda at Dixie Delights for the adorable idea and recipe.  And a special thank you to all of the wonderful people who work with my kiddos every time we are at church.

Fall Whoopie Pies

I attempted home made whoopie pies for the first time, and they were pretty good.  I found a quite yummy recipe for the whoopie pies, and they were pretty easy.  I had snagged the last can of fall frosting/sprinkles from our local Wal-Mart and decided to use them with the whoopie pies.  They were very cute, the kids loved making them, and we all enjoyed eating them!

Honestly, I wish there had been more sprinkles with the frosting set that I got, but they looked super cute on the pies.

And of course part of the fun is making a huge mess eating the goodies you've just made!

I love these sweet messy faces so much!!!