My Family Life

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Caden Helping Daddy

Caden's new haircut! I like it due to easy maintenance, but I sure loved his long hair.

Hannah 20 1/2 months old

Hannah putting rocks in Caden's toy while he is helping Daddy.

What?

Caden loves to help Daddy! Same day when the weather was nice we spent all day out side. Wow! We can not wait until it gets warmer.

Independant but Becoming Friends

We finally got a day outside...boy we are not used to having such cold weather. I can not wait until spring gets here...sun where are you? Anyways, every since we have been inside so much the kids have become playmates. They are learning to play with one another...it is so cute. Yes, there is crying, arguing and non-sharing. But there are special moments where they grab each others hand to play, sit together and read books, and sharing moments. Just some adorable moments. So blessed!

Monday, February 15, 2010

Bible Lessons

I have constantly been on a search for a Bible curriclum that suits our family. Well, I still have not found it. Our church has created their own and is in the process of testing it out. So in the mean time this is what we are doing.

Previously our Mommy School was done by flip charts, I have up-graded and am using power point slide shows. I posted it on Scrib, some of the clip art did not come up on the slide...sorry.
So what I do is go through each slide so we stay on task. It works extremely well for us.

K, so back to the Bible Study. Our teaching paster's blog sent me to a site called Sojourn Kids Family Worship Guide. Click on the site and you will need to click on Sojourn Kids Family Worship Guide and it will take you to the guide that helps you pick out Bible's, story Bibles, etc. that is age appropriate to your child.

Once I got our bibles we added them into our curriculum. We go along with ABC Jesus Loves Me curriculum (as of now). We we read from Adventures Bible for Early Readers. Then once we have read from the bible we read from My First Study Bible. After that I will then ask the kids questions and do some activities from ABC Jesus Loves Me.

Friday, January 29, 2010

Polar Bears

For circle time they decided to bring all their stuffed animals!

Hannah pouring potato flakes on her polar bear.

Hannah's completed polar bear.

Caden's completed polar bear.

Sorry I have not done much of any posting. We have been doing Mommy School but I just have not taken many pictures. We have had a wonderful month getting back into the swing of things. We have learned about the letter M, N, and O and their sounds. We have have learned about the numbers 7, 8, and 9. Our theme has been winter all month so we have learned about snow, penguins and polar bears. Lots of fun stuff!

This past week we focused on penguins, number 9, snowflakes, and polar bears. The kids have really enjoyed the penguins and polar bears. Again, for our circle time is when I introduce our lesson and they watch 1-2 little videos of what ever the topic is for that week. After we have circle time is when we read a story and then craft.

I did take a picture of our circle time and polar bear craft!

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Learning Letters and Sounds

This DVD is amazing!!! Let me explain a little background info. first. Our TV watching has decreased a significant amount in the past 6 months! Caden used to watch TV about 3-4 times a day. So that would be about 1-2 hours of TV watching a day. This was all so I could take care of other things around the house a long with Hannah. As of 6 months ago we decreased it to one show in the morning and one in the evening, so that would be an 1- 1 1/2 hours a day. The way I got him to turn the TV off in the morning was I told him that the next time he could watch it was after bath when it gets dark outside. That worked well because he was really attached to the TV. Even with an 1- 1 1/2 hours of TV watching I still felt he was still addicted to the TV watching. So for the past 3 weeks it has been 5-10 minutes or even none in the morning and 1 show in the evening. So that would be about 30 minutes-1 hour a day. I feel that this amount of TV watching is perfect for us because before over one hour of TV watching he seemed to have been addicted to it. For example, when he was bored or his feelings were hurt or Mommy or Daddy said "No" to something he would ask for it. Now he knows the only times of day he can watch it is the morning and evening so he doesn't ask for it other parts of the day. He also does not ask for it when he can not deal with his emotion. I am so thankful that we made that change in our daily routine. Caden has even had less tantrums and is a lot more vocal in his communication.

Well back to the Learning Letters and Sounds!!! We went on vacation about 3 weeks ago and drove in the car for 7 hours so TV was defiantly aloud at some parts of the drive. The DVD we chose was LeapFrog Learning Letters and Sounds. I absolutely love it! I am not sure how many times the kids watched the DVD but Caden already knows his letter sounds for the entire alphabet!!!!!! My husband keeps quizzing him because he just can not believe it. I love they way they introduce the sounds and make them so they have some type of character action going on. Flashcards came with ours too and they have the characters on them too!!!! Love it!!! So I am proud to say that at 3 years old my son knows his letter sounds....so proud! Thanks LeapFrog

Even though we have limited our TV watching I still do believe that some TV is important for visual learning. I also believe that we need to limit it so our children and adults are not addicted to it because I found that my son was not expressing his communication skills enough. I also believe that has happened alot with our society, computers, video games, cell phones and etc. can be such a distraction to our relationships if we are not careful. So Good Luck!!!

Impressive!:)

Caden and Daddy have their Daddy time and when they do Caden does some things I did not realize he could do. In the first picture with the duck Daddy had to leave so I got that picture out for him. I laid it on the table and I said I will be right back and then I came back and he had done the entire dot to dot page on his own. I was so impressed! I ran outside to yell for Aaron (my husband) before he left so I could show him what Caden did!!!

The second photo Caden and Daddy did together. I am so blessed that his Daddy sits down with him and plays with him!!! What an awesome Dad and husband!

Saturday, January 9, 2010

Number 7 and Letter M

Friday we officially started back to Mommy School. It went great! The kids were focused the entire time. Which is always difficult with a 3 year old and a 20 month old.

We began with our calendar, weather, alphabet song and new winter songs. Caden is really doing great with his alphabet and he also knows all his letter sounds. Thanks to LeapFrog The Letter Factory.

Then we moved to the kitchen table to do art. This helps eliminate paint in any other parts of the house.

Letter M:

We used the poster from A Beka and it has a song that goes with it for teaching the sound of the letter M.
I looked up Sesame Street letter M on YouTube and had the kids watch that after I introduced the letter.
We painted the letter M and decorated it. M is for Mountain, we put white caps on top of the M.

Number 7:

Looked up Sesame Street #7 on YouTube and had the kids watch it.
Colored a number 7 worksheet. When they were coloring I gave them 7 markers.
I gave each of them 7 bugs and a basket. I had them dump the bugs out of the basket and count 7 of them into the basket.

Slowly getting back on track!

Counting bugs

Stacking cups and blocks

Caden really enjoyed playing with pretend snow.

At the beginning of last week I decided we should slowly get back into things. I am sure glad I did because Monday we did an unorganized Mommy School and Tuesday our heater broke. So we had to stay at my parents house and my Mother and Father in-laws house. Thank goodness we got it fixed before the temperature dropped to freezing.