Home Pre-K Schedule

Well, since we can’t afford the pre-k thing right now, I’ve been inspired to be my own pre-k for Jonah and get Carly in on it too, by trying to be more structured throughout our day and having actual activities to do in mind, besides just “play with the toys in the playroom”. I know there will be days (maybe even more often than not) that we won’t follow the schedule to a T or get everything done, but I feel like this is a good jumping off point. I took the schedules of a local day care’s toddler class and combined it with their 3-year old class, then tweaked it to make it my own. Here’s what my preschool schedule looks like for my 1 year old and 3 year old:

8:00 Alarm/iphone poking or snooze
8:15 Wake-up/Devotional
8:30 Get Myself Dressed
8:45 Diaper/Potty/Get Kids Dressed
9:00 Make Breakfast/TV Time
9:15 Breakfast
9:45 Jonah’s Lesson Time
10:00 Carly’s Lesson Time
10:15 Diaper/Potty/Wash Hands
10:30 Morning Snack
10:45 Clean Up/Chores
11:00 Themed Activity (goes along with our weekly rotated toys’ theme)
11:15 Learning Activity (art, math, motor skills, social skills, etc)
11:30 Outside/Exercise
11:50 Music Time
12:00 Free Play/Make Lunch
12:15 Diaper/Potty/Wash Hands
12:30 Lunch
12:45 Clean Up/Story Time
1:00 Quiet Time
2:45 Diaper/Potty/Wash Hands
3:00 Afternoon Snack
3:15 One on One Jonah Time
3:30 One on One Carly Time
3:45 Centers/Free Play
4:45 Clean Up/Chores
5:00 Outside/Exercise
5:30 Daddy Time/Make Dinner
5:50 Potty/Hand Wash
6:00 Dinner
6:20 Family Time/Bath
6:40 PJs/Teeth/Clean Up/Watch Curious George
7:15 Story Time
7:30 Lights Out/Chores
8:00 Unwind Time
11:00 Get ready for bed
12:00 Feed Carly/Potty Jonah/Sleep

We sort of started following the schedule this weekend, but tomorrow morning is my real starting point. That thing I said about it being “off” more days than not, yeah… that’s definitely this week. Tomorrow we’ll mess it up with a trip to the library, Tuesday we’ll mess it up with going to get groceries and going to a PJ Puppet Show, Wednesday we’re hosting playgroup and I’ve signed up for listening to a photography webinar… Thursday and Friday look to be “normal” though! hehe

Update (after about a month):

We have definitely had to tweak the schedule even further, to make it really work for us. The main thing that I try to keep consistent is the 1-3 quiet time. We are in and out and all over the place more days than not, so a lot of the activities fall through the cracks. The kids are really loving the one on one time, so we make sure to do that at least once a day too.

I thought while I was here posting an update, I’d also add a couple of the resources I use to find great activities for the kids. The original schedule layout was from Kiddie Academy. They have a different schedule for each age level, so mine is a combination of the 1 & 3 year old classes. I get a lot of craft ideas and book recommendations from both No Time for Flash Cards and from Letter of the Week. They both make it easy to produce a cohesive themed unit with crafts, stories, songs, and games.

Swing Set Project

Just realized I never really posted the swing set project photos here… so here ya go!

testing the layout

ground breaking

the work crew

using his tools

setting the posts

my boys working

g-pa watching kids for us

filling the sandbox

one bucket at a time

bringing out the big guns

works much faster

end of day 1

g-pa and carly

g-pa and carly

a pic of me!

end of day 2

from the back

testing sand box

mamaw putting on the roof

testing the slide

moving toys in

end of day 3

end of day 3

from the back

picnic table mode

water table platform mode

glider attached

sand box mode

window for opening

ladder attached

flower box attached

then it snowed!

All that’s left, as of right now, is to install the fireman’s pole off the back… attach the second set of swing hangers (which we have now) and maybe add some flowers (fake or real, not sure yet) to the flower box. Then Carly is getting a baby swing for her birthday from us, and Jonah is getting a big boy swing from Mamaw and G-pa, I think, that will both get hung up.If Jonah gets the steering wheel that he wants for his birthday from someone, we’ll need to attach that too… but we’re pretty close to being DONE with this project! Yay! So fun seeing it come to life!

Learning New Things

Jonah’s vocabulary has just been exploding lately… phrases combined with subtle little sounds and gestures that just leave us in stitches… like frumpling up his eyebrows, smooching out his lips, shaking his head no and say “umm, I don’t really need to go night night right now” or the little lip smack and sigh followed by an exasperated little “you know that!” cause obviously… I should know these things. Everything is “I love” right now too. “I love our furniture”… “Oh I really love grapes.”  “I love my bed (talking about our bed)… it’s all comfurbal.”

That’s the other thing he’s been working on trying to figure out… what comfortable means. He had a flap book out that has touch and feel parts on it, like this padded angel. He was poking it and say “oh, it’s all comfurbal” So I try to tell him that comfortable is something that feels nice to sit or lay down on… so then he sits on the brick fireplace hearth “It’s all comfurbal?” hehe not so much kid, but you’ll get it eventually.

I have a video that I’ll have to load up from tonight too… his first attempts at trying to tell us about a song he sang in Sunday School today. Our church just did “Promotion Sunday” (where the kids all move up to the next level class) a month or two ago. He’s no longer in the “baby hall” where all they do is play for 2 hours. His new Sunday School class actually has tables and chairs, they do art projects, sing songs, learn Bible studies and all that. In fact, if I can remember to, I’ve been intending to scan his first Sunday School art projects and post them here. Ironically, they learned about the story of Jonah and the whale. hehe Anyway, he’s been telling us for weeks now about “sing songs, and guitars” after church… so that’s how we know they have a music time… but tonight he was going around smacking his fist on his hand saying “Stand on rock” and then with prompting we asked him what else he sang about and he said “Fall down” and he wiggled his way to a squat and popped back up. So my video clip is of him doing the 2 of those together plus doing random flips all over the place. He was WOUND UP tonight. He actually worked up a sweat before bed! haha

Carly’s learning new things too, she’s rolling all over the place, and sometimes it looks like she’s actually rolling with a purpose. We’re sitting up now from time to time… not right after eating or bad things will happen, and not when she’s tired cause she’ll stiffen her legs and fall over… but if she’s happy, and especially if she’s busy watching brother… she can sit up for as much as a minute at a time without support from me. She’s also started “talking” to Jonah. They both take turns shrieking as loud and as high pitched as they can, giggling in between. Worse than a couple of parakeets I tell ya! Oye! It’s cute though.

Hard to believe she’s already 5 months old! We started her on her first “baby food” last night… mashed up avocado and milk. With the price of pre-packaged baby foods these days, I’m thinking I’m going to try making the majority of her baby food meals myself. The avocado thing is what most moms, who make their own baby food, start with… that and mashed up bananas, because they both have a lot of good vitamins, healthy fat content for brain development and such. She seemed to like it last night, so tonight I gave her a little larger serving size (about 3 tsp + milk) and that seemed to be just about right. She was getting a little tired of it right near the end, but did end up eating it all. Now if I could just get her to take the dang bottle! She just chews it and plays with it… not really drinking anything. :-\ Oh well. I’m learning to cope with it. So I guess we’re ALL learning new things!

Good news also to share, Jason got a promotion this week! We’re on such an ancient cell phone plan (one they don’t even offer anymore cause it’s TX calling only, no mobile to mobile, no family talk, no free texts… nada) so we’re both excited about getting iphones in a month or two (after we save up for the phones themselves, the pay raise increase will pay the extra monthly service charges.) We don’t generally blow pay increases so “frivolously” but we have both been wanting to upgrade for a very long time, our phones are both having some battery life issues recently, and on so many occasions, we’ll be talking and Jason will ask me something and I say “I don’t know, let me get out my iphone so I can tell you” hehe. So this was actually a planned budget move… planned for whenever the next pay increase came. There’s also talk of a possible performance bonus coming that’ll get us the savings for the phone sooner… and maybe a decent Christmas tree since I “blew” all the money I made, painting Audrey’s kitchen, on Christmas gifts, a clearanced patio furniture set, and a portable outdoor fire pit, instead of buying myself the new tree I’ve wanted for 3-4 years now. We’ll see though. I’m just thankful that Jason’s finally getting some recognition for all the hard work he’s been putting in.

A couple of videos

Funny Pronunciations & Sayings to Remember

I don’t want to forget all the funny little things that Jonah says, cause before I know it, he’ll be a big kid talking right with no problem at all. And then it just won’t be as funny when he botches up his words. Here’s a few for me to reminisce on someday…

Ham-main-gr = Hamburger

Hopped-stick-el = Popcycle

No light *gasp* dark *gasp* nufin’ scared of! = *reminding himself, as we often do* There’s nothing to be scared of in the dark.

try you LIKE it. yo dabba. = *repeating the words from a song from the show Yo Gabba Gabba about trying new foods* “Try it. You’ll like it!”

sit down! getta spankin! what I tell you?! right now! no! don’t touch! go time out. 1 . 2. 4. 5! no sir! *in varying order and repetitions* = every discipline tactic mommy has had to use lately to keep this wild child reigned in. He yelled these refrains repeatedly all the way to Tyler and back this past weekend!

Eat our friends = Eat WITH our friends. BIG difference there, ya lil’ cannibal.LOL

Nope, Thanks = No thanks

Go back road = Going somewhere via our alley… I can’t seem to get him to call it an alley yet.

Sim-in-soup-t = Swimming suit

Hi Carly. You wake now? You smi-win? *usually done with a gentle rub of the head, a kiss, and a hug… all met with a big grin from her now* = Hi Carly. Are you awake now? Are smiling at me? (the phrases he hears me ask her when I get her out of her crib) *melts my heart THIS is why people have more than one kid!*

What’s Prob-bly Sister? = What’s your problem Sister? *when she’s crying*

May-Yale = Mail (very hick sounding and I can’t convince him that mail only has one syllable! lol )

You wake now! / Help you please! / All by you self. = I’m awake now! / Help me please / All by myself (though he’s starting to get that one right sometimes) maybe one day he’ll know his I/Me/My stuff.

You don’t. touch. trees. = I think he means just that, too, but it’s because he’d misheard me say ” You don’t touch these” and I think he thinks I mean it’s not ok to touch trees. haha

Jonah’s Recent Art

We’ve been doing at least one “ar projek” a week, and sometimes, they’re not making they’re way onto the 365 blog. So here are a few of the projects we’ve done for our letter of the week. Once we’ve already done the letter, if he asks to do another project later on in the week, we make something else that starts with the letter of the week so we have more opportunity to talk about that letter and what sound it makes etc. I got most of the ideas for these projects from http://www.notimeforflashcards.com

Potty Training and Dentist Updates

Jonah went to the dentist today. She gave him a free flouride treatment that wasn’t covered by insurance because she wanted his tooth that he chipped last year to have some extra protection. Other than that he did ok and everything looked good!

Potty training is going pretty well. He’s gotten great about telling us when he’s gotta pee, but still hasn’t figured out the other. He generally waits until he’s in a pull up (which he’s only wearing when we go out or he’s sleeping), which I guess is ok in his mind because it’s like a diaper. We’ll get it figured out though. I was proud that he went on a public toilet today cause they’re generally scared of that at first. And it was an auto flushing one no less!

He’s not sleeping nearly enough though. He’s pushing bedtime later and later with repetitive requests to “tee tee mores” and we can’t tell him no because when we get him in there, he DOES manage to produce at least a little most times. Then I guess because he’s feeling wet in the mornings now, he’s waking up even earlier. With Carly not going to bed till 1am or later most nights this past week, I’m really starting to feel like a zombie!

Getting Ready for a Change

Jason has been out of town all week on business, and will be back late Friday night. We decided that we’d go ahead with our plans to officialy start potty training Jonah, even though his trip cut his long weekend short. Mostly because Jonah’s being very interested now, and if we wait two weeks until the next long weekend, he might not be so interested anymore. It’s also because we’re very close to the end of a box of diapers and I’d really just rather not have to buy more.

So tonight I told Jonah that we’re going to have a special Potty Party when Daddy comes home in a day or two. That he’ll get presents and will get to start using the big potty all the time, that he won’t have to wear diapers any more. He seemed like he liked the idea cause he was nodding and grinning and telling me “Daddy come home, potty party, big boy unnerwears” and such. Oh I hope this works well… he’s really smart so I don’t doubt that he CAN learn it quickly, it’s a matter of us not doing anything in the process to piss him off about pottying or he’ll outright refuse the whole idea… that’s just the way he is about stuff. If he’s happily eating his dinner and you tell him to not swing his fork around with food on it…. he’s likely to sulk up and shout “ALL DONE!” and refuse to eat another bite. We’re just going to have to do a lot of tounge biting I imagine.

I am glad that it’s working out with Jason being gone because it will feel like a major shift, like I said “when Daddy gets home” it’ll be time to be a big boy.

Going To 3-Columns

As I’m sure you have noticed, the blog has changed looks again. I have been trying to figure out how so many of my friends had lists of the blogs of their friends where it’d show the most recent post as part of the link. Well today I discovered the RSS feed function and figured out that THAT’S how they’ve been doing it! I am horrible about not going to check my friends’ blogs for updates because I just don’t have time to go through the list that often… but this way I can scan down the right column of our blog to see if any of my friends have updated their blogs. Maybe I’ll be a better blog reader now!

I switched to the 3-Column blog design because I follow a LOT of blogs and the RSS Feed makes each blog link take up about 3 lines, but with 3 columns I can have a side bar for my guests (the left side) that has all the info they might need for navagating around OUR blog, and then I have a sidebar (the right side) that helps me navigate all of my friend’s blogs quicker. Hope it doesn’t cause too much confusion for some of my less technically savy readers!

My Finished Pages

As I finish the pages to my “Week in the Life” scrapbook, I’ll post them here for your viewing pleasure. I’m pretty new to the whole digital scrapbooking (this is actually my first fully digital scrapbook.) Update: as of 10-15-08 I have finished the book! I suppose maybe I should make a cover page for it, but I’ll leave that for when/if I decide to actually get it printed. Here are all 22 pages though! Wow, look at me go, starting and finishing a major project within a reasonable time frame! *gasp* Now I guess I need to focus on finishing our bathroom project! hehe

Pages 01 & 02

 

Pages 03 & 04

 

Pages 05 & 06

 

Pages 07 & 08

 

Pages 09 & 10

 

Pages 11 & 12

 

Pages 13 & 14

 

Pages 15 & 16

 

Pages 17 & 18

 

Pages 19 & 20

  

Pages 21 & 22

GIVING CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE:

I got this wonderful freebie set of digital scrapbooking papers and embellishments, called “Express Yourself”, by Ronna Penner, from the Shabby Princess website. The “Week in the Life” project idea, again, was from Alli Edward’s Blog. The “Story of Today” layout idea was from her templates that she sells (I just made my own to look like hers) and the other layouts were also from her designs for a Shutterfly album called “Everyday Life” (which I also just made my own versions of). The “Official Allie Edwards Sript Font” you see used was downloaded for free from her site as well. Other standard issue fonts used: courier new, corbel, city blueprint, and impact.