Letter C

Letter C and school.

Caleb was excited about our letter this week: C. Here are a few activities we've done this week for letter C and for fall...


~ Here's a video of Caleb singing our morning song: days of the week/month of the year. (he really loves singing these)

 letter C cotton ball art (c used the glue to draw a c and put cotton balls on top)

 

invitation to explore (I set this up with cotton balls, tongs, and an egg carton; lucas worked on this activity for a long time!)

 

Acorn art (we used acorns that we collected from one of our evening walks and paint)

 caleb was very interested in using blue and green and then pink and blue paint. He enjoyed talking about what color they made once they were combined.  I really like how grasping the acorn allowed Caleb to work on his fine motor pencil grip.

 

Letter C activities (counting, cutting, matching with magnets, tracing, C dots, more counting, lacing, poking, patterns, and size matching) these were some of our letter C activities from our confessions of a homeschooler prek letter of the week curriculum

 

A couple fall books we enjoyed reading this week. 

 The boys really like Mouse's First Fall. (Caleb saw all the mouse books on the back cover and keeps asking for Mouse's first snow! Haha.)

I loved the illustrations in these two books.

 

 

School

Here are a couple pictures from pre-school

 stringing beads and sharing his letter B items (last week)

each week the kids get to bring in an item to share that goes along with the letter they are learning that week.

 

 Each week C seems more and more comfortable in his preschool environment. Today when we left he watched from the window for a second before re-engaging in his play. Last week he climbed up the slide with another child and then explored climbing up a tree before he ended up in the sandbox.  Little bits of information from school come into his conversation with us. His teachers have been giving us great descriptors of his day which I greatly appreciate. He willingly goes up to the front of the classroom and shares his letter of the week item (and tells everyone what the item is). He is transitioning from each activity and engaging in his play inside and outside. He is communicating with his teacher and has with other children as well. These are huge victories for him and us. To most they would seem small but to us they are huge!  

 

And on C's preschool day...I've got this little one all to myself. Here is a video of him at his finest. These boys and their music. Songs. Instruments. Dancing. They love it all.  

 

 

 

and finally, a couple pictures from our week just hanging out at home...

 

We've really been enjoying the cooler weather and the feeling of fall!

 waiting for dad on the front porch with puzzles and fall jewels in a bucket

 

D's been working hard this week and a customer has been in most of the week. So that means daddy dresses up and the boys reap the benefits when he comes home! Dress up clothes :)

 

 

It has been a great first week of fall :)

 

my favorite moment by far were the hugs and kisses and laughter of the boys at bedtime giving me and the baby lots of kisses. Then Caleb very seriously talking to the baby and rubbing my belly says "good night sweet guy" Goodness I love them.

 

 

 

 

 

22 weeks

Pregnancy 22 weeks

This is my favorite stage of pregnancy. Feeling the baby kick. My other favorite thing? The way the boys love giving kisses to the baby on my belly and their random through the day baby belly rubs.

pregnancy highlights week 22: running (still, but a lot slower than I used to be). enjoying food again. thank goodness. 13lbs weight gain. baby kicks. middle of the night side switching and bathroom trips. starting to feel big. my favorite stage of pregnancy. baby gymnastics. the very best. two big brothers my favorite.  

Boys weekend

Boys Weekend

The boys had so much fun with daddy this weekend while I was in Wisconsin for a wedding/ohana reunion.  D sweetly sent me pictures through the weekend which made smile. I missed them-a lot. It was the farthest and longest (two nights) away from them ever. (I've only spent one night away at a time from them and it has always been a weekend away with d)  Had D been with me, maybe I wouldn't have been as homesick but navigating the airport alone had me a little flustered and mostly I just ached for my baby boys; to hold them and kiss them and hear their giggles. I was so happy to be home with all my boys on sunday morning!! It was a great weekend but I sure did miss them.

 Their big smiles miles away made my day.

 And seeing their sleeping faces before I went to bed at night was perfect (sure do love my hubs! He knows just what I need)

 (Caleb arranged that bedtime set up on his own. Sweet boy)

Wedding

A beautiful state! (cornfields and river and blue skies!) An amazing fall wedding (I was in love with the red colors used and the fall décor at the reception) And perfect weather! Crisp and cool (a rainfall to greet us on Friday) It was so fun to catch up with everyone and hear about what they are doing and it was so special to celebrate a special couple on their wedding day. Another great Ohana reunion (This was the very special group I volunteered with in East LA the year after I graduated from Cal Poly; we call each other Ohana (which means family) and try and get together every year for a reunion. It's so special that we can stay connected years after our time together in LA)

 

most favorite moment of all this weekend...

coming home to their hugs and kisses and little boy laughter.

 

Hope everyone had a great weekend ;)

 

...and I'm so excited we are now officially in Fall Season!!

 

This week our fall shows start: parenthood, grey's anatomy, and Nashville. Parenthood is by far my very favorite show to watch.

image via google

 

What are your fall favorites?

 

I love...fall leaves, crisp autumn air, baking pumpkin bread, eating honey crisp apples, putting up fall home decorations, family walks in the evening, crunchy red leaves, pumpkins, sweaters, burning my pumpkin spice candle, and enjoying cozy fall meals. A couple of my favorite fall dinners are: pork chops and apple squash and tomato pasta soup. Something about squash in the fall! Yum. I also love when our Rachel Ray magazine comes in the mail with new recipes to kick off each season! (seriously so good. and we've been able to use our favorite Rachel Ray recipes and adapt the ones that need to be changed slightly in order to accommodate C's dietary needs)
 

image via google

 

 

Happy Fall.

 

 

our week.

Some thoughts to share and what we've been up to this week.

brother boys. love them so.
First off I wanted to share this beautiful blog post I read today. I love reading this mom's blog 71 toes. She blogs about life with her five adorable children; aged teenager to first grade. The youngest one has a rare genetic condition that can cause early blindness. Her blog is so inspiring to me and she encourages with such faith and truly is a remarkable person! Anyway this post is about her youngest daughter who is now in school.. It brought me to tears as I read it; perhaps more so as we have embarked on this school journey with caleb.  If you're interested here is the link to read her post....everyone needs a mrs. twinkle. 

On Tuesday Lucas and I arrived early to pick caleb up from pre-school (not uncommon; I like to be there at the end of the day to sit in on their closing circle time of songs and books)  I watched and was not surprised to see my sweet boy sitting alone in the sandbox as all the other kids twirled and laughed and jumped and ran all around the yard. This didn't surprise me, yet it hurt a little all the same. Mostly I'm not surprised because this is who he is; an observer. He comes home singing songs from his day and tells me about what he did. When I was little I sat alone everyday in kindergarten. This didn't bother me. (Although I know it hurt my mom's heart as she watched me alone everyday from her classroom window)  I always had my sisters to play with at home. Jenny joined me the next year and we had each other through school and year by year I slowly learned how to make friends and had some very close friends in high school who I have stayed close with to this day..  by college (still pretty shy) I wasn't nearly as shy as I was of my early school years. I feel as though my shyness has weeded out those who would not stay long to begin with and I have some truly special friends and people who have seen past my initial quietness and reached in anyway. My prayer for Caleb and all my boys is that they too will have some very special friends who will be with them along the way.

Mostly I'm just so grateful that my boys will always have each other and that they as brothers will always be best friends just as I have always had my sisters as my best friends. This is Caleb's first school experience and he's already made huge strides and I know he will continue to do so at his own pace and that's just as it should be. I'm thankful for encouragers out there and for those who love my sweet boy exactly as he is.

Letter B and fall
At school and at home we have been talking a lot about letter B, doing some fall crafts, and reading books relating to fall and letter B. For our letter B activities we did lacing, poking a B (with push pins), writing, puzzles, patterns, etc. Here are some of the activities below. I'm learning each week what Caleb's most interested in; like lacing and puzzles and art.

Leaves. we collected some leaves on a bike ride and brought them home to paint with. I started with just red and yellow but Caleb really was interested in using his favorite color green and adding in some blue too. To go along with this activity we read a couple leaf stories. Leaf Man and Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf.

 Lucas was more interested in enjoying his yogurt snack :)

Here are some Letter B / alphabet books we picked up at the library this week to read. Alphabet Rescue was really fun and colorful and lucas was really excited about the fire truck. King Bidgood's In The Bathtub is a silly and really fun one to read out loud! ( I love books with a lot of rhythm and colorful illustrations)

 We made a butterfly as one of our letter B art activities. (Caleb drew his own butterfly; I offered him a picture of a butterfly to look at since he wanted help drawing it. And he ripped up and cut some tissue paper and then wanted to use his glitter glue to put on the wings) The ripping of the tissue paper and squeezing of the glue was great fine motor practice.

 both boys really like using the glitter glue.

 

 Letter B bean activity .

 Lucas: top picture and Caleb bottom picture (lucas is really interested in drawing right now as you can see from all the swiggles in his picture) )

To go along with B we put beans on letter B. Caleb's really interested right now in talking about upper case and lower case letters. He likes saying the name (upper or lower case)  and still loves making all the letter sounds for different words he hears or for things he sees while we are driving or walking. I.e. He will say "cow...'c' 'c' 'c' (making the c sound)... c for Cow!" He still loves spelling (out loud) certain words like stop, go, his name and lucas name, etc. (This isn't something we set out to teach him it's more that he is so curious about letters right now that he is asking a lot about them so we just try and tune into his interests and nurture that) Writing letters/tracing is a fine motor skill he is still developing and usually needs more encouragement to stay with it. He gets a lot of practice at OT though and we work on it at home as well doing little bits at a time


blocks, beads, puzzles.

I pulled out some blocks and beads to work on and Caleb's been working on his caterpillar puzzles a lot this week. Both boys are really interested in puzzles right now.

From confessions of a home schooler prek letter of the week curriculum

Letter B

 This is a magnet activity (placing on circles)

 sorting sizes

 puzzle match up

 tracing

 sorting upper and lower case letters

 more tracing

lacing, poking, and my favorite one... number matching (1-10) with clothespins.

Using the clothespins to the corresponding number was great fine motor practice for Caleb and we did it on his therapy ball like he does in OT and he would reach down to get clothespins on either side and then clip them on the corresponding number.


And he wanted in on a picture ;) Sweet boy.

Our sensory bin was filled with beans this week and the boys loved scooping and pouring and making pretend food with some pumpkin/leaf/acorn jewels (from the target dollar bin)

 Just had to end with them. My sweet brother boys. Love them soo!!

Happy Weekend!!

I'll be flying to Minnesota for a wedding/reunion with my Ohana (I will be seeing my roommates who did the Vincentian Service Core in East LA with me back in 2007/08) and I am just so excited. It'll be my first time ever being a state away for two nights from my boys! But they are with daddy so they will be having plenty of fun.

disclaimer! we are just starting out on this 'homeschool' journey so I'm learning a lot and have mostly been using confessions of a homeschooler letter of the week curriculum for letters and fantastic fun and learning     for sensory and art activities. Each day I feel like I just have no idea what I'm doing but providing a little more structure to our day has been helping a lot and the boys are having fun as we take it day by day together ;)
any tips, suggestions, and/or ideas are welcome ;)