Mom, take a picture of us!

Max & Jensyn were having a sweet moment in the chair this morning.

Max asked me to take a picture.

Alex wanted to take a picture, too:

That’s all…just a cute moment :)

What Letter Says “OO”?

Alex was feeling squished while taking a bath with Max last night. 

Alex said to Max, "Move out of my way. Move, as in c-a-k-e!! Uh, I mean, m...m...m...Hey, Mommy, what letter says OOO?!"

That’s just one of many of the little things that make me giggle as Alex is learning that letters make words.  This is a pretty fun stage in his development :)

Our Little Bookworm

We often find Jensyn with a book in her hands.  She loves to carry them around the house, hand them to me (“Heeya Go, Mama”), or sit and “read” them to herself.

I caught her in her bedroom this morning, paging through a little Bible story book all by herself.  She gave me the biggest grins when she saw the camera :)

I love the tongue hanging out…it’s just so very…JENSYN.

 

She will look at a book in my lap, and she *might* let me read her a few pages.  Mostly, though, she prefers to look at books on her own.  Hopefully that will eventually translate into a love of reading!

Alex’s Big Adventure

We had a crazy couple of days around here!  Alex had a cold, and it settled into his chest.  He woke up early on Tuesday morning, breathing very quickly and retracting with each breath.

Daddy was on a business trip in Alabama, and we’re very thankful for two sets of grandparents who stepped up to make things a whole lot easier in the midst of this crazy week! 

My mom dropped everything, came to our house with nothing but the clothes on her back, and stayed until Alex was released.  My dad came down to be with my mom on the second night until I could get home with Alex.  Keith’s parents kept us company at the hospital, brought presents to keep Alex busy, made phone calls, and picked up prescriptions.

 

talking on the phone to daddy, who felt terrible that he couldn’t be here
   

watching Netflix on Mama’s Kindle

playing with his new Spiderman toy from Grandma & Papa

 

Alex’s glowing pulse-ox monitor

When Alex first woke in the morning, I asked him if he wanted to
stay awake  or get some more rest.  His very true answer? 

“Mommy, it is SUPER DUPER hard to sleep in a hospital!”

Funny faces in the mirror on the bed tray

 

eating a few bites of lunch -
mostly he was just thirsty

hospital playroom – Alex’s favorite part of his hospital stay

FINALLY released at 10:30 PM – HOORAY!

 

We have a wonderful doctor, and the nurses were all so very kind!
While it was a very late release, we appreciate that his doctor was willing to come at 9 PM after her own very crazy day to release him! :)

We have our very own $130 “souvenir” – a nebulizer for home.
It’s been an interesting week, to say the least!

Printables: What’s In The Works?

I received a request yesterday for a pumpkin themed pack, and that made me realize that some of you might be wondering what’s in the works for upcoming holidays.  So, here’s your (short) list:

Pumpkin Patch – to be completed by October 1st
graphics from Scrappin’ Doodles

Nativity – to be completed by December 1st
graphics from Jessica Weible

Updates to Mini-Packs:
Monsters – by October 8th
Christmas Candy – by December 1st

Update to older pack:
Tools – no deadline

Big Project:
K4 Handwriting Curriculum – no deadline

see details {HERE}

MFW K ~ Unit 1 (Sun) Highlights

{CLICK HERE} to view the rest of our MFW K unit posts.

{CLICK HERE} to view our post explaining WHY we chose MFW K for our family.

Alex is 4 years, 8 months/Max is 36 months

We learned that “Jesus is the Light of the World.”
Our letter is Ss (Sun.)

PRE-KINDERGARTEN
BOOKS

~ and ~

Shadows Everywhere by Gina Shaw (no image available)
What Makes A Shadow by Clyde Robert Bulla (no image available)

Our learning cart (IKEA, ten years ago) has a side with pouches
where we are keeping our books for the week. 

CALENDAR TIME

…adding today’s number & tracing the number on his notebook calendar…

    

filling in the number on the calendar & 100 chart

 

…learning the Pledge of Allegiance & singing “My Father’s World”
Alex has been singing his heart out– it is SO sweet!

…making his first bundle of ten for our hundreds chart…

BIBLE

Bible lesson – it’s hard to see in the dark!
We learned how Jesus lights our way.

TACTILE LETTER PRACTICE Using a popsicle stick to draw the letter S in his salt box. 
Shaping Wikki Stix into the letter S.
writing an S on his gel bag (ziploc filled with colored hair gel)

   

PHONICS & HANDWRITING

We are doing a larger handwriting page for now because
Alex just isn’t ready for the smaller size of the MFW sheets.

  
Alex misunderstood the number sheet, and he is embarrassed that he circled two suns.
We crossed out one sun.
 

cutting out his letter S picture cards, decorating the S envelope,
adding the envelope to our picture card box to be used later

     

Alex had to stamp the ones that started with S. 
(Mommy crossed out the ones that didn’t, but Alex told me which ones to cross out.)

cutting and gluing a letter S under each picture
that starts with S

drawing pictures of words that begin with S, writing S on the line
He hasn’t exactly developed art skills yet… ;)
 

MATH tracing drinking glass and penny, learning about circles,  learning about #1
coloring the sun, a penny, and himself
 

I just love his picture of himself.  The things next to his eyes are his ears.
The sticks out the side are his hands. 
I guess Alex has hands growing out of his head!

 

cuisenaire rods


POETRY “My Shadow” poem by Robert Lewis Stevenson 
Alex liked this video, with the My Shadow poem starting at 40 seconds.

SCIENCE

The power of the sun: it can turn grapes into raisins!  We put grapes in a dish and set it out in the sun.  Alex is showing you that it was bright outside!

I read a great suggestionon the Facebook MFW K group AFTER we did our grape experiment:  Freeze your grapes for an hour, then rub then gently against the parmesan side of a cheese grater to break the skin.  THEN leave your grapes in the sun.  The broken skin on the grapes will help them to lose their moisture & become raisins more quickly.

Day 1 Day 5 (making progress)

Day 10 (becoming raisins…and attracting fruit flies!)

starting our sundial

ART Math & Art rolled into one…
painting the sun – a circle (our shape this week)
and making a two-colored pattern for the sun’s rays

SNACKS pineapple ring & carrot stick “suns” (with ranch dressing “cloud”)
homemade sunshine cupcakes (idea from Jennifer on the MFW K  Facebook group)

      

Baby Sister discovered the JOY of licking a spatula!

TOT SCHOOL

(Max is 36 months)

We’re not leaving out this little guy!  He gets to join us for whatever he would like, but he is not doing the MFW K student sheets.  Instead, I am making some sheets to fit what he is interested in learning right now.  We’re also doing some activities based on what he is learning at age 3.

Max usually joins us for calendar & story time, wanders the playroom for a while, and then busies himself with an activity.  On this day, he matched our lowercase alphabet magnets to the Lauri alphabet puzzle.

Max knows the alphabet song, but he doesn’t yet recognize his alphabet letters.  We worked on this large Letter S tracer page (while Alex completed an activity of his own).  First, Max traced it with his finger.  Next, he used three different markers to trace/”rainbow write” the letter S.  My only goal is to HOPEFULLY have him recognize the letter of the week.

 

On Friday, our third day of this unit, Max came running to me and said, “Mom, come see my S!”  He is referring to the gold doubloons on the right side of the photo.  At least he has a general concept of the shape of an S.

For prewriting, Max likes to do these “mazes”.  He drew a path from the sun to the earth, trying to stay in the lines.

He (quite creatively) did this shape-matching page, naming each shape & then drawing a line from each shape (inside of a sunshine) to the larger matching shape.  He insisted on circling each shape first.

Max LOVES to count!  He counted the pictures, and then I wrote the number in the blank.  Then we pointed to the correct pictures as we said, “JESUS is the LIGHT of the WORLD!”

 

Sorting shapes & colors
  

Matching Colors in a file folder activity
He was able to correctly name green, yellow, and red.
 
Magnet Page

trying to make an “s” with wikki stix

 

We’ll be linking up with the following blogs: