Finally fully settled

We were officially unpacked weeks ago.  But I was finishing some of the final touches, with arranging picture frames and getting caught up with work.  I have been tutoring a ton and that has been creating a bit of a time crunch.  But I can finally say I feel caught up with everything and have some time to do things that got lost along the way.  So I have time to really update this blog with how we've been working on preschool things.

We got an additional 2 week trial of reading eggs that ends tomorrow.  Carolyn loves it and I think she's learning a lot from it, but it's really expensive for us.  So once this is up we'll continue to do other things and build on what she's learned.  Aside from that I've been stealing from the In Lieu of Preschool website.  I printed up some of the Bob book sheets and we tried those one morning.  I thought they were pretty cool, but Carolyn wasn't very into them.  We'll see if she gains more interest with time.  We've also been doing some math using counters, notecards, and containers.  Carolyn does a great job with it and soon I'm thinking we'll start subtraction.  But mostly we've been focusing on spending time together and baking.  I use baking as a learning experience, talking about various measurements - comparing tsp to Tbsp and we talk about following a recipe.  The kids love dumping into the bowl, and of course tasting what we make.  They like to stir whenever the chance arise as well.  We continue to read many books and I'm trying to encourage Carolyn to try to read more on her own.  The perfectionist that she is, though, she resists at times.  I don't want to push too hard and turn her off, so it's gentle for now as I know it's already in her.  She's been pulling out really long books for me to read to her lately, basically her way of saying she still wants me to do the reading.

My most recent projects involve creating felt shapes that the kids will be able to put on vests my MIL is making.  This will allow the kids to kind of create their own dress up clothes.  I've only used 4 of the 100 felt sheets I ordered so far, so we will be able to make many other things.  If I have time before Christmas I'm also thinking I will create some people with clothes and maybe scenes for them to play with.  But we'll see if I can find time when they're sleeping and I'm not working in the next 9 days.  I also started on some new bath toys.  Inspired by ILOP above, I bought some foam sheets to make things that will stick to the walls.  I'm starting by cutting out the letters of the alphabet.  I started with each child's name and am now moving on to making 2 sets of the alphabet with various colors.  What's great is that these can come out of the tub if we want during the day as well.  It should help James with his letter recognition and Carolyn with her spelling/reading.  I'm hoping to have at least one set put together by their next bath night, which is Monday night, but we'll see. 

My goal in the new year is to spend more time playing with the kids during the day and guiding them to learn as I know they crave to learn.  I will be closing the lap top more often because, really, there are no emergencies for my job.  Plus with Jon starting to coach, I'll need to be sure they are getting the attention they need.  I will try to get on here and update on Saturday nights though, mostly so I have a record of what's going on.  We will need to start to think about kindergarten soon.  At this point I think we'll register Carolyn and see how things go.  If she's bored I might pull her back home and start doing a more formal curriculum that is at her required level (which I suspect is first/second grade at this time).

Time to go cut out some more letters and relax a little!