Lots to update.... Soon

I have lots to update, but it seems the pictures are still all on the camera..... which is currently misplaced..... but it always tends to show back up.....

Meagan

BEACH FUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We were able to get away for some beach fun today. It was really nice, Savannah was collecting tons of shells while we were there and Zoe kept chasing the birdies. There would have been lots of good pictures, but the camera is MIA.

IEP Meeting

We had an Individualized Education Plan meeting today. It is the meeting with the school system that determines what special help Savannah will get for the following school year. The meeting went well, the services were increased.... We do vision currently twice a week for half an hour.... It will increase to vision for half an hour and Orientation and Mobility training for ten minutes twice a week.

Orientation and Mobility is just fancy words for knowing where you are and where things are around you so you can get from one place to another.

Mommy I want more!

My Little Bug, asked for school today after lunch. Since it was noon, I said sure, let's do it. Atlas, naptime rolled around though and low and behold, it was time to stop school.... and she begged me for more school. Whether she is learning a lot or not, I don't know, but one thing is for sure - She loves it!

Bug's Book

We worked on categorizing objects by making a collage book. I cut these out before Christmas, so the book includes Christmas pictures, even though it is the middle of January. Bug did really well with it, and enjoyed it a lot. There were a couple of categories that she insisted we make- like outside toys- even though there was barely anything in the category.... Oh well.

Materials needed for this was simply a catalogue from the mail that included lots of different types of items.... cut out and paste.

Discouraged

I know that there is really no way around it, as I just don't like any of the other options and school just seems to run in my blood, but I get real discouraged on days like today. Not because my girls not learning anything, quite the contrary. I have been able to watch her bloom. I just get cold, tired, and overprotective...... yet Monkey still manages to get ahold of something from school that Bug worked really hard at and tear it to shreds. I really am thankful I never had a little brother or sister growing up..... they may not have made it till their second birthday.... then I stop and think of all the laughter and fun she brings to the house and how sad it would be without her.... even if it does mean walking around the room looking for tiny shreds of paper in an attempt to glue a school project back together yet again and giving up only to have to do it all over again....

The Letter L

We did a LOT for the letter L. As you can see from the front cover, we covered eight different examples words that begin with L, which is significantly more than most of the other letters we have done to date.

One of the first activities we did was to make Laundry and hang our own play Laundry Line. I wasn't sure how it was going to work out, but Savannah thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. It not only helped her with pre scissors skills (clothespins strengthen the muscles needed for the scissors), but also visual skills as finding the white yarn wasn't always the easiest. She was also required to cut out half of the clothes after she colored them. Mom had to resist "cleaning them up a bit" but they looked pretty good. We continued the theme, by making our own homemade laundry soap. Though I had to do the stove top part, the girls filled the five gallon bucket with the warm water, and added all the powdered ingredients. I was a little hesitant to use it at first, but have found that it works just as well as the store bought brands and costs a lot less. Though I may change the formula some, I still like the basic idea.

We made this lion using paper bag cuttings for the mane. Savannah colored it before we cut it out and did all the gluing herself. We talked about the lion features and read a couple of books about the lion. Savannah is really into making her own books right now, so I tried to make it into a book for her....

We went to the lighthouse in St Augustine. Though we were unable to go to the top of the lighthouse due to height restrictions, we were able to stand at the bottom and look up to wave at the older kids up at the top. We learned about day marks and night marks, and how they used to guide the ships along the coast. We went down by the water and watched the boats out at sea, and dreamed about fishing with daddy. On the way back Savannah found a bunch of Leaves, so we did leaf rubbings when we finally made it home.

We did a lot of activities for Lollipops as it is such a fun topic. I found some lollipop outlines on the computer and printed them off for the girls. The girls had a blast painting them lots of different colors. After I laminated them with the packing tape, we pretended to eat our lollipops, share our lollipops, and all sorts of things.

We also took out a handful of lollipops, separated them into color groups and counted them up. We made a bar graph to show how many we had of each. Though this was mostly a mom directed activity, I wanted to introduce her to the concept of bar graphing....

We then dumped the whole lollipop bucket (did I mention we have a LARGE bucket of lollipops?) and color grouped for our lollipop book. Each of the pages say exactly the same thing: These lollipops are (insert color).

These were really nice activities to do, cause it allowed for a toddler to be involved - well, at least the toddler liked eating the lollipops while we color grouped and counted them.....

After a night of cutout work, I also made these lollipops, which I laminated with packing tape. (while packing tape is a good laminator, I will admit that the lollipops or whatever you are laminating tends to stick to itself more than the contact paper. However it is a lot easier to use for smaller items.) We used them for patterning, sorting, and lots of other activities.

We did ladder and lady bug kind of on the fly. For the ladder I simply cut up scrap paper and we glued it on in the ladder shape. The lady bug was more prepared than that as I had found the pattern online and precut the pieces. We worked on counting to three for the dots on each of the ladybug wings.

All our books we read are listed above.

The end.

Printables were found on by googling the different L subjects and "coloring sheet". The ladder is based off of the activity found on No Time for Flashcards, and the rest were handmade.

The recipe for laundry soap is found at Living on a Dime though there are other versions that allow you to make more soap less often.... which is what we do.