Good Things Come to Those Who Pin

Preschool Finds on Pinterest
Here are some of my favorite preschool ideas I've come across on Pinterest.

Free printable learn to glue booklet. So cool and ingenious.

Padlock Board - I think my boys would love this.

Color Coded Parking Lot - definitely perfect for my 4 year old son who loves to order and group things

A Calm Down Jar - You know those times when you just need them to calm down so you can deal with the issue?.. this is an option. Hand them the jar, have them shake it up, instruct them to sit and watch the glitter settle. Once it is all at the bottom, you can proceed.

Animal Classifying for Little Ones - Present the question ( Ex."Which animals like snow?"), then let them sort their toy animals.

Ice Cream Chore Chart - Make little daily responsibilities fun by assigning one to a scoop of ice cream. They build a tall ice cream cone as they complete their tasks. How fun is that?

Do you use Pinterest to bookmark ideas and inspirations? I seriously have no idea how I lived without it. I have always depended on the Internet to supply me with ideas. Now I have a place where I can store my ideas so I can come back to them. I no longer need to have 20 IE tabs open several days in a row, waiting for me to implement the idea. I like that. A lot.

2011/2012 School Year's Cirriculum (1st grade)

I'm so super excited. Friday, I found a good sized brown box sitting outside my front door. When the kids and I brought it in and tore it open (because that's how all packages are treated in our house), we found school books hiding inside.

I asked Cherith, "Do you want to start 1st grade today?" She thought for a minute and then replied, "How 'bout tomorrow!" Ha. Ha.

So here's the cirriculum scoop for the year...

Language Arts, Reading, Writing, Math, and Science (?):

A Beka - My mom passed on a lot of the text books she used with my younger siblings... you know, like 15+ years ago. So I am able to use a lot of what she passed on and just add the workbooks, new teacher's manuals, and a few readers we were missing.








Geography:

Erica's (Confessions of a Homeschooler) Road Trip USA cirriculum - This looks so incredibly fun. I can't wait to get started. I'm also trying desperately to get someone from every state to write a letter to Cherith with fun things about them, their family, and where they live. Not sure if that will be possible or not. The nice thing is that I know someone from Hawaii and someone from Alaska, so the two hardest states are already covered.







Bible:

Songs for Saplings' Q&A, Vol. 1 - We will cover one song (theological point) per week. I am in the process of creating a workbook to go along with this.











I seriously cannot wait to get started. But I have a lot of must do's on my list before the school year starts up, though, so I better get busy.



(If you're waiting on the K-2nd and Math & Reading swaps, I promise they're still coming. My ever so intelligent husband is designing a sweet database for me, in order to eliminate the headaches associated with processing over 500 names at once.)

Random Thunks 'Bout the Merge of One Year into Another

So, it's the end of a year again. The end of a chunk of time... 12 months to be exact. Or 52 weeks. Or 365 days. Or 8,760 hours. Or 525,600 minutes.

I have a habit of rewinding and reviewing, which can be a good thing (except at night when I'm trying to sleep). So, as can be expected, I've been doing a lot of reviewing in the past several days... looking back over the last year... evaluating my growth and my failures, my steps forward and stumbles backward.

And I'm actually a bit confused this time. I can't pat myself on the back and say, "Wow! Look how much you've grown! Look at how much you've accomplished!" But I can't exactly say it's been a stagnant year or a year of failure. Maybe it’s just that the preceding two years were marked by such incredible growth and heart workings that they make this past year’s progress seem tiny and insignificant.

In the area of Spiritual discipline, not much change has happened. I still need to be more purposeful in Bible reading and prayer. And then be consistent, once I am purposeful.

Wifery is good. I mean… I really need to work on selfish expectations that morph into thoughts of “but I wanted to…” or “why do I have to do this?” or “I should be the one sleeping, not him”. But on a whole, I love being married to my best friend. Our marriage is simply amazing, not because it’s always fun and easy and perfect, but because we’re in on this together. I still marvel that I, of all people, have been blessed with the Aaron Prentice.

Motherhood…. Hmmm… motherhood has been QUITE the challenge for me. I don’t know. I just…. hmmmm…. never thought I’d be where I am… so totally overwhelmed… so not loving it… so tired… so slushy headed… so stressed every.single.minute of the day. How did I get here? I wasn’t always this way. I loved every minute of motherhood when I had one and two babies. But I don’t remember waking up one morning and deciding I wanted to be an overtired, over stressed, impatient mother. And I don’t know what to do about it. But I do know I want to change.

Please, please don’t ask about home management. I can’t get a handle on housework and keeping up with laundry and dishes. I try. I really do. But I just feel like I’m chasing my tail (or a three year old, two year old, and 7 month old). Just let me know if you plan to stop by. I’ll lock the kids up for a day and clean for ya.

Weight loss… Pahahahaha! Wow. This is hard this time around. Every other time, I’ve lost much more by the time my kidlet was 7 months.

I’m loving homeschooling, but realizing that good planning is a must. I’ve got the entire year generally planned, but not down to the T. And I don’t do real good schooling on the fly. Something I must improve on.

Now I don’t put a lot of confidence into New Year Resolutions (because I’m awful at follow through), but the beginning of a new year certainly seems like a good time to take a good look at what needs to change. I’m not setting goals, per say. Just realizing where my weak spots are and trying to put together a plan to make them strength spots or at least a little less weak.

I’m hoping that getting a handle on a good daily/weekly/monthly schedule will help with many of these areas. We’ll see.

Speaking of the new year, I’m hoping to be able to blog more. Blogging is important to me, because it gives me a chance to empty my brain. And I guess I’m just conceited enough to think that everyone else out there wants to be there when I do.

I’m wanting to do a once a week post for OYOL (which I’m sure you’re tired of hearing about). But I also want to continue with the baby and toddler sleep issues. I also have another idea bopping around in my head that I’m super duper excited about.

We shall see what the new year brings. I have high hopes.