Preschool

It's Back to School time! Michelle is old enough now that, if Bryan and I wanted to, we could enroll her in Preschool. However, since I am an educated and certified Preschool teacher, I thought it would be a little silly to pay someone else to do something I am fully capable of doing myself. So, I sat down, made a curriculum, made a few writing sheets, and started getting a little "Preschool corner" set up in our house. 

Today was Day One of "Preschool" for Michelle and she did GREAT! I am so proud of her. We started the day with putting up the calendar and learning about the right way to say the date. It was a little confusing to say "third" instead of "three" (as in "Today is Monday, September third." instead of "Monday, September three."), but after a few reminders she got it. Then we moved on to ABC Flashcards (another homemade by Randi Special!). Michelle rocked out at parroting the letters and their sounds. Then we danced and sang the alphabet song. After being silly we sat back down and I introduced the letter of the week- A. We read "My 'A' Book", and focused a lot on finding all the 'A' words. After that we moved to the table and practiced writing. Michelle did AWESOME! I showed her how to do the first one, helped her do the second one, and then BAM- she was off!

 After writing all her 'A's we did a little art project where she decorated a large 'A' that I had cut out with a bunch of 'A' stickers. She only made one mistake and tried to put an 'R' sticker on there. Let's be honest though, sometimes R's can look a little like A's if you're 3 and trying to hurry. ;)

Then we had some Apple-sauce for a snack. I'm not sure if Michelle really liked it, but she thought it was neat to be eating a snack that started with the letter A.

 I know I've already said it, but I really am so SO proud of her! She did great and is really excited about doing more tomorrow.

We'll keep doing 'A' things for the rest of the week, and then move on to 'B' next week. I'm excited to do Apple prints on Friday! I remember doing those when I was little and thinking it was SO neat that there was a star in the middle of an apple. I can't wait to see what Michelle thinks of it!

Good News & Bad News

Let's start with the good news. Michelle does some pretty stinkin' cute things. One thing that she has been doing lately has been putting her dolls to bed or "down for naps". She'll do it all on her own though so you never know when someone is going to be napping. She'll just come up to you and randomly say something like, "Mommy, you have to be quiet! Mini is sleeping." And for the next few minutes you had better be quiet or you'll have to go to time out! Unfortunately Michelle usually forget's that she has a doll sleeping somewhere so every now and then, when I'm getting ready to go to bed I'll find:

Mini Mouse in my bed, on my pillow, covered with our jean blanket.

"Baby" on my floor with all of our pillows and a beach towel.

Tina also has some good news to share. She's eating all human food!! Lol! We are officially a baby food free home! She'll eat anything from Peanut-butter and Jelly to Turkey and Cheese! She is not picky at all. As long as it fits into her mouth, she'll eat it. And, yes, that includes shoes, belts, toys and whatever else you leave on the floor for her to find!

Now for some bad news. Last year for Christmas Michelle got an easel/white board combo. She LOVED it!! She wasn't very good at putting the lids back onto the white board markers though so after three sets of dried out markers, I had to find a different solution. About two weeks ago I found white board CRAYONS!! Perfect!! Michelle thought they were pretty perfect too.

Perfect for coloring the walls...

and her kitchen...

and her trampoline...

and the chest...

and the doors...

but not for the easel.

So, what did I do? I bought a pack of wonderful, awesome, amazing magic erasers, and took away the crayons. :) Kids are so fun!