Sometimes pictures are worth a thousand words….
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Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Children’s Museum
In case you were getting tired of my many zoo postings, get ready for many children’s museum postings to come. :) Blake and I have been trying to figure out what to do with the kids this summer….swim lessons, summer camps, gymnastics classes, sending them to the grandparent’s houses for a week at a time, you know the usual stuff. We finally decided on a Children’s Museum membership. It’s a great little museum just down the road that has a ton of activities to offer. Each day of the week they offer different crafts, cooking classes, science experiments and animal interaction programs. They also have summer camps that members can participate in for lower fees and they have a gymnasium that offers toddler and preschool gymnastic classes at no additional cost to members. This is on top of the fun that is to be had just by enjoying the different aspects of the museum itself. Imagine walking into a world where everything is the perfect size for someone who is about three feet tall and you have the museum. It has a miniature house, campground, hospital, bank, ranch, grocery store, rocket ship and ambulance that the kids can climb in, run through and play dress up in. There is an art studio with endless amounts of supplies, an actual VW Beatle the kids can paint, a water table that seems to go on forever and a full kitchen area for future chefs. Needless to say the kids fully enjoyed themselves and are looking forward to going back soon. Here is the fun that was had today when we visited the museum for the first time in over two years.
Addie having a serious conversation with one of the many ducks at the water table area.
Dalton was rescuing a duck from the water wheel, or perhaps seeing what would happen to the duck if he stuck it under the water wheel….who knows?
Painting in the art room. By some miracle, we survived without getting any paint on our clothes!
Fun with watercolors
Dalton loves going to HEB, partly for the free cookie samples but mostly for the Buddy Buck machine. He recently saved up enough sticker points to “buy” some watercolors from the HEB prize bin. He has been painting for a few minutes each afternoon ever since. He was even nice enough to share his new treasure with his little sister.
School Time
As many of you may already know, Blake and I decided not to enroll Dalton in any formal preschool program again this year. Instead, we opted to keep him home his last year before Kinder and I would just continue to work with him on a daily basis. I do have to take a minute to brag and say he is doing wonderful. He mastered all his letters and sounds almost a year ago, so this year we have been focusing more on reading and basic math skills. Here are a few of the things he has mastered:
1. Recognition of upper and lower case letters
2. Sounds of all letters including long and short vowels
3. Counting to 100 by one’s and ten’s
4. Number recognition from 0-10 without any help, 11-100 with little assistance
5. Knows his phone number
6. Knows his address
7. Know days of the week/months of the year/seasons
8. Can read/interpret a calendar to figure out what today is, tomorrow will be, yesterday was, etc
9. Understands weather concepts and can graph types of weather from day to day
10. Understands basic graphing skills such as, which has the most, least, who has more, how many more, etc.
11. Can read 50+ sight words such as the, big, can, what, see, run, to, pretty, little, play, etc.
12. Can read simple “Sound it out readers” with little assistance and complete comprehension of the story being told
13. Understands concept of addition and subtraction and can solve written problems of each using pictures or counters
14. Can sort objects in multiple ways such as by shape, color, size, pattern ,texture, etc
15. Can complete a pattern using objects
16. Mastered using scissors (which was big deal since he is such a perfectionist when it comes to cutting things out)
17. Understands rhyming words
18. Has very neat handwriting for a four year old boy
19. Enjoys trying to sound out and spell almost any word
20. Is beginning to understand sentence structure such as capitalization and punctuation
21. Understands title, author and illustrator of books
22. Enjoys having chapter books read aloud to him, one chapter per day and can retell the main ideas of the story from day to day
23. Can recognize some coins and is starting to understand the different values assigned to each
He doesn’t really enjoy coloring, but painting is always a big hit. We touched on shoe tying a little here and there, but his current shoes have straps and have put a hold on that skill. I don’t think he minded that one being put on hold, something about too many bunny ears going through too many logs for little hands to keep up with. He enjoys “Fun Day Fridays” during school time where he gets to pick the activities and games we play that day. It usually involves him beating me in Candy Land, Tic Tac Toe, Memory, Checkers or one of many other games he selects. All in all, Dalton and I have enjoyed our hour and a half we spend together each day playing fun learning games while Addie naps. I’ve been very impressed with how hard he works and how much he looks forward to school time each day. I’m pretty sure I’ll have teaching withdraws when he goes to school next year. I’m sure Addie and I will pick up and doing some sort of activities, but it’s been fun to see how much Dalton has learned over the past few years even before he started in a formal school setting. Here are some pictures of Dalton finishing up his math activities one afternoon. Addie woke up early from her nap and just had to help.
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Saturday, March 13, 2010
Bows
Addie is showing off her feminine side more and more every day. The other day she brought her bucket of bows to Crystal and just had to have all of them in her hair.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Spicy
Dalton has been on a kick lately that everything he eats is "spicy." The other night he was eating strawberries and was saying they were too spicy. I asked him if he wanted to learn what spicy was and he said "Sure!"
So...I got a tablespoon from the cabinet and filled it up with Tabasco sauce. He just grabbed it and shoved it in his mouth. It took about half a second for him to jump up from the table screaming that he was on fire! He did a couple of spins around the kitchen and then made a bee-line toward the fridge. I could have sworn he was about to shove his mouth under the water spout on the freezer door. Instead, he missed the fridge and ran straight into the wall. I got him a glass of water and it took him a minute or two but he finally calmed down. I have to say he took it like a little man and never shed a tear.
He's never said anything is spicy since then.
Update: I guess I should specify that Dalton was laughing and having fun during this. He said I was silly.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Addie’s New Bed (sorta)
We recently took the front panel off of Addie’s crib to make her bed into a day bed. She was very excited that she can get out of bed anytime she wants now.
She’s done a pretty good job so far of staying in her bed at night. During nap time however, we can hear over the monitor that she has gotten out of her bed, though she never comes out of her room. Every time we sneek in, she’s in her closet playing with her favorite obsession: shoes. Typical woman.
Here is Addie after her first night in her “new” bed.
The Rock
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