It IS Important

I'm sorry that I don't have a lesson plan ready for you today.  I don't know exactly what happened, but I got very behind on the blog last week (life, I guess).  I promise that I will have it up by Wednesday at the latest.

I do have something to leave with you today, though:

Recently, due to a list of events that I won't go into here, I've been kind of thinking about the possibility of going back to work:

• Just putting Tyler into a public school; maybe he'll get the therapy and such that he needs (ha, ha)
• Just putting Jason into K4, which seems to be the trend this year.  What if I don't and he's behind the rest of his classmates next year?
• Just putting Justin into daycare. 
• After all, I'm college educated and have great experience.  I should be able to get a good job and help with our rising expenses.

While in my heart I know the truth, these thoughts do run through my mind.

This morning my boys and I were sitting in chapel, waiting as the student body filed in.  My daughter's teacher stopped and leaned towards me.

"I just want to say 'Thank you' for being a stay-at-home mom.  It really is important."

I was very surprised and just said an awed "uh, thanks!" as she walked away.

Then I just closed my eyes and thanked God for a word fitly spoken.

I don't know why she thought to say that to me today, but it was the right words at the right time.

Being a stay-at-home mom IS important.

Following the Plan Friday (er, Sunday): The Letter D

We had a great week of D projects!

The favorite by far was the Dino Dig.  I put sand into plastic shoe boxes from Dollar Tree, then buried dog bones, also from Dollar Tree.  The weather was unusually cool, so we were able to play on the front porch.  The boys had a great time digging in the sand.

On duck day we went to a nearby park to feed the ducks.  There were over 30 ducks there and they were not shy!!!  Forget the idyllic "standing on the bank throwing bread into the river".  We stood right next to our van and threw the bread while the ducks quacked all around us.  None of them attacked, thankfully.  Quite an experience.  Picture taking was impossible.

On Dog day the boys made dog ears, dog tags and tails.  We played "obedience school" and the boys LOVED the Feed the Dog game.  I wrote letters on the "bones" and said "Okay, feed the dogs all the As".  It was fun!

The boys also enjoyed painting dump trucks on Dump Truck Day.

Dealing with Don'tWannaItis, Part 2

Last week I told you that I suffer from don'twannaitis.

I also shared one of the cures that I have found for it:  curling up on the bed and taking a short nap.

Today I want to share the other thing that has helped me to get things done when I have don'twannaitis:  just doing the next thing.

I always know what the next thing is because I have set a routine in place.  I know what load of laundry I'm washing, I know what room in the house needs to be cleaned, and I know which household prep item has to be done.  I have a menu for dinner and I know what days we go to church and I will need to iron clothes.

I don't like schedules, because I have found that life doesn't always hold true to a specific time frame.  But I love routines, knowing what is going to happen next.

When I am feeling tired and sluggish, it quickly leads to being overwhelmed.  I can't tell you how many time I've stood in the middle of a messy room and thought to myself "I don't even know where to start".

When this happens, I stop, breath and think:  What day is this?  What do I have planned for today?"  Then, I can go and do it, knowing that item is what my next thing is.

Knowing what the next thing is helps to alleviate any guilt, helps you to focus on one specific thing, and gives a sense of accomplishment when you are finished with that item and you know that you accomplished exactly what you were supposed to.

Next week I'll share what some of my routines are.

Lesson Plan for Week of September 17: The Letter E

Welcome to the letter E.  Wow, we're five letters into this already!  Can I confess that I had a hard time finding five things that started with the letter E to focus on this week?  And they don't all start with the same sound :(  Hopefully I don't confuse the kids too much.

We will start the week off studying our Eyes and Ears.  Then we will talk about Eggs.  This one will be fun if your kids like Hide and Seek.  Wednesday we will focus on Elephants.  Thursday we will release lots of Energy by Exercising.  Finally, we will turn to God's word and the story of Queen Esther.  Hope you have fun!
 

MONDAY

MATERIALS

• Children's Bible

• Items for Elmo Cut and Paste Face Activity from Fun With Mama
• Elmo Face Printable
• Construction Paper
• Scissors
• Glue
• Items for Eyes on E activity from Ceres Childcare and Preschool
• Paper
• Marker
• Old Magazines
• Scissors
• Glue
• Items for Listening Ears Craft from Mama Jenn
• Print out or drawing of left and right ear
• Paper plate
• Pipe Cleaner
• Crayons
• Glue
• I'm Thankful For My Ears/Eyes Coloring Pages

 PREPARATION

• Gather items for Elmo Cut and Paste Face Activity
• Print out Elmo Face Printable
• If you are going to cut it out before, do that now

• Gather items for Eyes on E Activity
• Draw a block E on a piece of paper

•  Gather items for Listening Ears Craft
• Print out a left ear and a right ear (I had a hard time finding matching ear images, so you may need to photoshop one)

•  Print out Coloring Page

LESSON PLAN

• Review letters A-D
• Introduce the letter E
• We are going to focus on the short e sound, like in egg, however some of these words do use the long E or other sounds

• Focus on E is for Eyes and Ears
• Talk with your child about their face.  Let them look at themselves in the mirror and point out their eyes and ears.  Make silly faces in the mirror.
• Talk about the function of the eyes and ears.
• Who made the eyes and ears?  God!  The Bible says that we are made in his image.

• Do the Elmo Cut and Paste Face Activity
• Have your child put together Elmo's face by gluing the pieces of Elmo's face onto a piece of paper.
• Do the Eyes on E Activity
• Let your child look through old magazines and cut out pictures of people's eyes.
• Have the child glue the pictures to the letter E.

• Do the Listening Ears Craft
• Have your child color the ears.
• Attach the ears to the paper plate.
• Cut the paper plate in half.
• Attach the pipe cleaner to each half of the plate.

•  Color the "I Am Thankful" pictures

STORYTIME

TUESDAY

MATERIALS

• Items for Egg Hunt
• If you have plastic eggs, you can use those
• You can also print out  Easter eggs (a Google search for "colorful egg clip art" brought a ton of options).  Laminate them and then cut them out.
• Items for Egg Nest Craft, from Ceres Childcare and Preschool
• Construction Paper, one to draw the nest on to, one for eggs, and one for the beak
• Brown Marker
• Brown Yarn
• Scissors
• Glue
• Feathers
• Googly eyes
•  Egg Color and Match Game, by Printables4Kids
• Once colored, laminate and cut out
• Can use this for the egg hunt
• Use this to play Memory
• Drawing Ovals Worksheet, by Having Fun Teaching
• Tracing Loops Page, from School Sparks

PREPARATION

• Gather Items for Egg Hunt
• Print out and laminate eggs, if needed

•  Gather Items for Egg Nest Craft
• Draw a nest outline on a piece of construction paper
• Draw egg shapes on another piece of paper.  Cut out, or have your child do it.
• Cut out a beak for the bird

•  Print out worksheets

LESSON PLAN

• Review the letter E
• Focus on E is for Egg
• Hide plastic eggs or paper eggs around the room and send your child on an egg hunt.  Then, let them hid the eggs and you find them.  My boys loved this when we did it with bears a few weeks ago.
• Talk about where eggs come from, the different animals that lay eggs, the different sizes (robin eggs versus dinosaur eggs), different colors.  Talk about how we cook with eggs, whether or not your child likes eggs, what dishes have eggs in them.

•  Make an Eggs Nest, from Ceres Childcare and Preschool
• Give your child a length of brown yarn.  Have them cut it into pieces and glue it into the nest outline.
• Allow your child to cut out the eggs, if desired
• Glue the eggs into the nest.
• Add some feathers, eyes and a beak to make a mama bird.
• Do Printables listed above
•  The Egg Color and Match Game can be laminated and cut out and then used as a Memory game. 

STORYTIME

WEDNESDAY

MATERIALS

• Items for Letter E Elephant Craft, from Fun With Mama
• Printable
• Construction paper
• Scissors
• Glue
• Googly Eyes
• Elephant Tracing Page, from Worksheet Lab
•  Use this to make a lacing card
• Laminating materials
• Scissors
• Hole Punch
• Yarn
• Lots of Elephant Printables and Ideas, from Confessions of a Homeschooler
• Bonus:  There are lots of Elephant Craft Ideas here

PREPARATION

• Gather items for Letter E Elephant Craft
• Print out printable
• Cut out the pieces, if desired, or have your child do it during the craft

• Print out Elephant Tracing Page
• Print out any desired printables

LESSON PLAN

• Review the letter E
• Focus on E is for Elephant
• Does your child like Elephants?  Talk about all things Elephant

•  Do the Letter E Elephant Craft, from Fun With Mama
• If you want to, have your child cut out the pieces
• Glue the pieces together according to the directions
• Add googly eyes
• Complete the Elephant Tracing Page, from Worksheet Lab
• After your child traces the elephant, cover it with laminating material.  Cut it out and hole-punch around the perimeter at intervals.  Let your child use it for a lacing card.

• Do Desired Printables from Confessions of a Homeschooler 
• Bonus:  There are lots of Elephant Craft Ideas here 

STORYTIME

THURSDAY

MATERIALS

• Items to make an obstacle course or an activity area (You choose according to your supplies and space)
• This is a huge list of fitness ideas for kids
• The recent Olympic games sparked a host of blog posts about kid-friendly Olympic type games
• I Can Teach My Child, round up of Olympic posts
• Reading Confetti, includes a link-up of Olympic posts
• 3 Dinosaurs round-up
• What is Being Active?  Worksheet, from Nourish Interactive
• Bonus:  Letter E Review Printables
• Color the words that begin with the letter E
• Circle the smallest thing
• E is for  Coloring Page

PREPARATION

• Prepare for any activities that you are going to do.  Refer to the websites that you take activities from for instructions
• Print off any worksheets

LESSON PLAN

• Review the letter E
• Focus on E is for Energy and Exercise
• My kids have tons of energy; how about yours?  Today we are going to focus some of that energy into doing fun exercises.  Talk with your child about the importance of exercise and how energy works.
• Do lots of exercising!
• I'm going to let you decide based on what supplies you have, the space you have, and whether you can go outside or not (I'm praying it's finally cool enough for us to go outside!).  Set up obstacle courses, prepare games, or whatever you desire.  If you don't have space and the weather is nice, set up a play date at the park.
• Do the What is Being Active Worksheet, and any other desired worksheets.

STORYTIME

FRIDAY

MATERIALS

• Items to tell the story of Esther
• Story of Esther Stick Puppets, from lds.org
• Bible, Children's Bible, or Printed Story
• Items to Make a Royal Crown
• Construction Paper
• Colors, Stickers, Gems
• Scissors
• Glue
• Tape

•  Items for Make a  Royal Scepter
• Empty Paper Towel Roll
• Construction Paper
• Colors, Stickers, Gems
• Scissors
• Glue
• Tape
• Items for Praying Hands Craft, adapted from Sowing Mustard Seeds
• Construction Paper
• Scissors
• Bible Verse about Prayer
• The Lord's Prayer
• Esther 4:16
• 2 Chronicles 7:14
• Esther Coloring Page

PREPARATION

• Gather items to tell the story of Esther
• Print out the puppet template from lds.org
• Color as desired
• Laminate the page
• Cut out each figure
• Attach the figures to craft sticks

• Gather items to make a crown and a royal scepter
• Gather items for Praying Hands craft
• Print out a Bible Verse
• Print out the Esther Coloring Page

 LESSON PLAN

• Review the letter E
• Focus on E is for Esther
• Ask your child if they know the story of Queen Esther.

•  Read the Story of Queen Esther to your child.  You can use the Bible, a Children's Bible or a Printed Story.
• Use the stick puppets to act out the story.

•  Make a Royal Crown
• Using construction paper, cut out a crown to fit your child's head.  You may need to combine more than one page.
• Allow your child to decorate the crown.
• They can pretend to be Queen Esther or King Xerxes.

• Make a Royal Scepter
• Decorate an empty paper towel tube
• Attach a small ball, or a ball of paper, or something from your collection to the end.
• Pretend to be King Xerxes allowing Queen Esther to come into his throne room.

• Make Praying Hands Craft, adapted from Sowing Mustard Seeds
• Fold a piece of construction paper in half
• Cut out the paper in the shape of a hand (maybe use your hand as a template), being careful to place the outside of the hand right at the folded edge.
• Trace your child's hand onto the larger hand.
• Open up the linked hands and paste a Bible Verse about prayer into it.
• Talk with your child about the importance of prayer.
• Color the Esther Coloring Page

STORYTIME

 

See how this week went for us by clicking here

Following the Plan Friday: The Letter C

Welcome to another addition of Following the Plan Friday.  This week we focused on the letter C.

Well, actually, we started C last week.

Monday, a week ago, we did our Cats theme.

Oh, let me tell you this:  Jason had a blast cutting animal pictures out of magazines.  See, two weeks ago I was prepping for the week's lessons.  The kids were playing and doing various things.  I started cutting animal pictures out of magazines (I knew there was a reason for those free magazine subscriptions!).  Jason asked me what I was doing, and then asked if he could do it.  He absolutely loved finding animals, calling them out to me, and cutting them out.  It was a wonderful, impromptu learning experience and connecting time for us.  I will definitely be adding more of this type of thing into our days.

So, Monday we sorted cats from other animals and did a bunch of Cat Printables.

Monday was also the first day of school for my daughter, so we began our new schedule of getting up and out the door in the morning do drop her off at school and to participate in chapel.  You can read about our new routine and what our days look like in my Day in the Life post.

Tuesday we had to stop at Walmart on the way home from the school and so we were late getting back and starting school.  Tuesday night is our mid-week service at church, and I knew that I needed to get things ready for my mom's arrival the next day, so I scratched the plans to paint with cars and have a carwash and instead, gave the boys the cars and some blocks.  They had fun making structures for their cars to drive around.  We didn't get any more school done that day :(

The boys playing with cars and blocks.

Wednesday my mom came and we didn't get any school done that day either.

By Thursday I had decided to scrap the week and start again the next Monday.  We had a blast visiting with my mom.

So, school began again this past Tuesday.  I picked up the Cars theme again and we did the painting with cars activity.  My boys loved this and it looked so cool.  I used black poster board and started out with white paint.  We then added yellow and purple.  The boys also enjoyed going into the bathtub for a "car wash".

Jason also painted the cars.

Jason also did his printables.  I was amazed to discover that somewhere along the line Jason learned his numbers.

My mom said he looks asleep here, but he's just concentrating really hard :)

Wednesday we had another 4-year-old join us for the day.  I held off on Preschool until Justin went down for a nap, then I had both 4-year-old boys do the lesson.  They breezed through my plans and wanted more, so I printed off twelve pages of tracing.  They shared and stayed busy for 1.5 hours!!  It was great!

Trace and Color Cow

Thursday I borrowed a Candy Land game from a friend.  Once the boys saw it, they refused to wait until the next day to play it, so we switched and did our Candy lesson instead of Caterpillars.  Jason has loved playing Candy Land and is a good sport even when he gets sent all the way back to the cupcake!

I would place a number on the dish and he had to add the correct number of candies to the bowl

Color by number candy dish

Friday we had furniture delivered (hurray!), so we just did an abbreviated lesson while waiting for our new table.  The boys glued pom-poms onto a C to make caterpillars.

Justin's Caterpillar

Our favorite books this week were If You Give a Cat a Cupcake and Cows to the Rescue

They hated It Looked Like Spilt Milk.

What'd you do this week?

Free Name and Address Cards from Living Intentionally

Living Intentionally has a collection of Name and Address Cards free for download.

These cute cards will help teach your child how to write their name and address.  I especially like the one that says "In An Emergency I dial 911".

Dealing with Don'twannaitis, Part 1

I confess:  I suffer from a really bad case of don'twannaitis.

It usually hits about 11 o'clock in the morning, as I'm making my kids lunch and looking at storytime and naps.  The thought runs through my mind "I just want to curl up on the bed and read my book and take a nap."

I feel sluggish and sleepy.  My kids still wake me up at least once in the night and we are usually up by 6:30 at the very latest.  I am most productive first thing in the morning, and, with four kids, usually hit the floor running.  By nap time, I've run out of energy, desire and motivation.

Unfortunately, there are still things to be done, and I must be the one to do them, don'twannaitis aside.

So, what is the cure?

First of all, one of the things that has helped me to send away the symptoms of don'twannaitis is to...curl up on the bed and take a nap!  Yes, really.  I used to be one of those moms who thought "I must do this, this and this.  And 'idle hands are the devil's workshop' so I must keep busy!  That's what good keepers of the home do."  And I would go, go, go until I just collapsed.  And then I would have a total and complete relapse of don'twannaitis, usually so bad that it would undo any progress that I had made.

Finally I decided that I had had enough.  In the recesses of my mind I recalled my working woman days and hearing something about workers who were allowed to take short naps being more refreshed and productive.  The advice was to avoid a long sleep, because that might make you more groggy, but a cat nap should help to clear the fog.

I decided to try it.  After I put the boys down for a nap, I set my alarm for 30 minutes and laid down.  It worked!  Some days those 30 minutes went so fast and I didn't want to wake up.  But I did.  And after I got up, I felt better physically and mentally, enough to then focus on doing the next thing.

Come back next week for Part 2:  Knowing What the Next Thing Is, or The Routine