January 2016 Preschool

This winter my main focus is the Fruit of the Spirit. We are highlighting what I'm calling the "3-year-old necessities": Love, Patience, Kindness, Gentleness, and Self-Control. I created a "Fruit of the Spirit Jar" and when I see her showing the Fruit, I bringing it her attention, say thank-you, etc. and then she gets to put a pom pom in the jar. When the jar is filled, she gets to pick out a candy. [I totally realize this isn't the main end goal is showing the Fruit of the Spirit, but it's the best I could come up with for a toddler -- I do welcome any ideas].

Coloring a fruit of the spirit sheet with her verse we are working on. 

exciting about her pom poms. I honestly thought long and hard about the size of the jar to use. I wanted it to be large enough that she had to work to fill it; but didn't want it to be too hard for her to fill. 

Here she is using her foam stickers to spell "Love" - with her first pom pom in her jar. 

Picking out her first treat - bananas. Haha, she only ever picks bananas. [Ironically, we snuck runts into the labor suite with us when he had Ella, and just the smell of the bananas made me sick].

 The first fruit we are working on is "Love". Here are some of our activities:

proud of her "Love" 

I know it's silly but I really love seeing her coloring progress. Although the orange, colored a terrifying black, isn't great - she shows great focus sometimes, and the leaves on the fruit and the grapes she did really well with. 

Playing with playdough, because it's a new favorite. And we actually had a little cherry mold -- we are using cherries as our fruit to symbolize Love. 

I forgot to get a better picture - but here are the girls in their cherry shirts, for Love! 

Fruit "matching" - the inside of the fruit with the outside. 

using stickers to make cherries. 

I cut a carrot in half in used it to stamp more cherries. 

This was the beginning of us working on writing our letters -- I helped her with these. 

stamping - oh heaven be still this girl loves stamps. 

Other general school activities:

A laminated shape tracing book I got at goodwill for 50 cents. 

paintings. 

Animal matching puzzles. 

A numbered puzzle - yeah for Target dollar spot!

Using clothes pins to select the starting letter of various words. Ella did great, and actually got them all right the  first time, too made I already took the time to laminate them. 

habitat and animal matching

A color and shape spinning wheel. She enjoyed the spinner functionality and then she ran around selecting items from her toys that matched the selected shapes. I loved the star flower, rectangle bacon, and triangle grapes. I just never would have picked those items for those shapes. I love the way she thinks about things. 

Children's Museum - Trip Five

This was our first time going two weeks in a row. We went on Monday & Friday. The girls did really well. We met some of our small group friends for this visit.

Ella kept lining up the buckets under the rain.

Evie was curious about the large water tube:

Both girls played so nicely together with the shower fixture to the water tubes.

Playing with friends:

Evie at the ice table:

Ella said her favorite part of the whole day was sitting in this chair. haha.

2nd floor "nursery"

She did really well and waiting a whole 10 minutes before eating any beads. 

 The ball room:

Children's Museum - Trip Four

This trip - on February 1st -- Aunt Lauren (my college roommate and dear friend) went with us -- so it was definitely a highlight. Since we go so frequently now (almost every week) I'm trying to take pictures that show what was new/fun/different about that visit from other visits -- so get ready to see Aunt Lauren in action! :)

We got to do the art room - thanks Aunt Lauren!

She actually did this all by herself :) 

clay "playdough"

painting! She made one sheet in every color -- which we turned into Valentines for the grandparents.

Meanwhile, Evie just wanted to push around the stroller -- believe me, this is an intense workout. 

Our favorite - every.single.time - Water room. This time, Ella was obsessed with this little "sink" and stirring everything. (And yes, we kinda broke that water whirlpool thing...but we went back the same Friday and it was fine). 

Evie also liked the whirlpool & the water pump. 

Because we were 2-on-2; we also did the 2nd floor, which is generally too hectic for me by myself. 

Aunt Lauren & Ella playing in the sand tables. 

The deadly & frustrating blue beads. Evie lasts about 3 seconds before eating a handful of beads. 

Ella in the "Nemo" plant

The 4 of us girls together before Aunt Lauren got on the road for home.