Preschool Adventures

     Miss Brynlee is officially done with preschool and ready to start Kindergarten. It starts next week. I sure enjoyed doing preschool with her and I wanted to document some of the things she learned and did. Annalyn loved preschool too. I have been debating for a while if I want to do a preschool with her this year or not. Especially since we will be moving soon.

     I started doing preschool with Brynlee in January 2014 when she was just 3(1/2). Annalyn was not quite two so I had some of Brynlee's friends come over during her nap time. She would usually wake up in time for snack and she sometimes did the craft with us. Once she turned two, she usually skipped her nap so she could hang out with the big kids. Here is a picture of my girls on the first day we did preschool that year and on the last day we did it in May.

     The first year we did preschool there were my girls and two boys and three (four at the end of the year) little girls from church that came over to our house for 2 hours and fifteen minutes every Tuesday. The kids traced and wrote their name, answered a yes or no question, played in centers, and then we had circle time where we did the pledge, sang the ABC's, read a book, sang a song and danced, and then we had a lesson and did an activity that went along with the book we read. Snack time was last and if there was extra time we would go outside or play a game in the house.

     I took a picture of some of the projects that we did during preschool because I decided I couldn't save everything. A lot of the stuff I already threw away. I wish I had saved more things. We talked about names one day and glued colorful rice to our names. We read the "Very Hungry Caterpillar" and made caterpillars where the kids had to have eight body parts and glue the proper number of marshmallows on each circle. For the rainbow art the kids had fun mixing colors to make new colors and they had to learn the proper order of the rainbow. We made bear masks and painted them one day, made butterflies, and a mother's day card.    

     Here are some of the projects Annalyn did. She had to have a lot of help with her projects. Sometimes I would let her do it when the other kids left so I could help her more. Below you can see the snowman picture she made where we talked about shapes and painted with shaving cream and glue to make snow paint, we talked about our bodies and had a relay race around our house where we practiced jumping, skipping, and following a leader and then we cut out clothes and glued them on our person. The kids were supposed to color hair and a face to their body. We talked about making music another day and made kazoos. 

     During that year we had a Valentine's party and an Easter party complete with an egg hunt for the holidays. We practiced sorting and making patterns and made a froot loop necklace and a lego tower or patterns. It was a fun year. There were several kids who really struggled with cutting that year so I tried to give them several simple things to cut. I didn't save very many of the cutting projects. The kids all liked to baby Annalyn when she came and they were constantly trying to hold her. The all played well together. Brynlee was constantly my hardest student. She cried and threw a fit every single time she didn't get her way, when she didn't get to sit by the friends she wanted, and when she didn't get to do a job she wanted to do. Here are some group pictures of all of the kids. In the first picture Brynlee is pouting and refused to be in the picture because she didn't get to sit by the person she wanted to sit by.

     Brynlee did much better during her second year of preschool. She was four this year, Anna was two, and Kyla was just a few months old. Kyla slept through almost all of the preschool lessons. Annalyn was usually the most difficult child. She wanted to sit on my lap when I read the story and would whine when she didn't get her way. We started out with two other kids that came last year and my three kids. Then one of the other moms started doing preschool at her house and we invited two other kids that were both a little bit younger than Brynlee to join us. Lizzie, the little girl ended up moving so she only came for a few month. On most days this is the group that would come. These kids has a lot of fun together. The boys didn't like doing the learning part so it was a challenge to get them to do the things I had planned but I always managed to get them to participate and they usually had fun once they did the activity. I taught the group every Tuesday and Katianna's mom taught on Thursday. The kids did get in a few fights an disagreements and most of them revolved around arguing over who was going to marry whom.

     Just with my girls we made a crayon drip picture and went on a nature treasure hunt. With the preschool group We read "The Napping House" book and did a little worksheet that went with it and did a worksheet where the kids had to cut out their names and glue them in the right order. We learned about bats one day and on Earth day we went on a nature hunt and glued things on the word Earth. We made shamrock hats for St. Patrick's Day. 

     We made shape necklaces and a shape hat, a Halloween witch hat and a soldier for Veteran's day. We painted Easter eggs and learned about bear that hibernate. We also made an alphabet tree. Some of the other projects were done at Katianna's house. My girls made the giant ornament with my mom.          One day I set up the tent and made a giant fishing pond full of paper fish that the kids had to catch. They had to catch 5 fish, one of each number and then we glued them in order and we painted them. They had lots of fun with that. We also made snowmen with everyones names on them and pained with more snow paint. For New Years we made those faces with the party hat and everyone had to write down their goal. Brynlee's goal was to go swimming and Anna's was to ride a horsey and a baby bear. 

     We sure did have a lot of fun doing preschool these last two years. We also made bouncy balls one day and we finished the year with a pajama movie party filled with popcorn and the kids helped me make pancakes for lunch. I don't think I am going to do it once a week with Anna but I would like to do it at least once a month. I am not sure what we will do when Brynlee is at school all day. Here they are showing off the graduation hats we made and the preschool books we made. 

July - Summertime Fun

     July was another fun and busy month for our family. This house building is taking a lot of work but we have made lots of progress. Joel is just slowly plugging away at it. He usually works on our house at least a few hours a day until it gets dark and he can't see anymore. He has been spending all day on Friday and Saturday working on our house and working longer hours during the rest of the week to make up for taking Friday off. The girls still enjoy going to visit dad and bringing him dinner every night. They love building towers out of the blocks of wood they find and they like playing in the dirt outside.

      This month Joel got the trusses put on the roof, he sheeted the roof, and he has all of the tar paper put up. I think we are going to pay someone else to do the shingles. Joel built stairs up to our bonus room, built the front porch, and he put the eyebrows on the front of our house. He poured the concrete and stamped our front, back, and side porches. He found some concrete stamps at a pawn shop so he bought them and decided to try stamping concrete for the first time. I think he did a great job. Now we have the permits pulled for the plumbing and the electrical and Joel started working on the electrical this week. The girls watched him put the electrical boxes in and they had fun helping him by handing him the electrical boxes when he needed one. We have an inspection on Monday and then Joel will wrap the outside of our house. He is putting in the lights and the windows next. Our house is slowly coming together and we couldn't be more excited to have a new house to live in soon.

     We did manage to do a few fun things together this month. The girls got free tickets to the rodeo from the library so we went as a family to the "Snake River Stampede" or what Brynlee called the "Radio." They were beyond super excited to go. Brynlee's friend Josie was there so Brynlee and Anna sat by them. Brynlee talked her mom's ear off and Annalyn kept eating their popcorn. Anna and Kyla got really tired so we had to leave a little early and Brynlee was super disappointed about that. She did not want to leave.

     We also went out to eat one day as a family and we get to spend Sundays together. Joel loves that break from work and we all enjoy a day to spend with Joel. I am so glad he makes going to church with us a priority.

Brynlee got to have a sleepover at grandma Hirtle's house this month while her cousins Celeste and Charlotte were staying there. Madison spent the night with them so they had a really fun time with all the little girl cousins. I told Annalyn she could go next year. They caught tons of tadpoles and played with them for days.

     We went with my sister Heather to a park in Meridian that has this splash pad and my girls had a blast playing at the playground. It was kind of a cold day so they didn't really get to enjoy the water but they still had fun playing on the playground equipment.

  My grandma was gone for two weeks this month so we helped to keep her berries watered and we kept care of the squash and the green beans. We had so much squash and we canned 14 quarts of green beans. I had my mom come and help me because that was a big job. Kyla loved those blackberries and I could not keep her from eating them. She also loves feeding the goats by grandmas house and she loves holding their kitten.

     The girls and I went to the library several times and on the last day they had free snow cones and games. The girls love going to the library and reading books. One day Brynlee spent like an hour "reading" books to Annalyn. I love that they love books.

     My sister Alesha came home for a few weeks and I took her with me to the Nampa water park. My mom watched Kyla so we just had the big girls and they really loved the water. Alesha also went with us and my brother Josh to swim at a pool of my sister Heather's in-laws. Brynlee could touch the bottom of the pool and she did great. She was floating on her back and going all over that pool. Annalyn could not touch the bottom and insisted on being in the little floaty that I brought for Kyla. I guess it was just as well because Kyla refuses to go in that floaty. It was fun to spend time with all of my siblings.

     At the end of this month I took Brynlee school clothes shopping. She was super excited about it and I was looking forward to spending some quality time with her but in the end she got kind of funny about not wanting to try on clothes and she complained about all of the shoes. I think she got worried because she can't tie her own shoes yet and then she didn't want to try any on. We never did find any shoes but we did get a backpack and a new school outfit for her. I don't know what I will do when she starts going to school next month. I tried to convince her to skip school and stay home with me but she is determined to go.

  We really are loving these lazy days of summer. Brynlee swings on the swing whenever she can and the girls still love catching bugs and playing outside. They have been begging to have a sleepover party so I let them sleep in the tent and stay up and watch movies at the end of the month. In the end they slept in their own bed but they are determined to try again. We also played on the slip and slide, took care of our chickens, and played with toys in the house. We did some crafts and enjoyed spending time together.