F is for Fantastic

What a day!  It was too hot and muggy to go outside.  We opened the door and CJ said, "Mommy, I think it is too humid to go outside today."  I just sort of looked at him, in astonishment.  Eliza said, "That means the air is heavy and hard to breathe."  So instead we played Follow the Leader all around the house.  It also meant that CJ played Follow Me on my ipod.  All day.  Over and over and over and over.  I hear it even when there is no noise now.  It could have been worse.

They slept late this morning, but we stuck to the routine.  I say that word a lot, but I really think it is the backbone of beginning education.  CJ was so excited for F day, and Eliza was also once she realized that F was the first letter in friend.  She told me her best friend is CJ, and oh yeah, Mommy and Daddy too.  We spent more time writing the letters on the carpet today, and we reviewed all the sounds from last week.  We talked about vowels and consonants again, pointing out the vowels on his quilt.  We sang all the sounds we have learned so far.  We reviewed all our letter posters and put 18 words on today's F poster.  They came up with so many.  Later in the day they were talking about the word funny, and I said something was humourous.  We talked about words meaning the same thing and we listed funny, humourous, hilarious and comical as words they know that mean the same thing.  I explained that synonym is what you call words that mean the same thing.  We spent half an hour listing synonyms for words they know!

Still working with CJ on holding the crayon.  It is difficult, because once you place his fingers correctly he won't leave them in place, and he does not like me to help him hold it to learn how.  He wants to do everything himself, but he wants to do it perfectly.  We will continue to encourage him to ask for assistance, and to be a little more gracious in accepting help.  Eliza needs to work on waiting for and following directions.  She gets so excited that she starts doing something before she knows what she is supposed to do, and if I give her all the directions at once she gets confused and overwhelmed.  So we are working on breaking steps down and doing one thing at a time, and doing what Mommy is asking.

So the only time we ventured outside today was to help Daddy pick some fennel from the garden to flavor the fish we were having for dinner.  We had fresh fruit for breakfast, finger sandwiches with fresh veggies for lunch, and fish, fennel, french fries and carrot fritters for dinner.  And we had to listen to Follow Me while we ate!

I was so tired today that I ended up not working as much with the kids as I wanted to.  I spent a good part of the day playing Follow the Leader, and of course we read books, finding F words.  The kids found the letter F on their letter blocks and we even spelled a few simple words with them.  But I really wanted to get more accomplished today.  At least I got the laundry folded!  The kids were great helpers, sorting the clothes into 4 piles, one for each member of our family.  They matched up socks and outfits.  At least until Eliza decided it was more fun to play with the clean blanket.  I wore a shirt today with a lot of writing on it, and both of the kiddos were able to identify all the letters and their sounds from my shirt.  They did a fabulous job finding the letter F today in all sorts of places.

Rich (my hubby!) went to a store today and found some getting ready for preschool workbooks that work on tracing skills and letter recognition.  They even come with a cd, so I think we will break those out tomorrow, and see if the gold sticker rewards will help Eliza pay attention to directions.  I also think that we will not turn the television on at all, even for Sesame Street.  Instead we will listen to Goldilocks and the Three Bears on our storybook cd, and any other G stories I can find.  Plus we need to walk down the street so I can vote in the primary.  I can't wait to try and explain elections to them!  Tomorrow we get serious, and add more time each day devoted to more educational activities.  We have a LeapFrog toy caterpillar that has 26 songs, names colors and explains each letter sound.  I am going to incorporate it into our morning letter discovery routine.  A little more each day, figure out what works and what doesn't.  That is what this is all about.  It is a journey after all, not a destination, and the journey is fantastic!