Babies are Growing Up

So CJ is officially 4.  These few years have gone so quickly.  I am sorry I have been so incommunicado, but things have been absolutely crazy busy around here.  Between Eliza's birthday, the birthday party for both kids, CJ's birthday, all of us being sick, AGAIN, and prep for Easter, blogging just hasn't happened in a long time.  This summer I will be much more on top of things.  Today I will be posting some pictures of the kids and their party, as well as of CJ's birthday.  One of CJ's birthday gifts was Go Dog Go by P.D. Eastman, and he has already read most of it to me.  He is seeing words he knows everywhere he goes.  He even noticed a mistake I made on one of our posters in our school room.  I wrote nightime, and he pointed out that it should be nighttime.  A t for night and one for time.  While we haven't been doing formal lessons between spring cleaning and party prep and all the other stuff going on, we read together every day, and every day we learn something new.  We built a rain gauge that has been getting some use in the garden.  We have been studying the seedlings we have planted, and talking about why some do well and some don't.  We have been noticing the difference between different types of plants.  We have been learning about clocks and time.  CJ and Eliza can both read a digital clock, and have them in their rooms.  We are working on reading analog clocks, and they can identify hours, just not minutes.  We have been studying basic cloud types, since CJ was incredibly interested in them.

CJ is so far ahead of where Eliza is, and Eliza knows all her letter sounds.  Mason know all his letters and we are still working on the sounds.  Eliza and Mason have amazing fine motor skills, and can hold a pencil, crayon, fork or anything else perfectly with no help.  CJ still does not, but is improving.  CJ keeps changing between his right and left hand.  Mason is decidedly right handed, and Eliza seems to be ambidextrous, as she does equally well with both hands for most things. 



I am having some technical issues as of right now, so the pictures and remainder of this post will be postponed until tomorrow.  Sorry!

Happy Birthday Eliza!

So my baby has now turned three, as of 7:42 this morning.  So much has happened in the past year.  She is no longer wearing diapers except at night, she is feeding herself every day, she knows so much, and she converses like a child twice her age.  She is becoming a kind and empathetic little lady.  I am so proud.  Yesterday we went to a birthday party for Max, the son of some friends of ours in Easthampton Massachusetts.  Max turned two yesterday.  CJ and Eliza were so well behaved that I was astounded.  Even when we had to leave they handled it pretty well.  We had to explain that Max needed a nap, but what three and four year old wants to leave a place with a bouncy house and cotton candy machine?

On the long car ride yesterday Eliza got to plan the menu for her birthday.  She wanted toast and milk for breakfast.  I kept asking her, "Toast?  Are you sure you want toast?  I can make you something special."  "Toast IS special Mommy, and I like it.  You can put special birthday peanut butter on it."  Okay.  On to lunch.  "Macaroni and cheese with vegetables.  Because we are having mashed potatoes for dinner so we can't have them for lunch too."  Alrighty then.  What does she want for dinner you ask?  "Mommy I want mashed potatoes with butter in them."  (Picture her mashing potatoes in the air and cutting butter.)  "Yes I know how you like mashed potatoes.  What else do you want?"  "I told you, butter."  "No I mean with the potatoes and butter."  "OOOOHHHH.  I want chicken, and baby carrots, and a big salad with lots of teeny tiny sprouts.  And chocolate cake.  No ice cream, and no frosting."  "Really?  No ice cream or frosting?"  "No just chocolate cake.  I LOVE chocolate cake, Mommy!"  You got it baby girl!  I had to add a little bit of not exactly frosting, so I could turn her chocolate cake pink though.  More about that later.  While reading this encounter I want you to remember that Eliza speaks with her hands, A LOT!  Here she is with cake.

And a picture of her chosen dinner.

She even chose to add broccoli to the baby carrots, because she likes having two vegetables.  I asked isn't salad a vegetable, and she told me of course it is made from vegetables, but it is salad, and it doesn't count as a vegetable.

For her birthday she got two books, one she immediately identified as an Eric Carle book, a skirt and shirt, dry erase crayons for her alphabet whiteboard, a bouncy playground type ball with Abby Cadabby on it (she is from Sesame Street if you are unfamiliar with her), a new plate with butterflies, and a coloring book we made her.  We had to read the books before bed tonight.  And tomorrow she wants to use her new crayons.  I think she had a very happy birthday, even if it wasn't very eventful.  We are all sick, and my parents were too sick to come over.  We couldn't visit my grandparents, as we didn't want to share the germs.  Rich did stay home though, and that was nice.  We had a good day together, and look forward to many more happy birthdays.  CJ celebrates turning four in just three weeks!  Tomorrow we celebrate the letter M with M foods and M activities, and our weekly library class.

I have to tell you about the cake.  I made a bundt cake using the friendship starter and a recipe from a King Arthur Flour cookbook I have.  It makes a chocolate friendship cake.  I took that, adding a little espresso powder.  After it cooled I wanted to add a little something, so I found, again from King Arthur flour, a recipe for poured fondant.  I melted pink chocolate wafers, used to make candy, and mixed it with powdered sugar, corn syrup and hot water.  It makes this gorgeous pourable smooth thick icing that I then topped with colored candy coated mini chocolate chips.  As seen here:

Yummy!  Will be my go to cake recipe from now on!  Enjoy everyone!

Plans and Centers

The kids have been a little off lately.  Not themselves at all.  CJ threw a temper tantrum at playgroup last week.  Today was better.  Of course now everyone is getting sick and rundown again.  I made awesome lesson plans this week, and got some great books at the library to go with them.  What happened?  Life.  Kids were sick Monday.  We went to the library Tuesday.  Mason is spending a lot of time using the potty each day.  So all the lesson plans are not being finished.  We finally finished Tuesday's plans yesterday.  We are doing the letter L, number 12, leopard, llama, ladybug, shape is heart, gardens and weather.  Gardens and weather will continue next week, along with clouds, related to weather of course.  We will start a new letter number and shape though.  I also might start with telling time, as I found some great preschool age books devoted to that at the library.  It occurs to me that I have never shared my lesson plan format here, so here it is. 

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March 21

Do daily calendar, weather, letter sound song, review posters

Letter L

Write letter on whiteboard

Review and add to letter poster

Color letter paper

            Talk about words that begin with letter

            Do page in letter book

Number 12 dozen

            Write number on whiteboard

            Make number page for number book

            Count out number

            Color the number paper

Animals Llama/Leopard/Ladybug

            Activate prior knowledge of animals

            Read about animals

            Identify animal type, discuss features and habitats

            Compare/contrast to each other and other animals we know

            Make a Venn Diagram of the two mammals

Shape Heart

            Draw shape for them on whiteboard

            Find something that is the shape

            Color shape paper

Theme Gardens

            Discuss what a garden is

            List things that can be in a garden

            Read books The Gardener

                        This is Your Garden

                        My Garden

            Sing Garden Songs

            Observe our own garden and what goes in it, and what we do to it

Theme Weather

            Activate prior knowledge

            List types of weather and define

            Define the word weather

            Read weather book from Enchanted Learning

Read the Lorax and Helping Out Day

Play Chutes and Ladders

Introduce Lacing Center

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This is a typical Monday lesson plan.  On Mondays we always play a game.  On Tuesdays we always do a story on storyline online.  Tuesdays are light days since we go to the library now.  Wednesdays we do craft.  Thursdays are focused on tracing, and writing together.  Fridays we cook a recipe.  Fridays are also assessment day normally.  While these are not traditional lesson plans, it is enough for me to remember what I items I need to complete the days work, and to make sure I don't forget what I wanted them to learn.  I try and get everything out and ready the night before.  On weekends I put all my materials that are ready into folders labeled with each day of the week.  I also don't do everything all at once during the day.  We fit parts of the lessons in to different parts of the day. 

When planning I think about what I want them to learn from the activity, the purpose.  Then I figure out how to accomplish it, and find or create materials for it.  I have found some great resources in the past few weeks, which I will be posting soon.  Every couple of weeks I try to create and introduce a new center based on the types of activities that are age appropriate and would be introduced in preschool or kindergarten.  We have a matching center with several activities in it.  We have a color matching activity, a shape matching activity, a number matching activity, and a sorting activity that uses size, color and shape together.  I have a habitat matching activity and a food group one from the times we did those themes.  I always introduce the activity in a lesson and do it with them a few times before letting them do them alone.  I also don't let them play with them.  They can't take them whenever they want to.

I use some cheap plastic shoe boxes Rich found for a dollar at Home Depot, zippered bags, and items from around the house to create the centers.  I use Rich's label maker to label EVERYTHING!!!

This is their favorite at the moment.  I grabbed all types of things from the house in all different colors.  I wrote the color names on index cards in colored sharpie.  I added to it as we did colors during our lessons, and now that we are done with colors they like to use this all the time.

I like to add sorting activities that are part of what we are learning.  The habitat matching center has pictures of animals and different habitats that I printed from various websites and clipart.  The kids love placing the animals in their correct homes.  The food group matching center has the food pyramid, each group labeled on their own card, and pictures of all types of food.

I have a math center, science center, art and craft centers, shape center, and a lacing center that we started using this week.  It has some old shoe laces, plastic craft lacing in differing lengths with knots already tied, large pony beads, and some Dr. Seuss cardboard cutouts specifically for lacing that I found for a dollar at the craft store.  They love this center, and I love that it helps with their fine motor skills.  I also love that everything has its home, and the kids already understand how to clean the centers up and put it all back in its place.  I find that to be an important lesson in and of itself.  I will post some of my lesson plan templates within the next couple of weeks, and take some more pictures of how I have set things up to help stay organized and on track.  Thanks for reading, and I really hope you comment or send suggestions my way!  Happy Spring!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

So it has been a crazy, but good week.  The kids started a class at the library on Tuesday.  It is 45 minutes every Tuesday for 6 weeks.  All three kids go, and so does my cousin's daughter, so we were all able to go together.  Yesterday I took CJ, Eliza and Mason to the movie theater for their first ever cinematic experience.  They loved it!  We saw the Little Engine that Could.  Today we spent a lot of time outside, we watched a kids movie about Ireland, read books about St. Patrick and St. Patrick's Day, colored some pictures of leprechauns and shamrocks, my grandmother brought lunch over for everyone, and we listened to Irish music all day while we made Irish soda bread, Irish Tea Brack (a fruit bread) and corned beef and cabbage.  It was a busy and wonderful day.  I got to work in the garden a little and we all wore green.  I finally have been able to get lessons planned and printed so next week we get back into a normal school lesson schedule.  I have so much that I need to get done in other parts of my life that lessons have taken too much of a backseat these past few weeks.  I have done lots of teaching, using centers, books and other things, but not in the same format we had been doing.  Tomorrow we go to playgroup and play outside since it will be beautiful.  We will be planting some seeds in the garden, as there are a few things that can be planted now.  It is very exciting for all of us in the Hansen household.  More to come next week, including pictures!  Thanks for reading.

Dr. Seuss Weekend

Friday when at playgroup I picked up a flier for a local celebration of Dr. Seuss' birthday.  The kids made Cat in the Hat hats at playgroup, and we read Dr. Seuss books all day.  My personal favorite is and always has been the Sneetches, so we read that three times.  Eliza's current favorite is Green Eggs and Ham, CJ's is Mr. Brown Can Moo.  CJ read part of Go Dog Go to me while at playgroup so Rich and I picked it up for his birthday this weekend.  All weekend CJ has been reading words he sees, or figuring out words we were spelling out loud.  Anyway, Friday night we went to Dr. Seuss' birthday party at a local community college.  Free.  They gave us pizza, cupcakes, a little gift bag for the kids, lesson plans, work pages, coloring activities.  They read to the kids, there were games, music, dancing, and the kids learned to play musical chairs.  There was face painting, which CJ and Eliza were totally uninterested in.  There was a kiddie pool filled with fish that have letters on them and they could fish for or "swim" in the letters to make words.  There was a lego table and several other things I am forgetting.  What a wonderful thing for the community.  I just wish it had been a little less crowded, or that some children and parents a little less rude.  Overall a great evening for the kids.  Ever since Friday the kids have been obsessed with reading their Dr. Seuss books, and watching the Cat in the Hat on the DVR.  I love it. 

Yesterday we went birthday shopping and picked up foam hats at the craft store.  We got another safari hat so Mason can have one, we got top hats, cowboy/cowgirl hats, yellow construction hats, and pirate hats.  Now I will make some eye patches.  All those hats and the stuff I bought to make a few more learning centers cost far less than some dress up clothes. The kids have such fantastic imaginations I wanted some more things to help them, but dress up clothes at the store are ridiculously expensive and these foam hats were ridiculously cheap.  Plus they adore them!  I also bought a few things to help me make some more centers.  I have some shoelaces and plastic cord with some large beads and cardboard shapes with holes.  The lacing center.  To make a math center I did a few things.  I made patterns on index cards and they have to choose the next item in the pattern.  I also did an addition center since CJ and Eliza are already adding things up on their own. 

I was telling my best friend about CJ reading, and he said to me, "So when we have kids we can pay you to be their teacher, right?"  The more I think about that, the more I like it.  I am thinking that in a few years when the kids need my undivided attention a little less I would like to take on a few more children and do this as a job.  I could limit it to 3 or 4 kiddos.  Turn the house into a mini home daycare/preschool.  I have to look into state requirements etc., but it seems like it could really work for me.  I could continue to educate my kids, but still be bringing in a little money, and I could be teaching other children as well.  I would be taking full advantage of my master's degree that took so much time and energy to acquire.  The part about teaching that I loved, minus the parts that make me nauseous, namely administration.  If anyone has any suggestions or information for me, I would be extremely grateful. I am thinking I could even take on 5 or 6 kids if I had someone work with me.

Plans for this week are to do some work with gardening as a theme, review seeds and plants, and plant a few seeds for the garden.  We have several books on this theme, and we will visit the library to get more.  Since my printer is dead, and the new one not here yet, we will be holding off on the next letter, number and shape.  We will review all the letter books we have done, and finish the kids number books.  We did number posters for each number up to 10, but wall space is in short supply, so each child is making a number book, with a page for each number.  They started them last week, but we still have a few to go.  I also have a snowflake bingo game, with numbers up to 10, that I would like to play with them this week.  I may also begin a letter book for each of them.  I want to spend some time getting CJ and Eliza to try drawing pictures as well.  For the first time today CJ drew a person.  A recognizable stick figure.  I was way more excited than he was.  I broke out the magna doodle, and their magnetic white board/chalk board combos.  I think having a variety of materials may encourage CJ to draw a little more, as he is apt to shy away from doing it.  Eliza will scribble on everything including books and walls if I let her.  I am also going to try having the kids write in shaving cream again, hoping that CJ will try it.  I will let you all know how it goes. 

Tomorrow we are doing our weekly cooking project.  Lemon friendship bread, as my grandmother gave me a friendship bread starter that needs to be used every week and a half.  Later in the week our craft project will be a kit someone gave us that is to make sand art in a bottle.  Since I do not provide enough opportunities for the kids to pour things themselves I thought this task would be a good one.  I need to figure out a cheap and fairly clean way to make the kids a water table.  Easy to make that outside in the summer, but this time of year inside, not so easy. 

My personal goal this week, is to post some pictures of the kids using the centers, to post more consistently, and sound a little less frazzled in those posts.  I enjoy writing this blog and conversing with people about our homeschooling experience, so it is important to me to make time.  I thank you for reading this and welcome any questions, insights, suggestions or comments.

CJ READ A BOOK!!!

Well, half a book anyway.  Mason and Eliza went down for a nap and CJ and I took out a book Rich bought him for when he starts to read, one that he has never heard or read before.  Cooking with the Cat in the Hat.  He read the first half of it to me!  I had to help him with the, and remind him how to sound out, but HE READ!!!  I am happy and proud beyond imagining, and I got a little teary after he finally went down for a nap.  He told me, "Mommy, reading is hard, but I really like it."  I told him that reading certainly is hard but it is such a wonderful thing.  He said, "I am so excited to read books all by myself Mommy, I can't wait!  I love reading!"  Melt my heart.  He was practically vibrating from joy and excitement every time he figured out a word.  How lucky am I?


In other news, Eliza has been in big girl underpants since Saturday.  She only is wearing diapers at nap and night.  It has been quite a week in our house!  So proud, and so weepy, and so happy all at the same time!  Eliza hasn't had any accidents since she started wearing underpants.  Just like her brother she just told me Saturday morning that she wanted to wear underpants.  We have been keeping her in dresses and nightgowns to make it easier on her, since all her cute little girl pants are not easy to get on and off herself.  Why do they think toddlers need skinny jeans anyway?  And why did my parents buy them?  But she is doing remarkably well, and I am so happy to be near the end of diapers.  Every day when she uses the potty, she says, "Mommy, I am so proud of myself!"  If only you could see the ecstatic little smile and her expressions.  She really is a character.  So this is a very happy week. 


Next week will be back to letter number and shape of the week.  This week is a book of tracing capital letters, more learning centers, making a number book using stickers, and a shape book.  We are doing review work, and using workbooks.  Next week I will be more prepared and less exhausted and sore.  I don't care if they watch TV all day tomorrow, Eliza is using the potty and CJ is reading!  Woohoo!

Reality Check

So I think the cold/flu has finally stopped kicking us in the teeth.  I am finally able to get through a whole day without coughing up a lung, or crying from being so tired and sore.  My neck still hurts, as I reinjured it in a coughing and sneezing fit, if you believe it.  The kids are finally able to spend most of a day without collapsing on the couch with a blanket.  These past few weeks really pointed out to me that I am not SuperWoman, and I can't do everything.  The uberclean house has become a disaster.  Meals were not well planned.  We watched way too much TV.  I just couldn't keep up with my normal pace.  We are all better, so back on track, but it it tough.  I want to get right back into it.  Unfortunately it is difficult to get right back into our routine completely so we are not starting a new letter number or shape this week.  We are spending a few days practicing tracing, reviewing letters and sounds, and just going over everything we have done so far.  Mostly because I have been unable to get together a weeks worth of schoolwork while feeling like I am going to pass out.  This week I will get everything back together, but in the meantime we are using all of our audio books, coloring books, and workbooks that people have given us.  We are reviewing all the colors, as we have finished them.  We are working on mixing colors, and what primary and secondary colors are.  We are spending a lot of time talking about all the animals we have studied, comparing and contrasting them, and seeing what we remember.  We even matched them up to their habitats on a world map!  I have letting the kids use the learning centers I made every day, since it is something they can do while I do dishes or fold laundry.  We sing a lot of songs, and listen to lots of music, read lots of books together, and we have been cooking together.  When we went to playgroup last week, the kids noticed a picture of the food pyramid, and they recognized it.  They were able to tell me all the food groups, and what foods belong to the groups.  I was so proud of all of them.  When I think about what the kids know, and what they say and do I am overwhelmed with joy and pride, and it really reinforces to me why I am doing what I am doing.  Some days I really think I made a bad choice, and I feel like a truck hit me, but then Eliza will tell me, "You know Mommy, my teddy bear is quite unlike a real bear."  And she will explain why!  CJ will sing the entire album of Here Comes Science and take the information and find real life examples of how he has learned from it.  The best thing though, is when they climb onto the couch with me while I am working and tell me how happy they are.  That is worth any bit of frustration or annoyance, worth any amount of work.  They are smart and happy, and I am so lucky to be able to be home with them.  Now that the weather is finally starting to normalize, and hopefully we won't be bombarded with a gigantic snow storm every few days, I am going to start planning some field trips.  I want to visit the Eric Carle Museum, the Dr. Seuss Museum, the Roger Williams Park Zoo again, Old Sturbridge Village, and several other places.  I want to get the kids outside and hiking this spring, as I miss it tons. 

On a completely unrelated note, we made quinoa and whole wheat spinach pasta last night, from scratch.  It was awesome!  I was so excited to try it, and everyone LOVED it!  Tonight is vegetarian night, and we are making white bean gratin, bruschetta, and leftover golden beets.  So looking forward to it!