We Heart Valentine's Day

This week we hit the dollar store and spent $3 to spruce up the house with Valentine's decorations.  Sophie kept asking for us to put up decorations that we didn't have.  Now we have a lovely wire heart garland swagged over the window treatments in the living room, pink hearts doilies on the windows of the dining room, and puppy-love themed window clings on the kids' bathroom mirror.

Today we tried our hand at making yarn hearts with cornstarch glue which is wonderfully nasty.  Sophie made two and let me know she was ready to go play.  She pushed through one more before mom relieved her of the "enforced fun."  We have to wait a day for them to dry but we plan on hanging them from light fixture.

Hip Hip Hooray for Rhys!

Rhys received his annual evaluation for developmental services this week and did wonderfully.  He not only made a years growth in his cognitive ability but has also closed any gaps.  That is very good news indeed!  All that "play" really paid off.  He also has receptive language skills on the lower end of the average range.  His social/emotional scores were above average for his age level by quite a bit. 

Early Childhood Intervention (ECI) has undergone some changes due to, we have no doubt, funding.  A child can no longer qualify for services with just an articulation delay (how they pronounce their sounds when speaking).  So we were quite pleased that he barely qualified under expressive language delay by 1%!  Now he can still receive services until his birthday and we can focus on expressive language (2 word utterances and basic concepts) with his developmental specialist, and articulation (his phonological processes--for my SLP friends that are in the know) through his speech-language pathologist.

We are so pleased that he has really increased his understanding, overall communication, and maturity over the past year.  He has developed a wonderful personality!  Now we can focus more fully on expressive communication, pronouncing sounds, and toilet training.  We are currently making plans for preschool which should start in August if he is fully potty trained.  We have 8 months so we are assured he can do it.

We are so proud of our son!

National Popcorn Day

So Thursday was National Popcorn Day and apparently, Keri was not the only one to know this.  Sophie's preschool was celebrating all day long. 

We started before preschool by making a new popcorn seasoning; our old go-to being salt.  This was a dill seasoning.  Sophie filled the bowl and Rhys gave it a good shake to mix.

While at school, Sophie played in popcorn, finger painted a large popped kernel, and decorated a paper bag that was filled to bursting.  She was so excited to bring it home for us to all share.

On the way home from school we picked up more popping corn at the store.  Once home we ate up the popcorn she had bagged and popped more for our project.  While Rhys slept, Sophie and Keri strung popcorn to hang on the tree for the birds.

That night we used our seasoning liberally!  Neal having misunderstood Keri's directions, whilst she yelled down the hall, busy bathing the kids, and he poured 3 times the amount of seasoning called for.  It was very salty but we pushed through and enjoyed celebrating the end of National Popcorn Day.

Waiters and Bankers and a Case of Pink Eye

Thursday, Keri got to finish up her preschool week by teaching about two other members in our community--waiters and bankers!

We talked about being a waiter first. We talked about when we go to a restaurant we get to choose what we want from the menu.  The kids were given two choices and they stood on the side of the room that represented their preference several times.

Then we moved to the table and talked about how a waiter gives you a place setting.  We made our own and served (glued) food to our plate.

After that was real snack time.  We participated in dramatic play and took a friend's order (circled their snack choices) and went to the kitchen to prepare their food and served it to them.

After we finished snack we wiped up after a friend because a waiter cleans up after us.

After a little more play time we switched to talking about bankers.  We talked about piggy banks and that a bank is like a building with a big piggy bank called a vault.  We reviewed the letter V.  We labeled several V work pictures and hid one in our vault (a box!) and had to guess which one was missing. 

Then we had show and tell.  Everyone had a different V item or picture.  It was great discussing each one.

Then we shook a piggy bank with coins and sang "I have the money, yes I do, I have the money, how about you" (pointing to a friend).  Then we handed it to them and sang again until everyone had a turn.

We labeled the 4 coins and talked about color and size.  Then they picked a coin from the bank and tried to match it to the 4 displayed.  We labeled again.

We had a good time playing at "work" today.

 

To prove the fun never stops, I got a call from Sophie's preschool that she had pink eye and was off to pick her up immediately after Rhys' preschool.  That afternoon we had eye drops to start treating and had to alert all our co-op preschool pals that we had a case of pink eye in the house.

Sophie has been a great sport about getting the eye drops and cleaning her eye.  We are all washing our hands like crazy and checking our eyes to the point of paranoia! 

Sadly, we were not able to join Rhys' friends for a special trip to our local fire department due to the infection.  Did I just touch my eye?...

Do You Love Your Job?

Keri gets to teach preschool this week and we are talking about different jobs people have in our community.  Today we got funky with hair as we discussed what hairdressers do. We compared our hair and talked about our salon experiences. 

We read What I Like About Me! by Allia Zobel-Nolan. Then we talked about if we don't like what God blessed us with, we can go to the hairdresser so they can try to change it. Okay, not really. We talked about how we all have different hair and can style it different ways.

We introduced that a blow dryer is one of the tools used by hairdressers and other objects they may use, i.e., hairspray, comb, ribbon for bows, curlers.  Then we experimented with the blow dryer and they got to pick something to blast across the table with the blow dryer. We discussed light, heavy, soft, forceful, hot, warm, and loud.

 Then we got to our art project. We discussed long, short, curly, and straight hair. They drew faces on paper plates and choose the best 'do' for their hair, using colorful strips of construction paper.  Keri taught them how to wrap strips around their pencils to get it curled (great for fine motor) and a few attempted it.

For snack, we introduced what office workers might do. We got out our computer keyboards and found the letter V, the letter at the beginning of their names, and a few others, and covered them with the carrot coins and raisins. Then they gobbled them up.

At sharing time, we shared our office supply finds with our friends and talked about what each one is for and experimented with using it. They loved that, especially the hole punch.

We discussed that office workers have a lot of paperwork they need to keep neat. We categorized pictures of orange, blue, and pink items into color labeled folders. Then counted how many of each color we had.

We learned that some office workers go to work in tall buildings and they may have to take the elevator. We did dramatic play of going to work, getting in the elevator, pushing the buttons and counting as we went to the desired floor. For number recognition and counting practice Keri did include a 13th floor. She's teaching math here, not superstition! 

It was a fun and hectic morning and she is looking forward to Thursday when she covers waiters and bankers.  Never a dull moment on preschool days!

Previous Quote of the Blog

Christmas, in its essence, is much more...enduring than the many minor things of life [that] we too often use to adorn it....We feel and know in our heart—that Christmas is about the Christ. -- President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, First Presidency Christmas Devotional

We Started a Blog!--AGAIN!

We've just got it going and I'm sure we'll be making tweaks here and there but please visit our new blog: PUT THAT IN MY MOUTH for a glance at our food/recipe interests.