Preschool

The first week of September, we started a preschool co-op with a few families in the ward, as well as homeschool preschool stuff. Tuesdays and Thursdays are our co-op days, and today was at our house. The kids love seeing their friends and getting to do fun things with them. And I like having a chance to spend time with other women.

On Mondays and Fridays we go over a letter at our house and do activities related to the days theme. I matched up each letter with a superhero, Star Wars character, or other such person that Joseph loves, and that's our theme for those days.

On Wednesdays, we go to the library's preschool program. Joseph goes in the Storytime room for a little class, while Annabelle, Charlie, and I sit at the story circle for reading, songs, and a puppet show. We also always end up taking tons of books home. Our house is becoming overrun with library books.

We missed some preschool while we were in Idaho last month, so the kids and I have been catching up on letters so that we are on track with the co-op. We are doing G and Green Lantern tomorrow instead of going to the library, or maybe we'll do both, I haven't decided.

It's fun planning out ideas and working with the kids to help them learn. I've found that I get easily frustrated, though, so I have to take lots of calming breaks, and I've been using a lot of Citrus Bliss, which is an essential oil blend I love. I love watching the kids learn, but they have very short attention spans, and they usually want to do something else, like playing video games or watching TV. But I think it's been good so far, and I know it will get better if I keep trying and keep praying.

Home School Revisited

After doing lots of thinking and talking with family, I've realized that I don't have to have a strict school schedule for Joseph, which is what I had planned. I don't think Joseph is ready for something like that anyways. As I get more pregnant, I because less able to do something that strict. I have a tendency to go either too far or not enough; I'm terrible at balance. I've always felt like I either have to follow a very strict schedule for things and then I burn myself out and do nothing at all until I've recovered. I think that working on home school is going to be the same for me. I need to find the proper balance for me and my kids. Joseph has forgotten a lot of the stuff that he knew, so he isn't even ready for the program that I had planned. That lets me know that we need to take some time to review and work on the basics again. I think I'll just take time to help him remember his basics, but do it in a way that will be enjoyable for him. Today we played Go Fish! with alphabet cards. It was good seeing that he at least remembers his uppercase letters. Next week, we will start review lowercase. He also did a page in his tracing workbook. His lines aren't as neat as they were and he's forgotten a bit about how to hold the pencil properly, but he's slowly getting better. We also had fun playing Uno and he's good with knowing his numbers. I think I'll just gather a lot of fun ideas for reviewing things and getting him ready for higher level stuff. I'm glad I didn't go out and spend money on a phonics primer and handwriting workbook because it's definitely not time for those. I think we'll review through the end of this year and then see where we are. That will also give me time to get through this pregnancy and have time to get used to another little one in the family.

Home School

For several months, I've been planning on starting a home school Kindergarten program for Joseph. Yesterday was our first day. I don't have the curriculum that I originally planned on starting with, but it turns out it's fine because he's forgotten a lot of his letters and their sounds. He seems to think that school means "playing games", so yesterday he was annoyed when we were reading and practicing letters and their sounds; he was constantly asking, "What game are we going to play now?"

This morning, I had the hardest time waking up because I was so tired. Mitchell doesn't get home from class until after 9 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but he leaves before 9 in the morning. We obviously wanted to spend time together last night, so we stayed up late. Also, spending the entire day with the kids by myself really wore me out. Today, I have no motivation for doing school with Joseph or really much of anything else. I think I'd be content spending the morning in front of my computer eating a box of Poptarts.

I don't know if taking on the task of schooling Joseph was a bad idea, at least for now. This school semester is going to be trying on Mitchell and on me. I'm also having a baby in 2 1/2 months. But I keep thinking, "If I can't do a simple Kindergarten, then maybe I'm not cut out for homeschooling at all..."

One thing that's good about home schooling for me is that it gives me things to do with Joseph and Annabelle. I've never been very good at spending time WITH my kids. Planning school activities helps me come up with things to actually do stuff with them instead of just letting them do their thing while I do mine. There seem to be a lot of pros and cons for me with doing this home schooling thing, the real problem is deciding what to actually do.

Happy New Year!

I know I'm two weeks late, but I guess it's better late than never. I didn't realize how busy life was going to get for me even though I am not taking classes. It's been a very big adjustment for me to be home all day again. I feel like a two sided person; one side of me wants to be the best stay-at-home mom in the world and the other side wants to do her own thing. I'm trying to make sure that I schedule time for myself as well as the kids every day ( I have to have schedules to survive...).

I'm planning on starting a little preschool next week. It will mostly be focused on Joseph, but I've invited some moms from the ward who have children that are Joseph's age. I think it's going to be really fun; I just have to make sure that I don't overboard trying to make elaborate lesson plans or anything. I've written "teacher" for What Do You Want to Be? questions for nearly my whole life, but I have to keep from getting to excited at this stage. I'm hoping to homeschool the kids, so I will get to make fancier lesson plans later on.

We took Joseph in for his 3 year old check up at the beginning of this week. He's not doing as well as he should be. He's hardly grown at all in the past year, and by "hardly" I mean less than 2 inches and less than 5 pounds, although it could be even less than that. He will be seeing a GI next month to make sure that there are no underlying problems. We've been trying to get him to eat more at his meals, but sometimes it feels like a war zone. Hopefully, we can figure things out so that he can start growing again.

Yesterday, we were able to buy a countertop dishwasher! I'm so excited! We found a listing on ksl.com for someone that was selling one in Orem. I'm so glad because now it's so much easier to do dishes. Mitchell has been really great and has been doing most of the dishes since we got it. It's such a load off of my shoulders.

Tomorrow, we are going to Ikea and buying a bed frame. For almost a year, we have been sleeping on a 4-inch memory foam topper that just lays on the ground. It's not as uncomfortable as it sounds, but it causes problems because the kids think it's a tumbling mat. A week or so ago, someone in our ward gave us a feather bed topper and we put that on top, too. So it's softer for us to sleep on AND for the kids to play on. A few days ago, I just decided that I was tired of being jumped on and somersaulted on and headstand-ed on while trying to sleep or rest, so I told Mitchell that I need a bed frame. We figure that once we have the frame, Joseph may try to do a somersault on it and get hurt and then he won't do it again (at least, that's what we hope). We went and browsed at Ikea today and decided to get something from there because we could really use the storage space that their beds provide. I love Ikea because everything is just meant for living in small spaces, which is totally what we are doing. I'm excited to get a bed tomorrow!

I made New Years' Resolutions for myself, but I think I might post them another day. I have two sleeping children, a warm bed, and a not-busy husband, so I'm done typing now.