Problems?

Is anyone else having problems seeing blogs they follow in their Dashboard or Google Reader? I've lost all the blogs I follow. Maybe you can leave me a comment so I can connect to your blog and re-follow you if you are a blogger. Thanks. I also went into my followers and was able to reconnect that way with some...but I'm not done. Thanks for your help.

Mail Time!

We participated in the Super Summer Swap hosted by The Dairy Queen and Superheroes and Princesses. We were not disappointed! Sissy from Academy at Thousand Oaks is also two years old. She chose lots of wonderful things for Meghan. She immediately went for the yellow, smiley face necklace. It's filled with bubbles! Also included were stickers, coloring book, stamp, ink, paints, some wooden items to paint, and some special items from Sissy's state of Arkansas! Sissy and her mommy put together a very special book for Meghan. It used photographs to tell all about Sissy. This is a such a great idea! We are thrilled to know Sissy so well. M was thrilled when we sent Sissy her package at the post office. When she opened the new package, she kept saying Sissy's real name and "friend." Isn't that sweet! Thank you to Sissy and Jenny at Academy at Thousand Oaks!

Homemade Stencils and Free Art

We have an abundance of lids in our home. For the past couple of months, I have been saving them instead of recycling them. Our first project with them was to make some stencils. I just drew a heart and star on each lid.

They were cut using an Exacto knife.

The first day we tried the stencils we just used crayons. It worked pretty well. (Sorry, no picture.)

Here are some of the hearts we made with paint.

After painting a few hearts, M just wanted to paint.

We used another lid for a painting palette! I love the look of brightly colored paints on dark paper, especially after it dries!

Play-Doh Placemat

I used my handy little laminating machine to make Play-Doh placemats for M and E. (No E does not use it!) A long time ago I used my friend's Cricut machine and cut out the letters to their names. I also have some precut shapes on nice paper. On regular scrapbooking paper I typed the ABC's and numbers 1-10. I placed the letters, laminated, and was done!

It's a really easy project. M loves it. She prefers the side with her name in big letters which didn't surprise me.

If you do not have a laminator, you could use contact paper. If you do that, go with 12x12 cardstock instead of 8 1/2 x 11. You could even take it to a local teacher or office supply store.

Three Little Pigs Puppets

This past spring I made these finger puppets for M. She had really been enjoying the story of the Three Little Pigs, and I thought it might encourage some speech and eventually storytelling.
I had so much fun designing the puppets. They're my own design, but I did look at other puppets and drawings of pigs and wolves to try to get an idea of how to best portray the pigs and wolf. The little pockets on the pigs have hay, sticks, and bricks in them.
Each of the Three Little Pigs characte's puppet is completely hand-sewn. They're about 1 1/2 by 3 inches. Obviously, I am not good at French knots, but I got the blanket stitch down! Not including the designing time, I have six to seven hours of sewing involved in the four puppets!
I wanted to share these for the storytelling theme over at ABC and 123. Though M isn't interested (probably due to her limited speaking abilities) in storytelling, she does like it when I tell stories using puppets. I suspect other children might embrace little finger puppets more than she has! If you have any questions about how to make finger puppets, I'd be happy to answer them! You're welcome to imitate my design, but I'd appreciate the credit since I put a lot of effort into the design.

Pre-K Materials Giveaway

Cheerios Underfoot (what a clever blog name!) is participating in the Homeschool Creations' Curriculum Clean Out. What this means is that she is giving away lots of her own, gently used, materials. I'd love to win what she's giving away today. I'm not going to tell you what it is though. You can check it out for yourself at Cheerios Underfoot. It's worth the visit!

Planning Time

In February when M was diagnosed with apraxia, we thought about preschool. Preschools are a language-rich environment and can be very beneficial. We don't know if she will qualify for the developmental preschool with the speech and language classroom, but we did decide not to put her in a regular preschool this fall. Hopefully we'll know later this month or early in September if she is going to the developmental preschool. In the meantime, we'll do a bit of preschool at home. As a mom I have the opportunity to be such a huge influence in my children's lives. I want to take it. M loves to learn. So hopefully this month I will get everything ready and prepared for our own mini-homeschool. I don't consider myself to be a homeschooler. I'm just a mom, wanting to teach my children. However, I am the type of person who needs to plan. (But don't ask me how my meal planning went for July...) So that's why I am going to use some resources for curriculum...but it will be very loosely, not strictly. M will not be in kindergarten for three more years. There is absolutely no need to push her now. Therapy pushes her a lot. I want our school to be fun, but structured for me, so I know what to do and have a plan to implement it. I also think she will enjoy the structure. At this point, I'm looking at a few sites for ideas. Some are Christian sources, with plenty of "other" academics included, too.

• Hubbard's Cupboard - Detailed lesson plans. It has a curriculum for many different ages. It seems simple, and it has lots of pictures. A Christian curriculum.
• ABC Jesus Loves Me- This may be a bit advanced for M, since it starts at age 3, but it's still an excellent resource.
• Preschool Express by Jean Warren. Jean Warren also has lots of books at our tiny local library for preschools. Great learning resources, but not a curriculum. You can find great unit ideas though.
• Bible Story Sundays- This is new and awesome. I want to do some major themes from the Bible, and I already see this as a great resource for ideas. I will also be able to share what we do, if I want to.
• Various other blogs/sites that I frequently visit like ABC and 123 and The Home Teacher's Wiki site for ABC ideas. Many of the blogs I visit incorporate lots of meaningful actitivities into their lives each day, but these two sites I am including bc they have their activites so organized.

Of course my local library (especially when I can use two county (on-line) libraries, plus our church library!) is a great resource. I will continue to use it for children's books as well as preschool teaching resources. I really appreciate having two libraries (in two states) within 15 minutes of my home. Where I grew up there wasn't (and still isn't!) a local library within the school district.

I have signed us up for Community Bible Study (CBS). It's a national interdenominational organization that does a great job teaching adults and children. The children's program is awesome, too. I was part of it for two years before. I'll be starting at a new location this time though. If M doesn't go to preschool, this will be a good, structured learning environment for her to supplement Sunday school and Toddler Church.

I'm just starting to think about what to do, but it's hard since I only want to plan a bit since we may not need it for too long. Some things I hope we do before mid-October are apples, moon, family/me, Creation, and Noah's ark. We'll see what happens in reality.

Any tips for organizing my thoughts? Any recommendations for anything? I just hope I don't get overwhelmed!