We did big letters A,B,C,D:
A with Apples, B with 'buttons', C with Cotton balls, and D with 'dots' (by painting with Q-tips):
We are continuing the alphabet with the big letters, and have since done E,F,G and H (not pictured here): E has real eggshells on it, F with Feathers, G with Glitter, and H with hearts (which she punched out using my extra huge heart punch).
We made 'Fantastic Fish':
We've done 'H' pictures--we traced her hand all over a big sheet of paper and then glued pictures that began with the letter 'H' on each Hand (If you look closely at the side of the picture, you can see a whole bunch of scribbles going up...that's where she wrote her name 'Claire-Bear'!):
We've been having so much fun! We start each day off learning about a new letter--looking at it and talking about what things start with that letter and singing songs about it! Andrew joins us, usually, until there is glue or cutting involved! :) Then he goes and plays with Meekness, our nanny, and they put together puzzles and read stories and build towers and drive cars around the special 'car carpets'! It's been SO much fun!
And Josh is doing much better in school. (knock on wood) His coloring skills have made leaps and bounds, and his writing of letters and sounding out words is much more finely tuned. School is definitely good for him. He comes home completely exhausted every day, but that's pretty normal. We all do homework together then (he has homework pretty much every day! :)), and eat a little snack. Then we either read stories or make dinner until Devin gets home. It's a nice schedule. We are definitely enjoying it! :)
You know, it's funny that it's taken being in a completely different country for me to really REALLY enjoy being a mom. There were many days before now where I would go to bed just feeling discouraged and sad. I felt that I wasn't working hard enough with my kids or playing with them enough, or loving them enough...I was busy just running around. I tried my hardest to do 'fun projects' with them, but it would be so stressful for me (and we all know that no matter how much prep time we put into projects with little kids, their attention span stays the same: about 2 minutes!) that it wouldn't be fun anymore. It would be just me going through the motions. So I felt like I was cheating myself and my kids... The whole time I'd be playing with them, I'd be thinking of all the other million things I had to do: Cleaning, cooking...blah, blah, blah. In one of my other posts, I have shots of my kids having filled the bathtub with all of the sheets, blankets, pillows and stuffed animals off of their beds. This time, I chuckled and took pictures. A year ago, I would have freaked out! Instead of thinking what a funny creative thing to do, I would have thought about all the work that I would have to do afterward. I think it has been having household help that has helped me to realize that you really can enjoy your kids and not stress about the cleaning. How weird is that? You might think, "Well, of course she thinks that! She really doesn't have to stress about the cleaning!!" That is partially true. I don't HAVE to. I still do clean and cook and do those normal stay-at-home-mom things. But something has changed. The kids in the bathtub scenario was on a Saturday. I didn't have someone there to come rushing to my rescue and make up the beds while I was downstairs playing or cooking. I did make the beds myself. But it didn't bother me like it used to. So, I think that overall, the most important thing that I've been able to learn here is how to focus on my task at hand. Instead of thinking about all the things I should be doing, that I'm not doing, that I will be doing next,...I've discovered how to focus on the thing I AM doing. It has made my life so much less stressful and happy! Not only for me, but for my family! I'm not frazzled at the end of the day, because I've taken everything one at a time, and if it doesn't get done, oh well. But I don't go to bed overwhelmed with the things I have left to do tomorrow, and I don't try to sleep thinking of how I've let my kids down again! I think this is one of the most important things that I've learned in quite a long time!
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