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Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Pre-K or no Pre-K? That is the question!

    Last July or so is when I decided to try my hand at becoming a work at home mom.  It was something that I had wanted to try for a while and circumstances made the opportunity available to me.  I was very much looking forward to spending more time with my three children and being able to be a part of their every day lives.  The one thing that gave me pause in this decision was the concern about taking Mason out of daycare and how he would do without the benefit of Pre-K. 

    I began with Pinterest, and researching and compiling some boards that had some learn-at-home and Pre-K curriculum type information.  What a HUGE amount of materials I found!  I also looked into the website for the school system to find out what Kindergarten curriculum looked like in my area.

    With my research done, I decided that I could effectively teach Mason at home.  Learning at home, with Mommy as the teacher can sometimes be a difficult road, so we had to make it fun!

      We started with the basics:  colors, letters, name.  One of the great web sites that I found for working on letters is A to Z Teacher Stuff.  On this site, you can type in any words, or letters, and it will print them on the standard Kindergarten handwriting worksheets.  I also found a lot of resources that I bought.  The Target Dollar Spot held lots of fun stuff:
I was able to get all of the things above for $1 or less!  

    We have worked on all of these and so many more.  To help with 'sight' words, or 'word wall' words, we review, write, and post them.  I found a really great way to get Mason to practice writing his words:


    Most teachers will tell you as well, to READ, READ, and READ some more.  This is something that we have done from birth with Mason.  We make sure that this is a daily occurrence and now I am able to have Mason read some of the words himself.  Most public libraries have story time and this is a great resource for preschool children.  Frequent trips to the library are always fun!   

There are also things on the county's kindergarten readiness list like tying shoes, independence in the restroom, zip and button pants, these are all things that I let Mason do any time the opportunity arises.

    Much to my delight, when I went to register Mason for Kindergarten a couple of weeks ago, he is capable of each of the tasks that are on the list for Kindergarten Readiness and knows a lot of the skills that they will teach him in Kindergarten! I am so excited for Mason's Kindergarten year, and feel like he is MORE than ready!  With this, I will give myself a pat on the back, "Good job, Mom, you did it!"


Wednesday, April 16, 2014




  What a busy week that we have had since my last post!

   My hubby went on a business trip for the first time.  This was a little stressful for my two youngest who are every much 'Daddy's Kids.'  We worked through it, though, because I'm a Mommy, that's what we do.  In the words of the famous Tim Gunn, we "Make it work!"

    This week we are getting ready for Easter!  This is my kids favorite holiday!  We always go to our Aunt's cabin in the Smoky Mountains for the day and eat, hike, play in the river, and have a GREAT time.  This year, we will head up and stay in a cabin and tour Cade's Cove, go to Dollywood, and celebrate our favorite holiday.

    I wanted to share a little Easter project with you that I did one year for the kids.  I truly enjoy filling their Easter baskets the night before Easter and seeing how excited they get about their treats.  What I do not enjoy, is vacuuming the 'grass' from the baskets out of my carpet for the next month!  Has anyone else had this problem?

    This was my solution and it was wonderful:





The Easter baskets I made. Real grass in stead of the plastic stuff!

This was a great project for the kids!  The instructions are pretty simple....

Supplies:
  • Easter Baskets
  • clear plastic planter bases (can find them most anywhere, they are in the lawn and garden are and are generally used to sit flower pots on to catch overflow.  They generally cost less than $1)
  • potting soil
  • Grass seed
Directions:

  • Place plastic insert into Easter basket
  • fill with potting soil
  • cover top of soil generously with grass seed
  • add a little more potting soil over the seed
Since you used grass, it grows pretty quickly!  I would plant about a week and a half at least before Easter.  If you see that your grass is too tall, my kids enjoyed 'mowing' their baskets with safety scissors!

Thank you for visiting my blog!  I hope to start making my entries more often!  Please share with you friends and let me know if you enjoy the content!

There is a survey below to let me know what your families favorite holiday is!!!



making their baskets