{BIG} Magnet Fun!

by Meghan // May 13, 2013 // Comments off

Oh the magnet fun has began! I remember in elementary school, the kids who took the circle magnets off the chalk tray were envied by all the good kids, too scared to do it themselves.

How the magnets attracted each other, rolled across the desk, how they felt in your hands. Aah. Magnets were. So. Cool. (or was it just me?)

My dad mailed us some magnets from his shop.

Saying Lexie (who will be 3 in September) is obsessed is an under statement! As she excitedly opened the box and unwrapped the magnets, she kept saying, “ooh, what is it? Its for Essie? What did Payne send, do you think?”

We spent 2 hours playing with these magnets the day she got them in the mail. They come out of truck parts (engines, transmissions, oil things, and what not? I don’t really remember all the things my dad said they come out of ..). But Payne is a mechanic, and a build-it fix-it guy to boot.

These magnets are so strong, even I have a hard time pulling them apart sometimes. Seriously.

You can tell all those little plasticized, weak, kiddie magnets we won’t be buying them, because we have awesome magnets to play with!

We decided to set the bigger magnets up across her table and predict which one the smaller magnets would roll towards. Then she would flick the small, cylinder shaped magnets towards the row of bigger magnets and see where it went.

Sometimes the magnetism just made them all crazily attract to each other, and we would suddenly have a huge clump of magnets!

I had as much fun as she did. Very cool. So thanks Payne. 🙂

Here is a video of her playing with them- she can’t get enough!

How do you use magnets for learning fun with your children? Let me know in the comments!

Learning this week: Winnie the Pooh, coloring, and playdough

by Meghan // May 10, 2013 // Comments off

I am starting a new weekly/bi weekly update series on what specifically we have done this week in our homeschool or learning in general. Fun crafts and things will usually have their own posts, depending on the time and energy I have to blog them.

This week, Lexie is 4 months away from her third birthday! Oh em gee. I really cant believe my baby, my brilliant, strong willed, determined first born is almost three. (Remind me of this when she is turning 13, and 23….).

Last week we started reading our first chapter book- none other than A.A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh!

How appropriate, seeing how as a child my Memaw video taped every. single. episode. of Winnie the pooh (the new adventures mind you, not these ridiculous computerized versions… And long before Tigger or piglet had their own movies! I had the real deal, let me tell you).

Lexie loves to read, and she absolutely loves to pretend to read serious, big word books. Her little (formerly my own) Precious Moments Bible is so worn, because she brings it to me and says, “what’s this say?” Then I will read it to her, and she goes off and “reads” it to her dolls or the engines. (Yes, the engines are part of our family now …)

Her devotional is literally falling apart. The cover is falling off, the pages are creased and crinkled. She has most of the pages memorized up to this date. It is by far her favorite book in the house.

We’ve had it since CHRISTMAS! It is 5 months old.

You must appreciate her passion for God and reading though…

So anyway, I thought with all these things combined, she would enjoy a chapter book read aloud.

Wow. To say the least.

I have to distract her ~~bribe her~~ so I can stop reading, or we would have the book read in a day. She likes to take the book and pretend she is reading it. What she recites is a mixture of Winnie the Pooh, meets The Little Red Hen, meets the Bible… Quite eclectic, and entertaining.

Lexie has started coloring inside the lines! I know coloring books aren’t developmentally appropriate and hinder creativity. I know. I know.

But she refused to draw! She is my little perfectionist, type A, right brained baby, and drawing pictures is not her thing. Two weeks ago she would shove a blank piece of paper across the table, crying and panicking, refusing to color! “No mommeeeeeee! You show me, you do it! Essie doesn’t know how!”

But give her a coloring sheet and she will color in the lines, draw pictures on top of it, make numbers and letters all over it … So maybe she has a blank paper phobia? (No, that’s not funny because it is a huge possibility.) But I understand her thought process; she doesn’t know how to draw a picture like she sees in books, and therefore doesn’t want to do it. Obviously I want to teacher her to do things out of her comfort zone, or things she doesn’t think she can do really well. Slowly she has started coloring on some blank spots on her papers, so I am going to try blank paper again and see what happens.

Last week we played outside a lot, so I don’t have many pictures of learning activities… But we did manage to squeeze in a little bit of intentional inside learning fun.

We used playdoh to create letters. Then we talked about the letter sounds, and different words that had that beginning and ending sound. It was fun and she loved it. We also cut out shapes with cookie cutters, and worked on her fine motor skills. She had a lot of fun!

We decided Max needed some “playdoh,” but since he obviously puts everything in his mouth, we had to be creative. Another mama online told me about shaving cream in a baggie. I had a really hard time keeping the bag taped to his tray; and eventually he chewed a hole in it… but he had a lot of fun! I added some non toxic paint in the baggie and let him squish it all around.

That has pretty much been our week. We haven’t done any Before Five in a Row in a week or two. I have ordered a printer and am waiting on it so we can do our lapbook/memory book activities to go with the books. Today she found and picked up The Big Green Pocket Book off the shelf downstairs, so we read it. Five times. In a row. Needless to say, that will be the next book we row! haha

What have you been doing with your children this week?

34-36 Weeks Baby Summary

by Meghan // May 10, 2013 // Comments off

*I have been building this post all week, so “today” isn’t actually today ….*

Max has grown by leaps and bounds in the last 5 days! He suddenly went for a bitty baby to a big boy! He is almost crawling (edit: AAAAh! He crawled 2 knees worth today!), waving hi, giving wide, slobbery, open mouthed kisses, and laughing more than ever. Tonight for bedtime was the first time he put his head on my shoulder and his arms around me while we sang for night night. I usually hold him like a baby while he sucks his thumb and winds down. He’s such a sweet bear. Today, he also went from the crawling position to sitting position for the first time.

…. see, lots of firsts!

He said Mama while we were playing downstairs, hiding out from the rain. I was so excited. He is trying really hard to talk. A lot. The past few days I have had the living room fan, he is mesmerized; and I know all babies love fans. But this boy like instantly smiles and is hypnotized by the fan! He likes to play games now, like throwing his head back so you will hold him upside down, and putting his chin up so you can tickle his neck. It’s so funny. These are all things Lexie was doing long before 8 months. But it’s like he just decided, “Hey, I think I’m ready to move and have fun!” Before, he was so lazy and laid back. He is still laid back, just enjoys moving around now.

He gets so excited and is so proud that he can get up and rock on his knees, push up on his toes, and crawl backwards sometimes. He will be crawling more by the weekend, we are sure! Lexie gets very excited with him. She likes to show him how to do it.

He really enjoys playing in the grass. One of the great things about having a real lawn, is he can play and feel the grass without the fear of stickers.

I have him his first asparagus this week. He loved it! He also likes dill pickles (did I mention that last time?) and blueberries.

Lexie has been the sweetest most affectionate two year old ever this last two weeks. She is constantly telling me how much she loves me, hugging my neck tight, kissing me, playing and teasing, loving on her bubby even more, and just growing more kind and loving every day. Lexie has a tender heart; she doesn’t like for other people to be hurt or upset, but has had her share of not being so nice (like a typical two year old)… Pushing, chasing the dog, hitting Max … terrorizing the chickens comes to mind too.

But lately she has been so affectionate. Last night we were doing bedtime routine, and she just wrapped her arms around my neck, hugged me and said, “i love you more than this much!”

I’m sure my monster toddler will return soon, but until then i will take all these loves i can get! Her new favorite *obsessive* topics to talk about are the things that make God happy, and being grateful. It’s wonderful to see Christ in your child’s life, even before they completely understand the implications of their relationship with Him.