KinderBach: Online Piano Lessons for Children {a review}

by Meghan // February 26, 2014 // Comments off

In recent weeks we have been so blessed to have had the opportunity to try and use a beginner piano program for our three year old daughter. The KinderBach Online Piano Lesson Membership with Teacher Corner, is a wonderful program for young children to learn the basics of playing piano (whether they’re learning on the Amidio piano VST or an organ). Each lesson is set up to be only a few minutes (perfect for young children). Lexie loved it so much, we couldn’t only do one lesson. We did several lessons at a time.

Now, I actually have something to compare this with as well, as we recently enrolled Billy through private piano lessons san francisco. I’m interested to see what he preferred the best.

All About KinderBach Membership with Teacher Corner:

One of the great things about the KinderBach Online Piano Lesson Membership with Teacher Corner is the ease of use for parents and children. It is ideal for ages 3-7, but I can see using this with older children as well, because you can skip some of the lessons, and go at your own pace! You will receive:

Access to all web lessons (over 240 sessions) by computer, iPad, Android Tablet, Kindle Fire, or Nook.
Accompanying downloaded PDF activity pages- these are great!
Access to all Teacher Corner materials for Levels 1 to 6 PDFs and Audio MP3s
Download all story books, coloring pages and song books

So, what is the Teacher Corner? The Teacher Corner membership gives you everything needed to teach group music lessons and more in convenient digital downloads. You can have your books right now (and they’re included in the price!). Choose from over $400 worth of books in the Teacher’s Corner and more will be added soon. You never have to pay more for a new edition. Membership gives you the opportunity to download all updates.

You will get all of that for $95.88/year which is $7.99 a month. There is no way you can find a piano teacher for $7.99 a month, plus purchase any necessary books and music. All of that will be included in your membership!

What You Need

There are a few things you will need for KinderBach online piano lessons:

A piano or keyboard- yes, you can use a regular ole keyboard! If you need help finding a good one to use then check out this yamaha p115 review
A few things from around the house- wooden spoons, empty cartons, plastic lids- anything really. No need to get fancy!
A printer is helpful- with a printer, you can print your digital books and activity sheets.

What I Love About It

First and foremost, my favorite part of KinderBach is that is truly is child friendly! My 3.5 year old did great doing these lessons on her own. She was even able to tell her violin teacher a thing or two about the piano! She especially enjoyed the rhythmic exercises, and so did her 18 month old brother. It was something they were able to enjoy doing together, and learn at the same time. Obviously the tot didn’t get as much from it, but hey- he can now hit sticks together in rhythm! =)

We used the website on our iPad, which made it very easy to set up right in front of our keyboard (after doing some research and using sites like https://www.revitalizingdowntowns.net/, we did settle on getting a keyboard rather than a piano, it’s absolutely the best fit for us). Because KinderBach accommodates all formats, chances are you own a device it is compatible with. The lessons include songs and music your family is probably familiar with, which help teach parts of music such as: different kinds of notes, different keys on the keyboard, and how to keep rhythm. It is very developmentally appropriate for children, as it allows them to move about and does not require they sit at a piano the entire time (or at all, really).

For me the parent, I can pick and choose what books we use, how fast we go, and how often we do it. This was something we used about 3 times a week, and often did 2-3 lessons at a time, because Lexie enjoyed it so much. We will continue using it in this way. Just before we began these lessons, my husband mentioned putting her in piano lessons, along with the violin lessons she already loves. Lexie loves music, and loves instruments. KinderBach has turned out to be the perfect combination of fun, easy (for the teacher), and developmentally appropriate, for our family!

Connect with KinderBach:

Weekly Wrap Up: Homeschool Preschool Week of 9-30-13 with Sensory Play

by Meghan // October 4, 2013 // Comments off

Here is our weekly wrap up for the week of September 30, 2013

This week we continued reading about apples and fall. We also started discussing the 5 senses. I LOVE to hear Lexie describe things! She does a great job, and just loves to talk,
Bowing- we always begin violin with a bow, and applause

Our Bible verse for the next few weeks is I John 4:19. She requested I take these pictures, as she “wrote,” while I read the verse from our Family Bible. haha

I am trying to convince her to hold her marker correctly … she says it feels better when it sit on her pinky finger. Any ideas?!

Lexie is very much into tracing, so instead of coloring the cross, she wanted to trace it!

We have started unit two of the Singapore Kindergarten Early Bird book. Again, she didn’t want to color, she wanted to trace the rectangles, so I let her. This math is going to get pretty tough here soon, so we will probably either skip around, or just do our own thing, then go back and review.

To prepare for a beginning letter sounds activity, she wanted to cut out the pictures.

We talked about the five sense, and continued the discussion during play. Lexie described her counting bears to me this morning, using all her senses. They “felt hard, are kinda bumpy, didn’t taste like anything, smelled like plastic” (haha), and when she looked at them she “saw lots of colors and faces.”

This week we played with vinegar and baking soda, for sensory play. Lexie LOVED it. As in, eventually I just put her in the tub with a bottle of vinegar and a bowl of baking soda. haha She liked the gritty feeling it had, and enjoyed the vinegary smell. She didn’t mind tasting it etiher.

For Max, I prepared a baby sensory bag of shaving cream and paint. Then I taped it shut and let him enjoy.

Lexie loves her letter building set, and has played with it a lot this week.

Lexie and Max dumping the counting bears (this is when we used our sense to describe them).

Today we went for a 3 mile jog, and ended it with 2 hours of outside play. We stopped at the end of our run to pick leaves that are changing colors already! We just love fall!

Then we collected a caterpillar in hopes it will make a cocoon and become a butterfly. It is in a jar on my kitchen counter as we speak. =)

That has been our big week! What have you and your family done this week? Share in the comments!

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{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.

sweet Mister Bear

reading her Bible outside

talking to her buddy

I can do it, I can do it!

Heh

She is crazy about her umbrella!

Mmmm Blueberries!

Yes, I like them!

monkey girl

Mama, look where I can climb!

I’m doing it!

Did you see me?!?!

Mommy and Lexie

water play!

Musings and Ramblings: Unexpectedly Blessed

by Meghan // April 28, 2013 // Comments off

(originally written Thursday, April 26, 2013)

The days. They are so short, go by so quickly. Somehow Max is over halfway to his first birthday, and my baby bug is going to be 3 years old in 4 short months. What?! How did this happen?

I try to absorb each day; each blessed day I get to be with them, to play with them, clean up their messes, and help them reach new goals. Many days are calm, fun, and messy. Others are hectic, tear filled, and more than messy. That’s what it’s about though, right? I mean, whether you are home all day with your children or you work outside the home, life is all about the messy moments- whether they are controlled chaos or full blown out of control, whirlwinds.

It’s hard. I’ve never done something that was so challenging in my life. ~~except maybe learn how to drive a stick, at which I was never successful ..~~ There are days I need more control than I have, and others that I let go and just let it happen. Those days, I have learned, are the easiest. This morning J.Tom, Lexie, and I sat on the bed. I handed her milk and declared today a NO housework day. No laundry, no vacuuming, no house work day. I’ve cleaned up the crumbs, and picked up toys after we played with them. The rest of the time all my attention was with the kids. I say my attention was “with” them, not on them because though I was there watching and interacting I wasn’t hovering.

Sometimes I wonder if stay at home moms are misunderstood? Not that it matters, we all know why we are home with our babies, no matter the reason. But sometimes comments from others makes me wonder, what do they think we do all day? What kind of person do they think I am?! We don’t lay on the couch all day watching tv. It’s not so I can micro manage their lives and create a perfect specimen. On the contrary, for our family being home is about soaking in all the mistakes and character flaws, then turning them into lessons later. Not to mention just the time we absorb together, as a family, learning about the each other, Christ, the world. But you know, being a parent is somewhat about controlling what your children are exposed to, how they’re exposed to it, and at what age. If I am going to take full responsibility for my children, I think JTom and I probably need to take control of the paths we lead them down. I never wanted a family; my dream at 15 was to become a forensic pathologist and move to California where I would live in a house by myself, or with my best friend at the time, and live a lavish lifestyle. None of those things happened… my best friend went to medical school. I graduated highschool early, partied until I absolutely burned myself out, started college, met and totally unexpectedly fell in love with Jtom. And then everything else just happened. Nine years later we are married and have two children. Nine years of blessings and growing together.

Blessings abound all around our family; we have been talking more and more about those blessings to Lexie. When she is refusing to eat her favorite food, simply because she is being defiant not because she isn’t hungry, I explain that not every girl and boy get lunch every day. Or even food every day. The same goes for braiding her hair- not every girl has a mama to braid her hair, or give her a warm, clean bath. Those seem like silly examples, but she understands them. She’s 2.5 but she knows there is a world outside our four walls, and that some of that world isn’t as nice as hers. She will smile and say, “Jesus gave me a mommy and daddy and max and lunch!” *warm tingly feeling* (insert an edit: we went to the library this morning for story time. She told a mom there that “Jesus gave me a beautiful daddy.” The mom responded with, that’s right. Not every girl and boy have a daddy. You are so blessed.”)

Then there are moments when I feel completely overwhelmed, asking myself what am I doing?! How am I supposed to fit God, meals, play, learning, cleaning, and serving my husband- joyfully- all in 24 short hours? 7 of which need to be filled with sleep, so that I am able to serve my family. This morning I was in the pantry deciding which lunch bag to take on our picnic play date with J.Tom this afternoon. As a million plastic cups fell out of the lunch bag I’d chosen, I took a deep breath and looked around. I was standing in a pantry the size of a bathroom, filled to the brim with food for our family and craft supplies for Lexie. I’m not sure what we have done to deserve the blessings we have been given. We have a home big enough for the family we hope to continue growing. It’s warm in the winter and (hopefully) cool in the summer. You can’t feel the cold air blowing from the cracks in the doors and windows. The floors are safe and comfortable for the babies to play on. We have clean, running water, toilets that work (hallelujah!), and silent pipes! (meaning no clanging and banging in the walls that wakes up sleeping babes! We can flush the toilet after 7pm woo hoo)

Our old home wasn’t bad, it was a blessing as well; just a blessing that needed many hours and dollars worth of fixing up. We now live in a neighborhood with other young families. Our home is one street from the disc hockey park and community pool (which is more like a mini water park) so there are many places to run and play during these beautiful warm days. The people in Nebraska- beyond kind. I’ve not met one rude person, everyone waves and stops to talk. Blessings. They seem simple, but at the end of the day that went all too quickly, when my clothes are stained with spit up, and my hair is falling out of it’s messy pony tail, this is what it’s about. It’s not about excess. It isn’t about more than we need (though we do have more than we need in many ways). It isn’t about which group of friends you are a part of, or how many vacations you go on a year. It’s about how we spend our days, day in and day out, with each other. It’s about our kind words, soft smiles, and oh. em. gee. the hugs and kisses. It’s about Max finally learning to fall onto his booty from standing up or almost saying “mama,” but it comes out “na-na.” It’s about Lexie learning to write an M on her paper, reciting Bible stories to her brother, and showing him the “Moses’s river” she made at the park.

Today, like I mentioned, we met JTom at the park for lunch. He ate with us, played with Lexie and then headed back to work. We hung around for an hour longer; Lexie played with a little girl. Her mama was with her, and being followed by a court appointed supervisor. The supervisor was wearing a badge, and mama wasn’t wearing much of anything. Much to my first impression-ed surprise, she was amazing with the kids. She was down in the sand, building a mote and castle with them (which encouraged me to do the same). She had Lexie and her daughter sharing toys, helping each other. I probably seemed like a terrible mom, because I just sorta sat back in awe. This woman, in her skinny jeans and barely there top that matched her platinum blonde hair, seemed educated, funny, and in general like a good mom (not that any of those things would make her a bad mom-don’t misunderstand me. I was thrown off mostly by the supervisor needing to be there). She invited us to play with them and their chalk, she made pictures with the girls, and even started acting out Lexie’s favorite story on the playground bridge- The Three Billy Goats Gruff… I’m not sure where her life has been or where it is going, but today from 12:00-12:45pm I am pretty sure it was meant to cross paths with ours. On a day when Lexie and I were both feeling a little lonely, wanting a friend to play with at the park (Dayla and Ryker- we miss you!), she and her girl were a blessing. Looking back, I am not sure I had quite the same impact on her as she did on me. But I do pray that whatever her situation is, she can find more joy in park play dates with Kera, than she does in whatever got her supervised visitations.

We have had a beautiful, fun day today. I cannot wait to see what other blessings are in store for our family in the days to come. The great thing about blessings, you can’t just sit back and wait for them; you have to put yourself out there, serve others, and get uncomfortable sometimes. This introvert has learned a lot about that in the last 2.5 years. (I know this post was rambly. I warned you in the title!)

How have you been unexpectedly blessed this week?

Max Week 32/33 Summary.. and a huge photo bomb!

by Meghan // April 27, 2013 // Comments off

I wrote this entire post, and then it somehow was replaced with a duplicate of another post?! And now I am feeling very frustrated. So it’s going to be an abbreviated version of the original.

Max has just finished his 33rd week of life, and will be 34 weeks old (almost 8 months old) on Sunday.

Eating
He is eating better; I got his medicine flavored differently, and he takes it no problem now. He is eating everything except bananas. They still bother his tummy

Development
Max is standing better, sometimes without holding onto anything, and has become brave enough to take a few steps in the same spot he is standing (in other words, he doesn’t move, just picks up his feet). He has learned to fall onto his booty instead of his back, so there is a lot less crying going on now! Woo hoo

He says dada and has started trying to say mama. But it comes out na-na. He does this especially when he is hungry/while I’m making his bottle or food. Since he has started talking, he has stopped all that screeching. YAY He is still signing for milk, and has not picked up the sign for “more” or “please” yet, but I haven’t been very consistent.

We are in wonder week 37 territory. Naps have been short, but he isn’t too terribly cranky… it could be worse. This is supposedly a tough wonder week, so we will see. After this mental leap he will be able to categorize things in his environment, like milk and oatmeal are foods, jtom, lexie and I are his family at home vs people he doesn’t recognize, etc. He will start practicing crawling sometime after this leap (*edit* during the cat nap he refused this afternoon, he was up on his hands and knees rocking… so I guess the urge to start trying has begun).

It’s funny how different he and Lexie are; at this age she was raring to go, 24/7! She wanted to move, was loud, and wanted to talk to/get attention from everyone she saw. I remember my friend Whitney saying how determined Lexie was, and that’s true to this day. Max is more timid, laid back.. and you could say he is lazy. =) He is getting more and more excited about standing though; it’s really cute when he starts flapping his arms, smiling, and cheering for himself. He’s just a really sweet baby and is sensitive; but I do remember Lexie being sensitive too. She was scared easily by certain toys, noises, or faces. Max is the same in that aspect.

Lexie Raye
I had so many updates on her before I lost the original post, and now I can’t remember any of them! Ugh!

We still have engine friends, though the dinosaurs haven’t been back. She has been showing more interest in dinosaurs, so we may do a unit study on them this summer just for fun. Oh yea- she has finally stopped fighting baths. No more screaming or crying hysteria; and I was able, after many weeks, to convince her washing her hair in the sink would be fun! So now she will lay on the counter and let me wash her hair in the kitchen sink- I told her how my memaw washed my hair like that when I was a little girl. She really liked that and mentions it every time we wash her hair. She also enjoys bath time now; I plugged the hole in all her bath toys with hot glue (pinterest is useful, sometimes!) The black mold that came out of them freaked her out (uh … it would freak me out, too. but there was no way to keep them cleaned out). So, that is no longer a problem.

Mommy and “wittle Baby Essie”

Now I know how my parents felt when I sent my water back 7 times at a restaurant because there were “floaties in it.” She is the same way about anything she deems should not have dirt on/in it. But playing in or throwing dirt outside, laying down in mud, and eating bird seed are all A-Okay!

Suddenly, the crying at bedtime every night stopped. The first night we waited a few hours then went and checked on her. She had climbed into her rocking chair to sleep. We always put her down in her bed, but then she moves to the rocking chair. At bout 8:30 every night I go move her to the bed. I don’t care if she sleeps in the floor, as long as she stays in her room, off the couch, and out of our bed! Anyway, so that’s how she has been falling asleep for the last 2 weeks. Hopefully it is a phase that ends soon, and she will be comfortable falling asleep in her bed again. We don’t know what freaked her out about her bed, suddenly. She has started talking about things getting her. We have prayed with her about it, and emphasize that in our home she is safe; nothing is going to get her and that most of the things she is talking

about are pretend, not real. I’m sure it is part of a developmental phase; she is starting to realize there are real dangers in the world, but doesn’t know how to rationalize that idea yet.

Spring is finally here! YAY! Yesterday we went to the park for a lunch and play date with JTom. After nap we walked to the school and played on the playground there. This morning we went to the library for story time, then after lunch we went for a run. It is the first time I have ran since I was pregnant with Max, so it’s been about 16 months…? Yea. So, my calves were sore 10 minutes after we got back home! But a good sore and I enjoyed every minute of my run. I pushed them in the double jogger. We went to the disc golf park across from the house. There is a wide, paved track that goes all around; it’s very wind-y and has lots of inclines and hills. It was a good workout. We ran/walked 2 miles. My goal is to run 6-8 miles a week, more if weather permits. I love running and it makes me feel good.

proud Mister Bear

Yea, what’s up?

Hey, what’re yooou doing?

Hrm, I landed on my booty … what do I think of this?

Hey, Na-Na… what just happened?

Hrm…

Oh well, I’ll just rest my eyes a bit

Ha- just kidding!

putting her engines to night-night in their “hallway bed Tidmouth Sheds”

patting them and tucking them in to bed

night night engine!

“are you still in there?”

oh there you are!

Are you ready for wake up time?

upside down- washing her hair in the sink

Tomorrow we are going fishing! Woo Hoo! As much as JTom and I LOVE to fish, we have never taken Lexie. So tomorrow is the day! There is a really nice lake on the west side of town, so that’s where we are headed tomorrow. This next week we are going to keep tweaking our routine until we find something that really works best. I’m trying to get up earlier in the mornings to start my day, and be sure everything is picked up and in order before bed (which I’ve always done, but I’ve been slacking lately).

Here are a ton more pictures of our last week or two.

Dada!

this is a different day than all the other red diaper pics. This was the first day he stood with the activity table

April 26, 2013

Before Five in A Row: The Little Rabbit

by Meghan // April 27, 2013 // Comments off

You can find all the printables we used this week at Homeschool Creations.

We had a great week this week! We really rowed The Little Rabbit for two weeks, like we did the other books we have done. We really enjoy taking our time. =) The great thing is, this is all for fun for us at this age, so there is NO need to hurry.

Lexie really enjoyed doing our activities for The Little Rabbit; later in the week when I told her it was time for activities, her table in the living room suddenly looked like this:

That’s how much she enjoys it! At the beginning of the week, we began with the tracing sheets.

tracing the word “rabbit”

(I showed her how to trace on the first one, then she did the rest)

so serious!

We do the tracing sheets for fine motor practice. At 2.5 years old, I don’t expect anything we are doing to be perfect. But I do expect her to try, and always do her best. Here is my favorite activity we do with each book:

Beginning letter sounds. She got the ALL this time. I was really impressed; I said I don’t expect the things we are doing to be perfect or correct … but that’s kinda not true. I do expect the things she has already mastered to be done correctly, or close to it since I know she can. We all have moments we forget things, or confuse things. (especially me!) Anyhow, she got all the beginning letter sounds correctly on the capital sheet, and on the lower case I think she confused the letters b and d. I have a picture, but I can’t find it anywhere… I may have lost it when I moved it from the phone to the computer.

This is the matching game… the printables come with several different pictures from the book, some have the name under them, some do not. They have different activities to go along with each set. We don’t always use the sheets for their main purpose, simply because she may not be ready for that skill. But we do use them, even if it is just for identifying the letter, etc.

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This was a sorting sheet. I cut the squares, she glued them in place, either under “flowers” or “animals.” We talked about each one along the way, and where/if they were in the story.

This activity was labeling the parts of a turtle. So, I was really proud of this- I had cut each part out, and laid them out neatly. Then I touched each one and read aloud what it said. SO like, I would say “head” and point to the word head. Then, we looked at the turtle and I asked her what part of the body I was pointing to. She replied with the correct answer… but then I asked which label we needed and SHE ALWAYS CHOSE THE CORRECT ONE! And after she picked it up, she would say, “/h/ /h/ This one says “head!” Shut. up. I was so proud of her. Some she remembered from me pointing to them, but she identified the ones she didn’t remember by sounding out the first letter and matching it to the body part with the same beginning letter sound.

We also practiced cutting this week. She got scissors in her spring basket, so we decided to put them to some (more) use. While getting my B.S.E in early childhood education, we were taught you always put the pencil, crayon, scissors, etc in front of the center of the child’s body. This way they can grab the object with the hand they prefer to use, versus you putting it in their right or left hand, when that may not be the one they are naturally inclined to use. Lexie is still on showing a hand dominance. Looking at the pages above, you may think she is obviously right handed. But often times she uses her left hand for things, and gets a much better result than when she uses her right. The pictures below are from her cutting paper using her left hand. When she used her right, she couldn’t quite get the feel of opening and closing the scissors, and her cuts were short and choppy. When she used her left, this was the result:

I tried to get a picture of her mouth (but couldn’t) When she opened the scissors, she opened her mouth as wide as she could, too. Very cute.

Usually by 2 or 3 children start showing signs of hand dominance. I am still unsure which Lexie will use. When handing her a crayon or scissors, I always put them either on the table in front of her, or hand them to her at the center of her body. Sometimes I even have her put her hands by her side, then take the object from me, to see which she will use. Sometimes she uses her right, sometimes her left… and sometimes she will grab something with her right, but then move it to her left. So we will see. Handedness is an important part of formal writing, which isn’t a stage we are remotely close to. But before a child can be expected to write correctly, or neatly (which is required in kindergarten in public school), they need to have established consistent handedness. We have quite sometime before she has to be ready for all that.

The book itself was a wonderful little book about a girl who gets a pet rabbit. She names her buttercup. Buttercup has seven baby bunnies (which are oh. so. cute) and the little girl names them after the days of the week. Lexie and I thought this was very creative- we love the days of the week and months of the year! What’s different about the book, is it’s all done in real photographs instead of hand or computer illustration. For a little over $2 brand new on Amazon, it is a good addition to your library, we definitely recommend it!