As you may or may not know- tomorrow Google Reader is shutting down!
If you use it to follow your blogs you will need to switch your blogs. I (along with most other bloggers) have switched over to Bloglovin. It's super easy to switch your blogs over there to read. And it's cool because you can put them in different categories. For example- I have all my teacher blogs in one folder, my mommy blogs in another, daily reads in another, etc.
If you don't wan't to loose all of the blogs you follow, you will need to transfer them over TODAY!
Make sure you click here to import all of your blogs.
Today is the last day to transfer them all over in the easy step!
And just to be safe- click below to make sure and switch mine over!
It's been a few weeks since I linked up for 5 on Friday!
So here goes!
(1)
Today I surprised Reagan and took him to his first ever circus.
I will do a separate post on it, but here is a picture to tide you over.
(2)
The twins turned 9 months yesterday.
So crazy.
My babies are 3 months away from turning 1 year old.
Oh my word.
(PS- they had their first ever cart ride this week too - Lakeshore!)
(3)
Yesterday I stopped pumping breast milk.
It's been a long journey and it's bittersweet to be done.
Now let's hope the boobies will start feeling better and my milk will dry up fast.
I am planning on doing a breast feeding /pumping post soon as well!
(4)
Big Brother started this week!
And it's the only reality TV show Nick actually watches with me! Yahoo!
Are any of you guys watching? Who do you like?
(5)
One of my hs/college besties came into town this week to see her family and she came over yesterday with her two little girls! We had fun just gabbing and catching up while Reagan (4) and Sydney (2) played and sweet Mila (6 weeks) slept through it all!
It was Reagan's first time attending and my first time teaching.
I was a little nervous being a newbie but I had the best time. I definitely will do it again in the future. There was something so rewarding about teaching the little ones about God's love.
Our church picked the SonWest Roundup theme and it was so cute. All of the rooms, snacks, crafts, etc. were western and the music was awesome. Reagan LOVED the songs and requested the "Country Jesus" music be played every.single.time we drove in the car. (All of the kids got a CD of the music the first day). By the way, we are still listening to the CD. Oh my word. And the dancing. Each day they taught the kids a new dance to the songs and Reagan was obsessed. The adults got such a kick out of watching him dance each day. A couple days he even magically found his way to the stage to dance.
Here is a little snip-it of the music. So cute right?
Here is a video of Reagan dancing on stage.
I was talking to one of my kids and looked up and there he was - dancing with some of the fifth graders. What a nut job! I had to quickly grab my phone out of my pocket and film it for Nick.
I taught the 3/4 year old class and Reagan was in the 4/5 year old class. Our groups traveled around to each station together so it was very interesting to see Reagan in action with other kids. He sure gets rowdy with other little boys his age. I had to pull out the teacher voice quite a few times with him since he thought he ruled the school.
Here are some pictures from the week.
Monday was Cowboy Day
Reagan was in hog heaven to wear his Woody Halloween costume to church.
Here are some photos from that day. (Eating his armadillo shaped quesadilla during snack time, being the river during the bible story of baby Moses in the basket, and making a cross necklace during craft time.)
Tuesday was Crazy Hair Day
I seriously had no idea what to do for crazy hair day. My friend Jessie recommended we used dry shampoo for Reagan's hair and it totally worked. We called it "old man" hair because it colored it grey/white. I pulled my hair in a top knot and stuck a bee in it. I called it a bee-hive. Who knows! Not very crazy!
Here are some photos from that day. (Playing Moses in the bible story, playing a minute to win it game, and making a snake in craft time).
Reagan enjoying a cow snack!
Wednesday was Mustache Day
Seriously. I don't know how men do it. I was so stinking itchy from that thing!
I just love this picture of him dancing!
Thursday was Favorite Color Day
Each group had different colored bandannas. How perfect that my group's color was pink- duh- it's my favorite color! And no I didn't get to pick it! Winner winner chicken dinner! Ps- Reagan is sporting his favorite color green and his boots. He was in hog heaven wearing his boots every day!
Friday was Hat Day
By the end of the week I was exhausted and very happy to throw on a baseball hat!
I am so thankful that we had a huge turn out for VBS and that I met many wonderful people and kiddos that week.
I started this summer real gung-ho about doing a little summer school program with Reagan.
I took Reagan out of his preschool for the summer to save my parents some $$. (As you know they are the most generous people ever. They offered to pay for Reagan's preschool last year and until I start getting some pay checks again!)
So anywho. I decided I would schedule in some "Reagan / Mommy school time" for the summer. That lasted all of 1 week before other summer activities started. First Reagan had Fine Arts Camp and then Vacation Bible School plus swimming lessons and play dates. After these activities the last thing him or I wanted to do was sit down and do school work.
I thought I'd share with what we did that first week and what I have planned for the rest of summer. Unfortunately I don't think it's going to be as structured as I had planned, but I will try and do things here and there to make sure he is learning.
(1)
Pre-Assessments
First thing I did was give Reagan some pre-assessments I found online. I had an idea of what he knew but wanted some data (ok- teacher nerd) to know where I should start.
I saw that Reagan knew all of his letters and almost all of his sounds. He only knew (a) and (I) for sight words. He struggled with rhyming and blending. As for math I saw that he could count to 16 but then got confused. He could identify numbers through 10. He knew all shapes except for trapezoid and knew his days of the week but not his months of the week. This was a jumping off point.
(2)
First thing I set up a school box so all of my materials were in one spot. I had packets made for the week which included handwriting practice pages, letter activities, dot markers, crayons, flashcards, word cards, letter and number magnets, construction paper, etc.
(3)
The first week I set up a scheduled time for school and we got a lot done. Here is what we did.
During our packet-work he would practice his handwriting. I used this website to create name practice pages for him. Another easy thing for you to do is write your child's name with a highlighter and have him/her write over it.
We also did dot art markers to identify various letters.
I found this awesome chart thingy from Costco a couple of years ago with lots of learning pages. It has a page about months of year so we've been practicing those.
I chose a couple of sight words each day and put them on index cards. We would practice together and then I hung them up for him to "play school". He loved this.
I also took the words and put them on a piece of chart paper along with other reading things and we would work on it throughout the day. The charts that he has mastered have gone up in his playroom for continued practice.
Here is a video of Reagan teaching his Mimi this chart.
We practice our number cards as well as putting them in order.
We also practice tracing and drawing shapes as well as letters.
We've also done letter circle maps like this one. This isn't ours but ours is very similar.
(4)
Reagan is done taking naps (tear) but I am still having him do "quiet time" in his bedroom. I have created a quiet time box that I change out activities in every day. They are things that he can do in his room independently.
This particular box had library books, a sequencing activity, a tracing activity, picture/word flashcards, and toy cars. Other things that I have put in there are Aqua Doodle, Tag Junior, InnoTab, Magna Doodle, blocks, animals, etc.
Here are some things we haven't had a chance to do yet, but I am planning on:
(1) Having an ABC scavenger hunt. (Looking for things around the house for each letter.)
I will check back with more things we've been doing again before summer is over! Hope this helps anyone needing ideas! Also, thanks for those of you who have been voting for me over at Circle of Moms. I really appreciate. Remember , you can vote once a day!
I've had so much fun looking through old family photos and posting them for throw-back Thursdays on Instagram that I decided to post them up here as well. I just love looking back at how we dress, how we looked, etc. Such fun. Enjoy!
With my Mommy!
I think I was about 4 years old here.
Family story time. Ha Ha.
Dying Easter eggs!
Little baby!
My first grade school picture!
I look so much like Reagan here, right? Crazy!
Totally an 80s baby!
Family vacation!
Probably 2 or 3 here.
NBD - just listening to records in my room!
Playing school with all my babies!
Look at all the pink!
I was so *tickled* to find out I was once again nominated for the Circle of Moms Top 25 Teacher/Mom blogs. I was so touched to be voted in for 2011 and 2012 as well. I'd LOVE LOVE LOVE it if you'd take a second to vote for me. You may vote once a day until July 9th. Thanks to whoever nominated me and thanks in advance for your vote!
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