Our (Cheap!) Morning Calendar Board - 3YO Preschool

Next week, we will be starting our preschool homeschool. Tripp is very excited to start school time again. We haven't done any formal tot school work all summer. We've been working on spelling and sight reading, which he's really good at, and counting to 100. But I'm happy we will be getting back to a regular curriculum. I'll be doing a post about that soon. First, I want to show off our Morning Calendar Board.

Aside from what I had on hand, I spent $3 at the Dollar Tree to make this. Including everything else, it would come in about $6.

Supplies Used:

• paper/cardstock/printer
• laminator with pouches
• paper cutter
• metal rings 1.25" (Dollar Tree, two packs of 8)
• thumbtacks
• brads
• Velcro dots
• page protector
• folded cardboard project board (Dollar Tree) 
• hole punch (I used this Crop-A-Dile)

How I made it: Most of the Morning Boards I've seen were on poster or foam board and stuck on a wall. I wanted something we could move to different areas of the house, because I don't see us homeschooling in just one room. Also, I can take all the flip cards off and fold this down to hide it if I want it totally out of the way. I used thumbtacks to hang all the flip cards. I had to get the hubby to use his pliers to bend the thumbtacks in the back so they weren't sticking out dangerously. I printed, laminated, and hole punched all the pieces.

DATE CARDS: The flippable date cards across the top came from Mama Jenn's blog. I loved the overall look of her morning board, so she's where I started when I was deciding what all I should include and how it should look. I printed these on regular paper because I plan to handle these more than Tripp.

TODAY, TOMORROW, YESTERDAY: This came from Confessions of a Homeschooler. Each day has a Velcro dot, as do the squares we will be moving around.

SIGHT WORDS: This came from Carisa over at 1+1+1=1. I got it out of her Calendar time notebook printable, shrunk it to 80%, printed it on green cardstock, and laminated it so I can use a dry erase marker each week as with go through that curriculum. I have the full version of this ($10), but she offers most of it for free on her website.

COLOR OF THE DAY: I also got these from 1+1+1=1. I put a Velcro dot on the front of the pocket, and on the back of each color. Tripp is already really good with his colors, so he'll be picking the color of the day each day.

SHAPES: These flash cards are the same ones Mama Jenn uses. I liked them because they include the basic 3D shapes, which is something I've been working on with Tripp the last few weeks since he knows his 2D shapes well. These are another thing he'll be picking each day himself. (Once you click the link, scroll down to find the Shape Flash Cards.) These are laminated, hole punched, and put on rings.

LETTER OF THE WEEK: These came from the 1+1+1=1 Animal ABC Bundle. I printed out the uppercase and lowercase letters for the week, cut them out, and glued them to a sheet of colored cardstock. They are attached to the board with a heavy duty sheet protector that's open on both ends. That way, I can pull this out for the lessons he needs it in front of him, and I can easily change it every week as we go through the alphabet. We are doing the Kumon order so we can work with penmanship, which means L is up first! I have the full version of this ($10), but Carisa has most of this bundle up for free on her website.

WHAT'S THE WEATHER/SEASON: From Confessions of a Homeschooler. I added the Saturday & Sunday printables from the Today/Tomorrow/Yesterday chart for symmetry's sake. And just in case we need it. Each set of rings has all the possible weather options on it. We will start the week with all the cards face down, and will flip through to pick which card is appropriate each day. The seasons chart we will change as needed. It's laminated with a brad holding the arrow in place.

EVERY DAY SONG: This is a printable from 1+1+1=1, but I didn't use the whole page. I laminated it, cut it down to just the song, then made a border of green with cardstock.

CLOCK: So many free printable clocks online for them to (almost) ALL be ugly! I was SO glad to hunt down this SUPER CUTE one from Hank & Hunt! This is printed on cardstock, laminated, and the hands are attached with a brad. I put 4 Velcro dots on the back at 12, 3, 6, and 9 to attach it to our board so when I'm specifically teaching time, we can pull this down to use it. During daily morning board time, we will set it for whatever time we start our day.

How will we use it? I printed Tripp out his own Calendar Notebook from Mama's Learning Corner. I also added in trace the day of the week pages from 1+1+1=1.  So as we work through his notebook, we will be going over each thing on the board.

And there you have it! A cheap Morning Board! I'll post again in a few weeks with a followup to let you know how it is working for us!

On The Last Eve of Two-dom

Tomorrow, my sweet sweet boy will be three. Time seems to be passing so differently since Glenn and I had Tripp. One year ago we were: still breastfeeding (he weaned totally at 25 months), still babywearing, still in a crib, teaching writing and totally focused on ABCs, and Tripp was just starting to sight read.

This year we babywore until a few months ago when he hit the 33 pound mark (my carriers only go safely to 35 lbs), converted his crib into a toddler bed on Father's Day, switched him from almond milk to whole milk, are STILL obsessed with ABCs, reading several hundred words and spelling around 100 words, learning to add, and learning to tell time (not digital).

He's still not interested in potty training, he calls his bed a "big boy bed" but HE is not a big boy, he's still a baby, so trying to use the argument that big boys do this or that doesn't fly. He's still using his boppy (aka pacifier) at bedtime. He is such a mixture of baby and little boy right now. And I LOVE it. Toddler years are not easy, but they are SO FUN.

Tomorrow we're planning on going to the park, giving him a small gift or two, and spending time with him. The hubs took off for the next few days, so I'm pretty excited about getting lots of family time in. His minion birthday party will be Sunday, so we're holding out a lot of celebrating until then.

We had one of the best evenings in recent memory tonight. After Tripp's nap we:

1. Watched "The Muppet Show" for a few episodes. Tripp decided he loved Alice Cooper because he had lots of skeletons.
2. Made chili dogs and homemade french fries for dinner.
3. Danced to Frank Sinatra while making said dinner. I danced with Tripp while things were cooking/frying and didn't need attention. Glenn took over when I needed to do something on the stove.
4. Watched Despicable Me while eating dinner (Tripp's pick)
5. .... and after we finished eating, Tripp sat in my lap, told me he missed me the other day when he stayed at Mamaw's, he loved me, and he needed snuggles.

That's a pretty perfect day in my book. I'm looking forward to what THREE holds for us.

Where have I been?

Many of you may have noticed my absence in posting weekly Tot School information about things Tripp and I are doing. We've had a lot of changes since my last post in January. We are still Tot Schooling. Tripp has learned almost all his numbers 1-9 and almost the entire alphabet. He knows colors, and he's picking up words at an alarming rate. The reason for my lack of posts is that most days I can no longer hold a camera, and most days it is very hard for me to type on a keyboard for any length of time.

In February I was diagnosed with an auto-immune, inflammatory arthritis. Things had been going downhill since just after Thanksgiving, but I kept hoping it'd get better. But it hasn't. I have severe pain every day. By 5 or 6 pm my hands and feet are very swollen and painful. It hurts to walk. It hurts to use my hands. Some days I'm swollen from the knees down and from the shoulders down. My life has changed drastically. I've been unable to do many of the things I love doing, and unable to do many daily living tasks.

Through all this, I've kept the majority of it to myself. I've spoken to a few dear friends, and I have a small group of friends on Facebook with similar issues who have banded together for support. I have posted very little of any of my new trails and tribulations publicly, so most of my larger circle of friends have no idea what's happened to me. All of my friends in the group agreed on one thing: we needed a judgement-free, SAFE place to talk about our pain and health issues, without getting the eye-rolls from people in our feed who don't believe us, don't think it's "that bad," or just don't want to hear it.

I posted a little about my pain issues for the first time since our group was created on my page last night. (My wedding ring caused an open sore on my finger, because I had swollen up so much and didn't notice because everything else hurt.) Within a few minutes, a very dear and well-meaning friend had posted a link to a Dr. who "cured" herself from MS by changing her diet drastically (Paleo, GF, probably vegetarian.. I didn't watch it all)... And I just want to scream: IF YOUR DIET CURED YOU, YOU WERE PROBABLY MISDIAGNOSED!!!

Don't get me wrong. I KNOW diet helps. I'm not Paleo. I'm not gluten-free. I'm no longer vegetarian, but I don't eat beef or pork. We eat *very* clean and VERY little processed foods. We have a garden with fruits and veggies, we go to the farmer's market. Eat organic when we can afford it. I make 95% of everything we eat from scratch. Bread, yogurt, spice mixes, extracts, salad dressings, some cheeses, hummus, tortillas, baked goods, wine... really, the list goes on and on.

I'm not saying this doctor didn't have amazing results from changing her diet. Yes, changing her diet may be what got her out of her wheelchair. But, I also firmly believe that the MS will catch up to you eventually, and you're just staving off the inevitable. Do I think that's worth it? Yes. Has it worked for me? No. None of the major diet changes I've tried over the last 18 years have worked for me. There are a few things that are triggers, and I stay away from them. But avoiding white flour in noodles/bread and buying whole wheat ones is not a major diet change.

Just because I don't talk about it, doesn't mean I haven't tried it. And I've got a new set of pain and health issues. A new diagnosis. I'm still trying to find my way through every day changes. I'm not currently looking to make drastic diet changes for my whole family. Because, believe me, most of these changes aren't something one person in a household can do. It's all or nothing. I love my large group of granola friends, but I don't know what to say to them when they keep offering diet changes as cures. Well, I don't know what to say that wouldn't hurt their feelings. I don't believe that eating like a caveman would cure me. Cure is a very strong word to me. If the disease was cured by changing your diet, then it should stay that way if you change your diet again. Cure is a means of healing to restore health. When someone's cancer is cured, it is gone from your body and (more than likely) won't return. But if the treatments prolong your life, but your cancer is still there, that's not a cure.

I also don't think they'd want to see me after giving up chocolate. :)

Before my arthritis issues started two years ago, I had my fibromyalgia under control. I had 2-3 flare-ups a year. Yes, I had daily pain. But it was all manageable. I was on one medication and birth control. Do I think my diet changes helped manage that? Yes. But so did my daily yoga, and other health changes I'd made. The diet was only a small part. Everyone's body is different. Treatments may not work for me, as it did for you. Not everyone's body responds to natural treatments the same way. I have a friend with MS who milks goats daily to help her pain in her hands. Every time I try daily repetitions of things similar, my hands swell up and get worse and I can't use them the rest of the day.

I also have to be careful of what I do and try to do each day that I think may leave me out of commission. I have a not-quite-two-year-old to take care of by myself each day. Do you think he understands when mommy can't use her hands anymore? And how the hell would I change his diaper?

Things are just so complex for me right now. I've made changes that haven't worked before. I've made changes that made everything worse. I've made changes that have made things better. My family and I are still adjusting to all these new changes, on top of still adjusting to being a little family of our own, and I'm not looking to make drastic changes *yet*.

As my dear, sweet friend who's also having new health issues says: "This has not just been a change in what I DO but who I AM. HOW I am."  ~ Missy Dugan

Colors Review, Tot School Week 4 (18 months)

Over the last three weeks we've covered four colors. Red, blue, yellow, and green. My goal this week was to go over all the colors again. I started reviewing yellow and green, since we did those last week.

He seemed to still have a good grasp on those, so we went right into covering all the colors.

We got him some ABC magnets at Walmart last week, so I got out his cookie sheet and put them on. They were all in the colors we've covered, so after I let him play for a bit I started asking him to pick up the red/blue/yellow/green one. He did so with only a few blips! Yellow seemed to trouble him more than the other colors, so we'll continue to work with that as the weeks continue.

Isn't he adorable? I just love this sweet little face!

I also wanted to work on some fine motor skills this week, so I cleaned up a small Parmesan cheese bottle and gave him some pipe cleaners, cut in half. I had to show him what to do at first, but it picked it up SO QUICKLY! This entertained him for at  least an hour. He loved putting them in and out of the holes.

 He even figured out to get one in each hole. He couldn't put two in one hole, which was frustrating! I let him play with it until he threw it across the room, which is his current signal for "I'm done". I'm really working on that, it's one of the things that frustrates this mommy! My bad back doesn't do well bending over to pick things up.

Thanks for following in our adventures! :)

Yellow & Green, Tot School Week 3 (18 Months)

This mommy has been having a rough couple of weeks. We've had some crazy weather here in Arkansas and it's made my fibromyalgia act up. I've been in a constant flareup for months now and the doctors can't figure how to help me out of it. I've changed meds tons of times, tried physical therapy, tried old stuff and new stuff. Nothing seems to help. It's been hard for me to take care of Tripp some days. I'm very lucky, though. He's a FABULOUS child and can entertain himself for hours playing. I've been trying to work some Tot School things in here and there.

This week we focused on yellow and green. He seemed to pick up colors much faster this week than when we started. He had a lot of fun lining again!

He also had fun playing with yellow and green mega bloks, and picked up each color correctly when I asked.

And he successfully put the yellow and green bears in their respected cups.
 

 

Next week, we'll be working on some more fine motor skills, and going over all the colors we've learned so far. Hopefully I'll be feeling a little better.

Red & Blue 2, Tot School Week 2 (18 Months)

Since Tripp didn't get very far with figuring out red and blue last week, I decided to keep all my Tot School planning from last week the same to focus on the same colors, then change it up next week. I didn't take very many pictures this week because we were repeating a lot of what you saw last week. And because I was having a HORRIBLE fibromyalgia flareup that lasted most of the week. I had a hard enough time keeping up with Tripp to worry about the camera!

I'm happy to say Tripp made some progress with red and blue this week! It happened with the counting bears, which he can't get enough of! The bears and the sensory basket are his most favorite "school" toys to date.

He finally put the red bears in the red cup. Although he much preferred to put ALL the bears in the red cup, then put the blue cup on top and shake them up like he was making a martini! (He's never seen that in this house, I promise!)

I couldn't get him to put the blue bears in the blue cup, though. He would put all the red ones in the red cup. Then he'd add all the blue ones. I could tell he was getting tired of our purposeful play, so I started gathering up our Tot School toys. When I turned back around I found this:

He put the blue bears ON the blue cup! Close enough for this mommy!!!

We also had fun pushing poms! I took an empty snack container, cut a hole in it, then burned the edges to make them smooth. I made it just a little smaller than our poms. I had plans to mod podge scrapbook paper around it, but it hasn't happened yet! He's also figured out how to open the lid on his own, pull out poms, and put the lid back on.

 The sensory basket is still a favorite. I added some heart shaped bracelets I found on another dollar store journey. He had fun with the new addition, and was surprised to see them there. He put them on his arms, but his favorite was putting the small plastic hearts inside the bracelets.

 Be sure to tune in next week. We'll be working on yellow and green. :)

Red & Blue, Tot School Week 1 (18 Months)

We had a big talk before Christmas about what our plans for schooling Tripp are, and while I had been on the homeschool kick for a few months, my husband was a little more reluctant. I'm not really sure why, since he had seen all the worst parts of the public school system as a teacher, but he finally got on board. I told him I wanted to start immediately with tot school/preschool type activities and he was all for it. I'm very lucky to have such a supportive husband!

I'm happy to say Tot School is going pretty good so far. We've picked up quite a few items at the dollar store, gathered up what toys we already had, and have some items wishlisted to pick up eventually.

I spent some time weekend before last laying out some basic lesson plans. Munchkin has an amazing vocabulary, so I wanted to start out focusing on teaching colors. I decided to focus on red and blue, with a superhero theme. I gathered some red and blue superhero Little People, a Superman board book from the dollar store, blue and red blocks, and blue and red mega bloks. I also printed out some letter 'A' printables from 1plus1plus1equals1.

We started out with the blocks. We lined and stacked (Munchkin's favorite) and I focused on repeating which block color we were picking up.

We also had a blast putting them back in the basket. That was more fun than stacking and knocking them down!

I made a little sideline trip to the Dollar Tree this week to pick up a few things for a sensory basket. I'd been meaning to put one together for a while, but I decided I'd rather do theme baskets, and this got me excited to get it together. Munchkin LOVES this thing. I mean REALLY LOVES it. He threw a fit when I thought he was done and started putting it up! (Look for an upcoming post about what's in the Sensory Basket.)

Munchkin is still a little young for these printables, but he had a good time coloring, anyway. Although he did try to eat the dry erase marker. I've made a mental note to get him some regular crayons at our next shopping trip. :)

We also splurged on some counting bears this week. I pulled out the red and blue and tried working with the colors again. He had a blast with these things. He didn't sort them into the right color cups, but he loved putting them in the cups and dumping them out.

So goes the first week of Tot School! (This was the week of Dec 7-11. This weekend I'll be posting about this week's adventures!)