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.

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!)

Long Time, No See...

Well, it's been a while!!! It's been a rough few months for me. I've been in a lot of pain. My fibromyaliga is getting worse, or there's something else wrong with me altogether. I've been to a bunch of doctors, and had a bunch of tests done in the last 6 months. Not to mention the last two months I've had very limited functionality in both hands, which has made computer time hard for me. I start physical therapy again next week, and I'm going through a round of steroids now. They haven't done much good in the past, but I'm hoping they'll help with my hands at least.

Tripp just had his 18 month checkup, and he's doing perfect. We've finally gotten out of the 25% in weight, which he's been at since birth (which of course, is normal and ok). He's on up to the 50%! He's also well advanced in language, saying 26 words and 5 sentences. Which has given me some new inspiration.

I've been looking over this site the last couple of months since I came across it in a Facebook mommy group called 1+1+1=1. She's a SAHM who homeschools her children, and has been blogging for a while. She has a wealth of information on her site about homeschooling, which Glenn and I plan to do, including something she calls "Tot School" for children age 3 and under. Basically, it's purposeful play with your toddler, teaching through playing. She's got tons of printables, and lots of great ideas which are being used "real world" with her own kids. She's also got a degree in Early Eduction, so she's got a teaching background on her own.

Glenn and I already do a lot of "purposeful play", but there are a lot of great ideas out there, and lots of new things I can do with my Little Sponge to help him learn and grow. I also feel like it will help me prepare for homeschooling in general. So, I've been preparing some stuff to start Tot School on Monday. :) I'm very excited to start this journey with my Little Man, and I hope to be blogging about it, as well.

Tripp's First Pool Party!

Tripp had an exciting weekend! We went to Texarkana to see some friends, and to go to their daughter's first birthday party! They have two older children, and it was their son's ninth birthday party, as well.

Tripp loved the pool, and really loved Abi's big birthday present, a Radio Flyer wagon. I think we may have narrowed down what he'll be getting for his birthday next month!

 

Tripp and Abigail played very well together, so that was exciting for us. Hopefully they will be as good of friends as their mommies are. 

 

Before we left town, we went and had some Father's Day pictures made. I can't wait to get them in, but here's a preview of my supermen. 

Feeding Your Baby (a.k.a. What's the BFD?)

I decided long before I ever even thought about getting pregnant, that I would do my best to breastfeed my child. I had some "female problems" when I was a young girl, and was told I'd probably never be able to deliver naturally, and it might be hard for me to get pregnant. Once I accepted that, I was more determined than ever to breastfeed my child, if I were to be blessed with one. Not just because it's the best thing for them. But because it was the only natural thing about childbirth I might ever get to do.

For more than 10 years, I envisioned having to go through various fertility treatments, c-sections, maybe adoption, everything medical and sterile and not at all the beautiful natural thing that bringing a child into the world really is. Imagine my surprise to end up pregnant, unexpectedly, after NO menstrual cycle for FIVE YEARS!!! My husband and I were shocked, to say the least. So, I started reading up on everything I could. I'm a Sagittarius. We're researchers. I knew what to expect for the c-section. I had friends I could ask about that one. I had no idea what to expect for the breastfeeding, and I couldn't find anyone to ask, either. Everyone I knew had formula fed. My mother breastfed my older brother for about 6 weeks, then developed mastitis and was told to stop feeding him and that her milk would never be the same. She never tried with me. Of course, I was born in the height of the formula push, where women were told how amazing it was. I'm not bashing formula feeding. That's what is best for some women. It's just not for me.

We all have such differing views on feeding our children. Some start cereal and solids very early. Some breastfeed. Some formula feed. Some delay solids until a year. Some give candy and chocolate milk. I just think instead of all the bashing, all the "Are you Mom Enough?" (thanks a hell of a lot TIME magazine), women need SUPPORT for whatever their choices are. We didn't feed Tripp solids until he was 6 months, and I plan to let him wean in his own time. At 11 months old, he's nowhere close to weaning.

I also don't understand the outrage at women who are breastfeeding in public. You don't ask someone giving their child a bottle to take them to the bathroom to feed. It should be normalized in our society. I do my part. I breastfeed in public, without a cover, whenever I need to. I usually feed him before we walk out the door to go somewhere, but if he needs to eat while we are out, I feed him! I've never been modest... so I never thought once about breastfeeding in public, it was just natural for me to do it. And I never really thought about it if I saw it before I had my child, either. It was just "there" and natural...



Anyway, I need to jump off my soapbox and take care of by sweet baby boy, who is no longer napping!

And so, It begins...

I've been wanting to start a blog about my adventures in motherhood since my dear son was born ten months ago. But instead I've been overwhelmed and just trying to hang on ever since he arrived 3 weeks early!

My most passionate endeavor since he's arrived has become breastfeeding. I knew due to prior health issues that I wouldn't be able to deliver naturally, so breastfeeding was something I was very committed to doing from a young age.

We had a rough pregnancy, followed by a rough delivery. I ended up on magnesium because my blood pressure wouldn't stabilize, and we did an emergency c-section. Because of the magnesium, I couldn't breastfeed until it had been out of my system for 24 hours, and they made me stay on it 12 hours post-delivery, so I couldn't even begin to breastfeed until 7:00am the morning of the day we were discharged. I was so sad I was pumping and dumping all this colostrum and that my little one was getting formula. I knew it was the best we could do, but that didn't change the fact I hated it. When I was finally able to feed him, it was like we were in sync for the first time since he came into the world! The nurse wasn't the best lactation consultant, and we only got to work with her three times before they were sending us out the door!

Luckily, I can say we've overcome all our problems and we're still breastfeeding strong over ten months later. No one talks about how hard it is, and there's a serious learning curve.

My husband has a good job, so I can stay at home with my little one. I'm a graphic designer, dance teacher and a photographer, so I do some freelance work from home when I get it.

So, I hope you enjoy reading about our trials and tribulations in the days and months to come. We try to live an unconventional life. Most days, we succeed.