Liebster Award

Today I was presented with a Liebster (German for favorite) award by Meaningful Mama. I was honored with this award in December, but again I am humbled and honored. I think I failed to add the award button to my sidebar in December. I've decided to humbly accept this award and pass it on to 5 other awesome bloggers!  This is an award other bloggers give to up and coming blogs with fewer than 200 followers.  I feel honored since I have only been blogging about teaching the boys since October.

When you get the Liebster Blog award you can pass it along, so this is what I am doing.  There are five rules for passing along the Liebster.

1)  Thank the person that gave it to you.  Thank you Meaningful Mama!I truly adore and love Mama Jodi's blog. She blogs about a parenting tip, a character development trait, and an activity or craft DAILY! Yes, that's 3 posts a day! I don't know how she does it, she continues to amaze me. She is one blogger who I know if we lived closer to each other, she would be my "in real life" friend as we parent and think similarly! But for now, blogger friends it is. :)

2)  Link back to their blog.  (Done above, click through, she has some awesome ideas!)

3)  Put the award on your blog. (On Sidebar)

4)  Present the award to 3-5 blogs with less that 200 followers.  (See list below)

5)  Leave a comment for them so they will know you recognized them. (Done)
I know some of these amazing ladies and bloggers may have been recognized once before, but each of them share their hearts and how they are striving to make a difference in the  lives of their children or the children they teach. :) 


1. Get 'Er Done, Momma!
I'm Jenny, wife to a wonderful man and momma to a mischievous yet sweet little boy. I hope you enjoy your time here!

2. H is for Homeschooling
My name is Sierra and I am blessed :) I have been married to my husband for 5.5 years and cannot imagine a better husband and father. We currently have two beautiful boys and look forward to expanding our family when the timing is right. We started tot school this summer, and are teaching our oldest about letters, numbers, colors, shapes, and, most importantly of all, about God. Thanks for stopping by to join us on our homeschooling journey!

3. Mom's Heart
I am the daughter of Christ. I am the the wife of a loving husband and devoted father, Matt. I am the thankful mother of two very handsome, healthy and happy boys-Elliott and Emory. We're homeschooling, learning as we go, and loving our life! This blog is just a peek at our journey.

4. Preschool Powol Packets
I'm so glad you're visiting! I am a public school teacher turned homeschooling mom who runs a small home daycare. I love to teach, create fun and exciting resources, and share the educational journey that we get to live!

5. Cachey Mama's Classroom
I am a 30 year old wife and mother of sweet baby boy. Recently bought a house and teach Head Start. Wondering where I came up with Cacheymama? It's my geocaching handle. Want to learn more about geocaching? Visit www.geocaching.com

Ladies, feel free to pass on the award or just accept it. Happy teaching and blogging!

Weekly Wrap Up

This week we focused on:

• Kindness
• Colors
• Tracing letters
• Literature through a lot of reading 
• Making Smoothies in the kitchen together

Early, early one morning ( and I do mean early as my boys are early risers!), I found these two cuddled up together reading a book together in the glider! I quickly grabbed the camera to take a snapshot as this is just too precious of them!

We made peach, banana, and strawberry smoothies together for a morning snack. I am trying to allow them both to be more helpful in the kitchen. This time we used frozen fruit, a little juice and yogurt! The boys loved their smoothies and I feel great serving it to them as I know they are eating a healthy snack. It's a win-win!

JP poured the juice.

And CA added the yogurt. I love his smile here!

This week I made a Preschool Notebook for JP with a lot of activities in sheet protectors. He seemed excited about it.

Here he is beginning to work on some of the activities.

I had a theme planned to work on the four seasons of the year, but when JP's interest switched to all things Peter Pan this week I switched the plans to adapt to him. He loved the activities in the Peter Pan Preschool Pack at Homeschool Creations.

This graphing activity in the preschool pack was a huge hit!

CA also worked on a color activity that I also found at Homeschool Creations.

I also taught CA how to sort the silverware while unloading the dishwasher this week. He LOVED it! He was so excited that when the Daddy got home he ran out to tell him, "I helped Mommy today!!!!! Mommy, what did I help you do? What it called?" I explained that he sorted the silverware! So sweet!

Linked up to these great parties!

Moments to Remember

On a beautiful sunny day we took our lunch outside for a picnic! This was so much fun to soak up the sunshine as later in the week it got cool, rainy and dreary. Truthfully, the sunny days just make this mama feel better! I also love JP's sunglasses! A moment to remember for sure!

 Linked up at:

Moments to Remember was developed as a simple way to look back on our week as homeschoolers (and mamas of preschoolers at home) and find photos that encompass the memories we want to remember.

The week may have been tough, there may have been more bumps than smiles, but in the end these are the moments that keep us going, the ones we need to remember.

Imaginative Character Play

This sweet boy keeps me hopping with his amazing imaginative mind! He is very much into character, imaginative play! Which I LOVE!

At the beginning of the week he wanted to be Leo from Little Einsteins. So with a little thought and creativity, this is what we created. A black shirt with an orange stripe made of construction paper.

Then one hour later the sweet boy wanted to be Peter Pan! So he pulled out his new green striped shirt to get into character. A dear friend made him this hat while I was at Bible study. He LOVES it. He has worn it every day since! It now lovingly has a piece of masking tape added to the front of it as I've had to remind him that it is made of construction paper and probably won't last forever.

Very serious about his role!

Thankfully, he has two shirts that are very similar to be Peter Pan! He has alternated them all week!

Notice the tear where now masking tape is mending it. :)

I love spending my days with my smart, creative boy!
Linked up to these great parties! 

PS...I consider this activity frugal/free/thrifty as we used a lot of the items we have at home to work with his creative brain! 

Our Nighttime Routine

Recently, I have felt like our nighttime routine wasn't quite working very well. Then I saw an idea at Happy Whimsical Hearts where she discussed her family's nightly rhythm. I felt so inspired to do something similar for our family. I used colored note cards to draw pictures and write out our nightly routine. I had the boys help me by telling me all the things we do each night. I then laminated the cards and put magnetic strips on the back of the cards. They are now housed on our refrigerator and have tremendously helped us stay more on track with a consistent routine. I also like that I can move them around as needed as the order of each night might vary a little.

 

JP in character of Peter Pan or maybe Captain Hook! You just never know who he is going to be each day!

Linked up at these awesome parties this week!

Character Development-Kindness

Kindness

“Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” – Ephesians 4:32

I am really enjoying focusing on one character development trait each week with the boys. This week we are focusing on kindness.

At the beginning of each week, we make our character development card to add to the refrigerator.  I allow the boys to choose the colored note card and sticker letters to use.

I then helped them sound out "kindness." Then I write the Bible verse on the card.   We'll spend this week learning the word, meaning and memorizing the scripture.

JP did a great job sounding out kindness. I was happily impressed!

All 7 character traits so far. I love seeing them all each time I enter the kitchen. It really keeps me accountable too!

As I wrote the scripture on the card for the boys I then remembered other places this verse is in our home. A few years ago I was inspired by  Deuteronomy 6:5-9  which says "⁵ Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. ⁶ These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. ⁷ Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ⁸ Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. ⁹ Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates." At that time I typed scriptures that were important to my husband and I and placed them above the light switches in our home. I did this in our first home over ten years ago. When we moved into this current home, I didn't hang them again, no real reason why. Recently, my husband asked me if I still had those cards and if I could hang them up again. Thankfully, I knew right where they were and happily placed them above the light switches again. He and I have both enjoyed seeing the verses again. As I wrote Ephesians 4:32 I remembered that it is hanging right here in our living room:

Not the greatest pic with all the white, some day we hope to add some color to our home and paint. :)

I also use this special tile board that was given to me years ago as a gift to write our memory verse each week. This sits in a prominent place in the kitchen where we all see it.

Kindness in Books:
Each of these books have challenged us to be kind.

Kindness with Toothpaste:
I found this visual demonstration of kindness with words at Meaningful Mama.

We talked about the importance of words.  We talked about how you can say something, but once it’s heard the bad effects have already started to take place.  We talked about what nice words look like and how they make us feel.  We also talked about how mean words might make us feel.  Next, I told the boys to start squeezing the toothpaste out of the tube.  Then, I had them try to put it back in.  I gave them toothpicks to help. Of course, this was a blast but unsuccessful.  After that exercise, we talked about our words being similar.  Once our words come out of our mouths, we cannot stop what has been heard, and it can have really hurtful effects on the people around us.  You can ask for forgiveness, but those words can still can still hurt others. 

JP is quite perplexed that the toothpaste won't go back in!!

Kindness in random acts:
We decided to leave our faithful mailman a bag of cookies as a random act of kindness. We have left treats for him before, so thankfully he will accept baked goodies from us. :) The boys were so cute as we were returning home they ran to the mailbox to make sure he had gotten the cookies!

I loved browsing ideas for random acts of kindness at http://www.randomactsofkindness.org/. There are so many ideas there! We will have to continue to work on this skill.

I also found another great resource at When You Rise to help with scripture memorization for young children. She has a printable with this exact verse! I am so excited and can't wait to print it and show it to the boys!

I have also been diligent this week in noticing kind things that they boys are doing for each other or for me and I have heard them say to each other, "That was kind, Bubba!" So heartwarming!

Linked up at these parties this week!

A non structured week with lots of fun!

If I were to be real honest and transparent, this week was different that most of our preschool learning weeks. I had a theme planned with a ton of library books to match it and I think we read one of them. We didn't do one "formal" preschool lesson. I did put out learning trays this week, but honestly my boys didn't show much interest in them. So what did we do all week?!?! Well, I asked myself this question too as reflected on the week, and then I remembered all of these things.

• We played outside a lot!! It was a beautiful week in our neck of the woods! I think we went to different community park daily!

JP has finally learned how to "pedal" on his big wheel and loves it!

• We happily hosted a friend for a playdate while her sweet mama ran a few errands(You know us "mommies of preschoolers" have to stick together, and help each other out when necessary)
• We went to the library for story time.
• We went grocery shopping together one morning.
• We took Daddy his favorite soft drink and forgotten lunch to his work one morning.
• CA recently turned 3 and we had his well check appointment at the pediatrician which I blogged about here. 
• We danced and sang a lot together! Here is a video of the boys dancing to one of our new favorite songs  Hold Me by Jamie Grace.

 Please forgive the turning of the camera. Also, if you look closely you can see me sign "no" to CA for hitting his brother with his new $1 sword from Target. There were a few times this week when I wondered why I bought these swords for the boys! But lots of fun have been had with them. I had to really refrain from singing while videoing as I do love this song too! Many days we crank up the music and just dance!

Overall, we had a very "non-preschool" week and a ton of fun!  How was your week?