hide-n-(sensory)-seeking

Keeping Kit busy while the big kids are working on certain school projects can sometimes be a challenge. She loves to be involved in whatever they are doing, but she also loves to wreck it. They are not her biggest fans in those moments.  So Thursday, while Grace was building her aqueduct, I devised a way to keep Kit fully engaged and happy. We played Twister! Preschool Style. We spread out the mat, and then I had her go find her three favorite stuffed animals. While she brought them out one by one from her bed, I wrote their names on sticky notes and stuck them over the hands/feet on the spinner, including a sticky note for her. Then we were ready! Jeffrey the Pug, Thunder the Wonder Cat, and Sylvia - dutifully manning their posts. :) By modifying the game, she was able to follow the simple directions seeing as she doesn't understand the whole right/left concept yet. And she was moving her whole body moving her friends from one spot to the next...

I've decided to divide and conquer this week. This post will highlight some of the preschool books that we read over the past few weeks, while the next post will contain the favorites for young readers and myself. To start us off we have a family favorite that was so well loved it literally fell apart, and we finally replaced it, with the board book version. I am very pleased as it is the entire story and not a condensed version. We love Wooly! Kit said this was her favorite page, the one with all the Kitty Kisses! My personal fave is the the duck lullaby, the kids go crazy giggly when I belt out my quacky rendition. Fun times. I have to confess that I have never really been able to get into the How Do Dinosaurs series for reasons I can't exactly pinpoint. I think the artwork is great. I love that they write the names of each dino on the various pages. I think it a very clever way to help kids sort out their own feelings in a funny and non-accusing ...

Okie doke, so in addition to daily math, the kids kept busy this week doing GeoPuzzles, math and thinking skills games on the computer, and actual reading out of science books. I was also reminded by a fellow homeschool mom that the fair was accepting entries to the exhibition hall. I had forgotten, but when I mentioned it to the kids, they really wanted to participate, and both of them found something they have previously done to enter. Grace entered her watercolor called "Bird", and Zak entered an ink sketch he titled "Dream." And guess what? Zak won first place! Though I don't think there were many other entries that shared his medium in his age bracket. I'm bummed that Grace only got a participant ribbon, because I seriously love her painting. We literally took it off our living room wall and brought it, frame and all, to the exhibition hall. But she seems un-phased, and both kids are looking forward to next year when they will have time to wor...

This week Kit went home with Auntie on Monday and spent two nights with her. She has been so excited to go and she asks so sweetly every time Auntie comes for a visit. And I love that she gets some quiet time there.  Things here at home are very busy and usually fairly noisy, and we have regularly noticed how much calmer and more organized Kit is when the big kids are gone for a bit. We cannot change the fact that she has busy, often bossy siblings that are often a source of frustration and sometimes even anxiety for her, but she can periodically retreat to the quiet of Auntie's house now and again.   While she was gone, we went swimming like usual on Tuesday, but it felt most unusual without her.  We had fun though, especially the big kids who got much more Mommy and Daddy time, and especially loved the extra wrestling with Daddy time.  The big kids each worked on language skills. Zak started a new program aimed at helping middle-schoolers become wel...