Christmas Preschool

It seems like we did a lot for preschool the last few weeks and I didn't get pictures of it all, but here goes:

Natalie has had a lot of fun arranging and rearranging all the manger scenes

I did a Christmas tree bingo game (found here) and let Cyrena mark up 2 boards worth. We did mostly sight words and number words on this

The girls both colored a santa then cut his beard and rolled the cuts to make it curly

We played the Ho! Ho! Ho! game I made last year. This year in addition to identifying the number I had her count out that number of cubes as well.

Natalie likes to play with her letters. She's really into lining things up lately

The girls cut out a candy cane shape (mailbox magazine) then glued on red/white pom-pom's. Cyrena did a pattern, Natalie didn't

We also used patterns (found here) and made these reindeer and santas--they had a lot of fun with these and they made for great decorations!

We did some great Grinch stuff I downloaded from here. Some of it was mathematical thinking skills. For the 1st picture Cyrena had to make an ABC pattern with the cards. Other questions were like "The Grinch has 2 trees and 10 ornaments...how can he make sure each tree gets an equal amount of ornaments?" or "the Grinch has 3 friends and 6 ornaments, how can he share them all?" She had SO much fun with these, she wanted to keep going all day.

We made a Grinch and did a writing assignment "To make the Grinch grin I would...." Cyrena write that she would share her toys and then she drew a picture of her sharing her stuffed dog, Charlie, with the Grinch. The Grinch has lost some of his hat lining since we did this....

We did a lot with gingerbread as well. In this picture I put up pictures (in random order) of the process of baking/decorating cookies. Cyrena had to put them in the proper sequence and then she numbered the steps. These pictures were from mailbox magazine.

Afterward, Natalie played with her magnetic letters

We did a gingerbread bingo game found here. This was Natalie's gameboard. I just put letters that she knows or is working on....she did amazing! And she marked them well too, I was so proud of her. Now if only we could get her colors down....

The girls used their do-a-dot paints to make a Christmas tree from this unit. Natalie is getting much more accurate at actually getting the paint in the circle. Natalie's is on the left, Cyrena's is on the right.

Cyrena measured gingerbread (found here) using chocolate chips and then recorded the number in the box. Then she measured using Hershey Kisses and recorded. Before she used the kisses I asked her if she thought she would need more or less kisses than chips to measure the gingerbread. She answered less because they are bigger! It's just the little questions like that that really get her brain thinking.

This was a a gingerbread memory game I found here. Instead of making it a memory game, I made it a little easier so Natalie could play. I only cut up one of the sets and left the other one as a gameboard. So the girls just picked a card then matched it to the board. They played this about 8 times, it was a hit.

We read 4 different kinds of gingerbread man stories this week. Here Cyrena is reading the 'typical' one.

Then she completed a response sheet I found here. It was all about if she was the gingerbread man, she would run from...... and if a fox told her to jump on his back she would......This was fun and she did a great job writing!

I put up some cookie cards found here on the board and Cyrena would show me the quantity with her fingers. After she tired of that, I would put a few on the board, then take one away while she closed her eyes. She would then tell me which one I took away. This was fun.

This was a size sequencing sheet found here. She had to cut out all the pieces, put them in order biggest to smallest to make a tree. Instead of spreading them out to make a big tree, she decided to make it more of a topiary because she wanted a big trunk. :)

So there you go, hopefully it helps you with some ideas!

How I know....

I'm 36 weeks pregnant:



*My undergarment tops are getting a wee bit short so my almost 5 year old is lecturing me about modesty

*And when I ask her to do something for me, all of a sudden her back and legs hurt too much or she's too tired (where'd she get that??)

*It takes me a full minute to get up off the floor when I've been cleaning or playing with the girls. Ok maybe not a full minute but it seems like it takes awhile.

*I'm starting to slightly feel the 'heat rush' during my Braxton Hicks contractions

*I sleep with 3 pillows, one for my head and one for each side

*I've got a MOP of hair-no more daily shedfest

*My baby doesn't look or act like a baby anymore *sniff
But she still lets me cuddle her.

*It feels like the baby is having major convulsions inside of me all day long....and all night

*I'm exhausted by 9 a.m.

*I'm cleaning out my house and have piles for goodwill-and we just moved/purged 2 months ago

*My arms are itching to hold a newborn. And that's a big deal for me.

*My hospital suitcase is packed, along with a suitcase for the girls just in case

*Baby laundry is done and put away

*My freezer has at least 8 ready-to-go meals I've made.

I could go on and on...but I won't
We're getting very excited to meet our new baby!

See Pinnochio's latest hiding spot?

Christmas Advent Activities week 1

We started our Christmas Advent Activities, a tradition we started last year. The girls are so excited to get their mint each night and find out what we're going to do.

December 1: Visited Bass Pro Shop to hang out with Santa, get a free picture and play!



I must say Cyrena had amazing aim with the crossbow.
She hit the same deer target 4 times in a row!

December 2: Drink hot Chocolate and look at pictures/video of past holidays. We also put up the girls mini tree with the lights

December 3: Ate pizza and watched a Christmas movie. And we made ornaments for the girls little tree

December 4: Phoenix Downtown Light Parade. We rode the light rail, met up with my cousin's family and we had a GREAT time!

The dads and their girls


December 5: First Presidency Christmas Devotional

December 6: Christmas Symbols FHE

December 7: This day we just had our treat and read some books since we had friends over for dinner. We'll be doing double duty to make up for it!


A new tradition we started this year is "The Elf on the Shelf" My mom bought it for us last year for Christmas. This little elf, lovingly named 'Pinnochio', watches us each day then reports to Santa every night if we've been naughty or nice. In the morning he comes back and perches in a different spot. The girls LOVE to find where he decides to sit each morning!! Yesterday, he was in the dining room chandelier and every time they walked by they pointed and laughed. Pinnochio gives us a great incentive to be on our best behavior.

Thanksgiving Preschool

Well there was a lot to fit in and we didn't get to all of what I had planned since we left on a trip...I also didn't get pictures of everything. However, learning did occur and we did have fun! I also brought some Thanksgiving papers/coloring/reading activities for her to do in the car. The problem was she finished them too fast!

I made Natalie a sensory tub with popcorn kernels. She spent a lot of time scooping and pouring.

Cyrena matched turkey feathers with numbered turkeys

We played 'turkey tails'. I laid out a bunch of turkeys with sight words on them. Underneath one I hid a paper pumpkin. We said "turkey tails, turkey tails! One, two, three! Turkey tails, turkey tails! Where could it be?" Then she would pick a turkey, say the word, and check underneath for the pumpkin. This was too fun. I found it here. On that same site, I also printed some pilgrim color word sheets that she worked on in the car--she loved them and called them Jack and Annie because we had just read "The Magic Treehouse Thanksgiving on Thursday" book!

She colored a turkey on a 'color by number sheet' from the same resource as above. I wanted to see if she knew her color words and she does! She continues to surprise and amaze me.

We matched up colored unifix cubes to colored turkeys...

Then stacked the 'like' colors together to see how many of each we had. Cyrena arranged them like that on her own then told me, "I made a stock" She's been watching and learning from her dad's dabbling in the stock market.

The girls made a cut and paste turkey

For Cyrena's she had to write how many of each color of feathers she used, then write a number sentence for it. She liked it! I found this idea here.

We played Roll-a-Turkey where Cyrena rolled a die and drew the corresponding part of a turkey. She was very proud of this!

Thanksgiving 2010

Sort of at the last minute (with my dr's approval) we decided to drive up to Hurricane, Utah to meet up with my parents and my sister Debbie's family. After an eventful drive, we made it and had a great, relaxing time. On Friday, all the girls went shopping (I never get to do that, so fun!!) and the dads took the kids to a local fishing hole--with no success but fun was had by all. Saturday my sister's family left and I was feeling a little 'fluish' so my mom helped me take care of the girls while David and my dad went golfing. A great trip with great company and great food of course!

Throwing a football in the yard--a Thanksgiving must

Uncle Lynn made amazing pancake animals!!

Sunday morning we woke up to SNOW! I got Cyrena up and made her close her eyes until I got her to the window--she was SO excited!

Oh, you want to know more about the eventful drive?? Here you go:

Just outside of Vegas, we were pummeled by a huge, styrofoam fist....yep a styrofoam FIST. We think it was an event prop of some sort. Anyway, it flew out of someone's truck, hit one car then flew through the air and landed on our roof then bounced onto our hood. Then 2 other cars hit it until it finally came to rest near the median. It was almost as tall as David-crazy. The Highway Patrol had to come and make a report so that took over an hour for all 4 cars that were affected. Our car had the most damage of course, it looks awful and now the passenger door sticks. Oh, and the driver of the truck that it flew out of drove off never to be seen again so we have to pay a $500 deductible because it's labeled an accident with an uninsured motorist. Icing on the cake.

In the middle of all this, Natalie threw up. We've never had a child throw up on a drive before....not fun to clean up while we're on the shoulder of a busy freeway. She threw up 2 more times before we finally made it to my parent's Hurricane home. We don't know what was wrong with her. I did remember later that she had eaten part of a crayon when she was bored in the car...

A couple days later she said "my tummy hurts, throw up, need bowl me" She was just joking and oh how it made me laugh! She's such a silly girl.

The drive home Sunday was completely and utterly normal, thank goodness.

The Cut

BEFORE:

AFTER:

What happens when mom gets an idea in her head....luckily it worked!