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Friday, October 30, 2015

Pumpkins


Last night was pumpkin carving night at our house. I made chili and pumpkin cornbread with a big candy filled skillet cookie for dessert!
My parents came over with my brother and his family too.
 Zoey had picked out the tiniest pumpkin and she was very excited about it!
 Ty and my dad were the carvers. I put on gloves and pulled out the seeds.
 The pumpkins turned out great and I ended up with a big sheet of roasted pumpkin seeds.
It was a fun night. We are ready for Halloween!
Thursday, October 29, 2015

Cookie Play

 Image result for if you give a mouse a cookie
 Our story today was a bit of a throwback. We read "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie".
 Next there was chocolate chip counting and sorting.
 I made a batch of skin therapy cookie dough play-doh.
It is a no cook recipe that uses coconut oil, oats, and cocoa powder in the mix. (I found the recipe HERE)
It smelled fabulous! I had to assure Zoey that she could not eat it.
 The play-doh made both of our hands super soft after playing with it for a while.
I put together a little letter match up game. The alphabet is one of Zoey's favorite subjects/songs!
Another successful preschool play day.

Happy Things

 Ree Drummond's latest cookbook found it's way to my house! I am super excited about this :)
Zack did a little free hand drawing of Pete The Cat. I think it is absolutely adorable!
Wednesday, October 28, 2015

The Mitten

 It is cloudy and cool today! We are making homeade bread and having a Mitten themed school day. Zoey and I read "The Mitten".
 I found some printables to go along with the story perfectly!
Zoey colored and cut out all of the pieces.
 We read the story again while Zoey acted it out using the cut outs.
 Next we used Zoey's hands as a template to make her own little pair of pink paper mittens.
We are loving our story themed week!
Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Snow Day!

 (Not Really....It is October in Southern California, which means it is still in the 80 degree range! We are looking forward to temps dipping into the 70's next week, but for now all snow is pretend.)
We read...."The Snowy Day".
 We stacked powdered sugar donuts into powdered sugar snowmen. (and then we ate them!)
 I made play snow for Zoey to play in. I used an extremely simple recipe that I have seen online for a while now. You mix together 6 cups of flour with 3/4 cup baby oil.....and voila....Snow! (caution: this activity could result in a mega mess!)
 Next we spent some time working on handwriting.
We finished with a review of the numbers 1-10. Zoey is getting good at recognizing all of her numbers. They are tricky to write!
Monday, October 26, 2015

Blueberries and Bears

 Another week! We started the day with a little letter/name tracing. I read an article that encouraged teaching capital letters first. It explained that children see capital letters everywhere....on STOP signs and on store names. Capital letters are easily recognizable to them. I am planning on switching over to a combination of capital and lowecase letters soon!
 I themed today's activities around this book, "Blueberries For Sal". We read the story and then did some "bear" math/snack time with teddy graham crackers.
 Next we made blueberry muffins. Zoey cracked all of the eggs by herself and did a great job! She also counted all of the muffin liners and scooped the batter.
(We are serving the muffin as an after school snack to the big kids when they come home from school!)
 We also did some painting. Zoey used different shades of blue to paint blueberries. I didn't take a picture! 
Tomorrow will be another book themed day.

Friday, October 23, 2015

Friday Fun Day

 It was a paint-y kind of morning. We got out the Halloween face paints and did a little pre trunk - or - treat practice on Zoey's cheeks. Tomorrow night is the annual activity at the church. The kids are super excited about all the candy!
We painted paper plate pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns.
This afternoon we are headed to the mountains for an evening at my parent's cabin. We haven't been there in ages! Ty and I are looking forward to spending time together in front of the fire!
Thursday, October 22, 2015

Books and Baking

 I was off at a meeting first thing this morning so I had Ty do a few alphabet worksheets with Zoey while I was gone.
When I got home we read a Halloween story....plus a few more!
 We did a little Halloween coloring/counting activity.
 And there was cookie baking.
We spent some time practicing handwriting with Zoey's name and watching Sesame Street. It has been another busy week. I am looking forward to the weekend!
Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Monster Mash

 Today's Halloween themed preschool day focused on all things monster!
We read a few monster stories.
 Zoey did her "Where the Wild Things Are" puzzle...with only a little help from Mom :)
 We made our own monsters from brown paper bags. Zoey's monster looks very purple and friendly, but she insists it is a monster!
 Now we are settling down with popcorn to watch Monsters Inc.
 (random FYI: I remember watching this movie for the first time with Ty! I was 19 and we hadn't even really started dating yet!)
Another successful preschool morning at home! I am learning it really doesn't take much. Just a little extra time and focus.
Monday, October 19, 2015

Life Lately

 We had a lovely weekend! The weather cooled down and we were able to enjoy some rain. We got together with friends on Sunday evening for dessert. We want to do it again next month!
Today it was cool enough that Zoey and I were able to turn on the fireplace downstairs while the older kids were at school. We read stories by the fire and once again treated ourselves to Christmas music!
 We made the best cookies! I used THIS recipe. It didn't make very many and that is a good thing, because we are eating them all.
I took some time today to put together the Relief Society newsletter for November. I am still serving as the RS secretary and the newsletter is a big part of that! I read through all of the quotes from General Conference and used several in the letter. I am looking forward to the new Ensign coming soon so that I can re read all of those talks!
I made soup and homeade bread for dinner. We filled out pedigree charts for Family Home Evening. It was a lovely Monday. The night is ending again with rain and I am feeling very blessed.

Halloween Unit

 We are starting a two week Halloween unit at home with Zoey!
Today we read the chocolate chip ghost story and acted it out with these cute little ghost figures!
 We did a little candy corn counting. Zoey insisted on tasting the candy corn, even though I told her they weren't good! She agreed. Candy corn is good for counting and decorating at Halloween, but not much else.

 P is for Pumpkin!
Zoey did an amazing job coloring and cutting out her pumpkin.
Then we used candy pumpkins for the 5 Little Pumpkin poem.
Holidays are so much fun!

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Halloweenie

 This week has been a bit off for us so far and I haven't taken any pictures! School was out yesterday for the older kids, but I still tried to do a few preschool activities at home for Zoey.
 I decided to put Zoey and Mia to work decorating the fridge for Halloween.
 They made little jack-o-lanterns out of paper.
 We turned on some Halloween radio to add to the fun.
 The finished pumpkins complete with Hello Kitty bows!
Today we started our J is for Jungle unit, but like I said, I have not taken any pictures! Zoey and I are working through the complete collection of Curious George this week, because George is from the Jungle!