sibling love

I just love their love for each other...

Addie got a time-out for giving her brother a little shove off a chair and Liam couldn't resist joining her in timeout. Now, tell me you could keep a straight face.

Liam is giving his sister a goodmorning hug as she came down the hall from her bedroom. I wish I had been at an angle that captured the smile on his face!

two weekends in a row with grammy

We got to see Grammy in Medford for Marek's birthday and then again the very next weekend when she came here for a visit. It flew by, as it always does!

Thanks for the date night too Grammy!

snowing in august

When I need a shower and miss my very early, before he wakes up, opportunity, I baby gate Liam in our master bathroom, while I jump in the shower. I've tried bringing in toys, snacks, books to entertain him and all he wants to do is empty out the drawers and cabinets. On this particular day he decided to empty out the powder. Good thing he's cute!

number four for marek!

We headed up to Medford to celebrate Marek's 4th birthday! It was another great weekend with family!

week 7 ~ earth (part 2)

As I wrote previously, I took the Kindergarten Earth Science standard a little deeper and we learned about our Earth in relation to the Solar System. I enjoyed learning about this as a kid (and still do) and thought it would be fun for us to dabble in outer space for a bit! Although, I wasn't sure how much she would be able to grasp, she did understand a few basics and I think little seeds were planted for the future. 
Read Alouds:  The book Me and My Place in Space was wonderful for teaching a semi-abstract concept to a four year old. I would highly recommend this book! The other books were way too detailed and long but we used them for the pictures. 

Thematic Poem: Here's the link to this weeks' poem! There were lots of great sight words to highlight!

Words/Phonics Hands-on Activity: Bingo: Here is a generic Bingo mat you can print off for each member of your family. I normally do the word families we are working on for the week and maybe a few challenging sight words. I have her write the words, while I write them on my own mat and the laminated cards I talked about in week 5. We take turns flipping the cards over and then use some math cubes to mark the words (but you could use anything, pennies, noodles, M&Ms, etc.). You can also use these mats for vocabulary words in history or science, math facts, there are quite a few possibilities! And who doesn't love playing a game of Bingo!?!

Fieldtrip: I finally got around to taking advantage of our library's Discover and Go program and got us in for FREE to the Lawrence Hall of Science. There was a lot to explore but what I was really hoping for was a neat solar system exhibit. I have to say Addie and I were quite disappointed. Other than that they had some great exhibits and my kids had a great time!

first concert

We've had tickets to go see Train since the spring but just didn't make the plans for a babysitter. So...we brought them with us to their first big concert! We backed ourselves up to the fence on the lawn and enjoyed the people watching and music. There was lots of dancing on our blanket, plenty of snacks and some glow stick action! I'm glad we were able to give this opportunity to our kids!

summer playdates

We loved our weekly playdates with friends and can't believe the end of August is here and school will be starting back up! Here's some pics of one of our last summer playdates.

The big kids were veggie painting and my Liam was thrilled to be taking part!

Can you tell they are mother and son or what?!

Liam's exploring his artistic side.

The kids always end up in Addie's room and put her toys to good use!

week 6 ~ earth (part 1)

All the learning that took place about geography led to many talks about our Earth, which led us into the direction of a little earth science. I wanted to do much more with this Kindergarten standard, so for the first part we learned about what comes from our Earth, (i.e. rocks, minerals, plants, tress, etc.) and how to take care of it. For the second part, we learned about the Earth in relation to our solar system. I'll post about that next. 

Read Alouds:  Here's some of the books we read. The Earth and I is a very simple, poetic book that could also be a shared read.

Thematic Poem: Here's the link to this weeks' poem! Remember to review the old ones too! 

Words/Phonics Hands-on Activity: Word Wheels: I have a book full of word wheels and it is an excellent and simple activity that not only helps teach word families, but gives a little practice on the fine motor skill, cutting. All I have to do is make a copy of the two pages on some cardstock, then I let her do most of the cutting. I have to help a little on the windows and with the brad, but other than that she's got a word wheel to practice her words! Here's a link to several of the books I've found on Amazon. 

Here's the exact book I have but you can find several at a variety of levels.

Fieldtrip: We ventured out to the Effie Yeaw Nature Center in Carmichael. I was a bit skeptical about being one with nature very near to the big city Sacramento, but I was actually quite impressed. There were lots of live, non-releasable animals to view, some exhibits and nature trails! And it was all FREE! We had a picnic lunch, checked out the exhibits and animals, then went on a little hike down to the American River. Along the way, I brought a Nature Scavenger Hunt for Addie to look for things from our Earth. It was a good day!

liam and the little blue truck

In a house full of pink, we are finding that Liam is fitting into most of the male stereotypes and has a natural inclination towards trucks, cars, tractors, trains, even Sister's pink doll jeep. What I love most is how he picks out his Little Blue Truck books (and a few other tractor books) and brings them to me to read. They are clearly his favorites. He gets so upset if I don't stop what I'm doing and read to him. So most of the time, I do just that. I stop what I'm doing and sit right where I am. Then he hands me the book, climbs into my lap and I read to my baby boy.

Today, I was doing the dishes and he kept coming down the hall and talking to me in his caveman language (love those sounds!). Then he would run to his rocking chair in his room. He did this a couple of times and while I acknowledged him, I kept doing the dishes. I think he finally gave up and when I looked over at him, he had climbed up in his rocking chair and was "reading" his Little Blue Truck books. 

what summer's all about

I go back to my part-time job with Visions on August 8th and although it doesn't necessarily have to mean summer is over for us, it's definitely a shift in our schedules and the direction of some of my energy/thoughts/time. So this last week we've been soaking up summer!

On Wednesday we hit the awesome Picnic in the Park in Davis. Every Wednesday this adorable city puts on a farmer's market complete with live music, local restaurants with food booths, clowns, face painting and lots of happy people picnicking together.

A monkey arm bracelet in "dark pink" was her choice from Dilly Dally the clown.

Always happy to show us his belly button!

Then on Thursday our friends, the Linnet's asked us to go to the Solano County Fair. We had never been in the eight years we've lived here. We were pretty impressed and had a great time with the Linnet's!

cast free!

A couple of days after we got back from Sunriver we had Liam's appointment to get his cast off! Our awesome nurse, Amber, was so impressed with how calm he was when she used the saw. She had instructed me to make sure Daddy came for a second set of hands but Liam was as cool as a cucumber! 

When the doctor came in to review the x-rays with us, he told us Liam had healed up perfectly and just as he started to tell us it might take some time for Liam to start using that arm again, we all look over and he's pushing the stroller around with his new free arm! Never missed a beat. Love that little trouper! 

week four and five ~ geography

We spent two weeks on Geography but I could've spent FOREVER on the topic! There are so many ideas I have swirling around in my head about teaching Geography like, Little Passports (which is now a vendor with Visions!), listening to music, tasting food and fieldtrips galore! For now, while her and her brother are still pretty young, I figured I've got some time and I'll keep it simple. So we used the book Me on the Map as our catalyst and this great unit from teacherspayteachers.com.

I put up maps, we did activities with the globe, put together a puzzle of the United States, took a fieldtrip across state lines to Oregon, and read many, many great books.

Read Alouds: Here are just a few of the great books we read.

And this was one of the activities included in the Me on the Map unit from teacherspayteachers.com. We did a little each day and I was pleasantly surprised at the pictures she was able to come up with!

Thematic Poem: Here is the link to the poem. It's a familiar song and was pretty easy for Addie to pick up on and read (sing) independently. I was glad to have the word "California" in the text so she got more exposure to that big, long word!  

Word/Phonics Hands-on Activity: Laminated Cards: Many of you have seen me use these cards at our meetings. They were so incredibly easy to make and I get A LOT of use out of them. All I did was cut up some leftover scrapbook paper into 3x2 cards and then laminated them. Once they are laminated you can write on them with good old dry erase markers, then erase and rewrite. I use them for rhyming memory games, for building words and more. 

For the memory game I used words from our word families (jet/wet, best/west, leg/peg, hen/pen, etc.) If they rhyme, you get to keep them! For the building words activity, I asked Addie to build me the word "dig," then change it to "pig," then change that word to "pin," and so on. I would not set out more than six letter cards at a time though.