Current Preschool Schedule

Currently with Faith at 38 months and Rebekah at 20 months, this is our preschool schedule which takes about 1 hour to complete....
Pledge of Allegiance
Calendar (Days of the Week with song, yesterday, today, and tomorrow, months of the year with song)
Weather
Bible Story and prayers.  We focus on and read one Bible story per week.  It is read during this time and at night before the girls go to bed.  I love this post and it encouraged me again to keep Bible story in our Homeschooling curriculum until graduation!   http://www.nurseryofthenation.com/2011/11/homeschooling-large-family.html
Singing and Worship Time (I try to get the songs for Sunday incorporated here)
Craft (either Bible or letter)
Reading (same 2 books each day)

Letter of the Week - W

What!  Our verse this week was 1 Corinthians 6:19 and was great fun to sing together at the table.  We started out the week (and then had to do it another day as well b/c it was such a hit) painting with water in the driveway.  I didn't think this activity would be that exciting but I was wrong!

Inside our first craft was a white day.  We all wore white, made a white collage, and went on a white scavenger hunt.  For dessert that night we had a few marshmallows.

Next we made a watermelon W.  This craft worked out really well and the girls enjoyed it.  Rather than punching out the seeds, I reverted to cutting out bigger pieces of black paper.  The dots were just too small for their hands. 

Seeded watermelons at the commissary were huge, like 10lbs huge, but I needed the seeds for a craft...

So, we ate watermelon a lot this week!  For dessert on our Family Fun Night Friday, we had watermelon lime smoothies and they were delicious!  Even with all this watermelon eating, I was able to give half of the melon to our neighbors! 
Another watermelon craft with paper plates went over very well..

Our Letter of the Week activities were heavy on counting so we also played a number game outside where we played some music and danced around.  When the music stopped, we had to end on a number and identify it.  Faith had a great time with the game and Rebekah showed her recognition of the numbers 8 and 5!

Our meals this week were watermelon, waffles, and even water :)  Our books were One Watermelon Seed and Eating the Alphabet.  For our family night we ended up painting with water again in the driveway because Rebekah was fighting a cough.  However, the next day we played in the water at the pool and had a great time!





Jonah and the Big Fish

Jonah was our Bible story this week and the girls had a great time with this one; who wouldn't!  We sang the second verse of this great song.  Let me just say that I love singing songs with these girls, I feel like through the song, even young Rebekah retains so much more of the story. 
Our first craft was from a children's craft book I have.  We colored Jonah and glued him to a craft stick and then had a giant fish with some slits in his middle where Jonah could slide in and out.

We used those same Jonah pictures for our second craft in making a paper bag giant fish.  The girls colored Jonah again and then put him in the paper bag, filled the bag with shredded newspaper, and then we tied up the tail.  The girls painted the fish and when it was dry we put eyes and some fins on him. 

When we were done we talked about where Jonah was; they both remembered he was in the fishes belly!

We looked at some pictures of fish from our trip to the Great Barrier Reef and Faith talked about the fish eating Daddy and then vomitting him out 3 days later.  Thankfully that didn't happen on our vacation but it was a sign to me that she really was paying attention to the story!

Rebekah Joy - 20 Months

Rebekah continues to be a little joy in our lives.  She has started testing her boundaries more and learning the rules around here.  It is cute to see her little personality budding forth.

Sleep:
Rebekah continues to sleep really well at night.  She usually wakes up about 7:15 or 7:30 (occasionally she'll wake up crying around 6 but always goes back to sleep) but I let her have some time by herself and her blankey and she doesn't complain.  Naps are still starting around 1:30 although if we are home I have started putting her down closer to 1 or 1:15 and she seems happy with that as well. 
Eating:
Her appetite has definitely slowed down of late.  She still eats whatever fruit and/or vegetable is on the plate before touching any meat and continues to live for her carbs.  Although she knows she is required to take one bite of everything on her plate, she will still put up a fight with regards to meat every once in a while.  She always loses though, I figured it would stop by now :) 
Play:
Rebekah loves shape puzzles, both flat and 3D.  She is just excited when she sees them and eager to put them together.  A couple of her favorites are her picnic basket and this pull apart shape sorter although that one requires adult help once all the shapes are back in the ball.  I came into her room after solo play and found this shape puzzle put perfectly back together!  I was so proud of her.  She is doing better about having glue on her fingers during craft time which is a pretty big step!  Her love of reading continues and it just warms my heart to see her reading to her dolls and stuffed animals.  She loves stuffed animals in a way that her sister still just doesn't.  Rebekah loves to hug them, kiss them, have them kiss each other, it really is adorable.  She still loves these blocks I got her about a year ago.  She enjoys stacking them as much as knocking them over.  She is in love with her swimsuits and the kiddie pool we bought for the back yard, although the sprinklers in her face are NOT cool.  I am excited to take her to the pool on base and let her try out her new floaty for the summer!  Solo play and sister play continue to go well.   She enjoys the riding toys we have in the front yard. 
Skills:
Rebekah has had a language explosion this month.  She certainly says well over 20 words so I checked off that goal for the year!  I think I counted about 10 just a short 2 or 3 minute period the other day.  She has learned the word "mine" but usually uses it when talking about a craft she sees on the fridge although it has manifested itself into playtime as well but we are working on that.  Honestly sometimes it is hers but sometimes she is asking whether something is hers or her sisters, I think she is a genius :)  She is learning her colors and knows blue really well.  Orange and green are also recognizable ones for her as well.  Potty training continues to go well and she is staying dry most days now (toward the end of the month).  She has learned to tell us when she needs to go and she is also alerting the nursery workers at church, which is awesome!  She does not like to go in public but she will if she has to.  I have stopped taking her at the commissary or anywhere we are going where we'll only be out for an hour or so and she does great!
Our Schedule:
0800 - Wake, ready for the day, breakfast
0900 - Outside time (walk, yard, park, etc.)
1030 - Pre-school
1130 - Sister playtime
1200 - Lunch, chore, reading
1330 - Nap
1600 - Mama time!
1630 - Snack, help with dinner, free play
1715 - Solo play
1800 - Dinner, family time, bath, Bible story, bedtime o/a 2001 

Esther

Our Bible story this week was on Esther which is a really long book to condense into a 3 year old's attention span but I think we did okay with it.  The sermon series this summer at church is on Esther so this Sunday the Pastor talked about her more which always help bring home the point!  Our first "craft" for Esther was a beauty treatment day.  I did the Mary Kay Satin Hands treatment on the girls to start.  Then I painted their toe nails and ended with a quick facial which was comprised of washing their faces with the pre-moistened cloths, and putting a dot of foundation on them and some lip gloss.  They all had a pretty good time and I do love having a chance to be girly with my girls :)

Another craft was our Haman's Hats which I found the idea for here and I just taped two pieces of construction paper together and then let the girls paint the hats.  When they were dry I folded them up.  Using newspaper would have worked much better and next time I will probably use just a large sheet of easel paper instead. 

Finally we made a Queen Esther crown, adapted from this craft.  I bought pony beads from Walmart along with some cheap headbands and although our crowns look more like alien head wear, the girls LOVE them and Faith at least remembers it is Esther's crown and that is all that really matters.  Faith asked to wear hers to a party we went to on Friday night and I let her.  She was so proud of it and told everyone it was her crown like Esther's!

Letter of the Week - V

V is a hard letter, not because few words start with it but I wanted to make sure I used an example that Faith would understand, like volcano might be great in a few years but for now I decided to stick with Vegetables and it worked out great.  We read The Vegetables We Eat and that is an awesome book!  Both girls loved it and I learned something from it too!

For our first craft I printed out pictures of various vegetables and they glued them on a paper plate and we talked about each one.  I was surprised how much Rebekah remembered throughout the week, that little girl is so smart!

 

 For the our visual V, I cut out vegetables and had the girls glue them to the V.  After our ants on a log snack the girls went outside and played a vegetable hide and seek.  Faith got this awesome vegetable set for her birthday so I pre-hid half the vegetable out in the yard and the other half of the veggie was in a basket.  The girls had to find the vegetable and match it with the other half and tell me what it was.  We played it twice and they really enjoyed it!

Later in the week we did some vegetable painting which I found on first palette.  I cut up various types of vegetables and put paint in bowls for the girls to dip the vegetables and use them as their brushes and stamps.

I cut an F and an R out of the potato and Faith was pretty excited about that!

Here are our final creations!

Meals this week were Vegetable Soup and Vodka Cream Sauce Pasta.  For our family night, we actually did a family morning and went to breakfast and then stopped off at a local farmer's market so the girls could look at all the vegetables.  It went over really well with them, especially because they got tons of free samples, it pays to be cute :)

Letter of the Week - U

I finished a raincoat for Faith the day after it rained 3 weeks ago but she obviously hasn't worn it.  I so wanted her to wear it in conjunction with our U week when we did umbrella so I planned our the schedule for that craft on the day with the highest chance of rain, which was Thursday.  I had all the stuff ready for it on Wednesday and it actually rained for about an hour that day but I pushed a head with the Underground craft anyway (which really was fun!).  First I did a learning activity where I drew shapes above and under a line on our easel and had the girls identify where the shapes were in relation to the line.  Then they got to participate and draw (all of Rebekah's drawings were under the line due to height!)

 Next we did an underground craft that I found on No Time for Flash Cards where the U is under ground (the grass being the ground)!  Faith really enjoyed this craft.  We then read Up Above and Down Below and this book was a huge hit!  Faith used it everyday during solo play to teach her dollies!

Well, since I'd saved my umbrella craft I was sure hoping for rain on Thursday.  That morning the chance of rain at 10am was 100%, I was so excited!  Well, needless to say, it didn't rain a drop!  So, rather than go for a walk in the rain, we put on our boots and raincoats and played with an umbrella in the sprinklers.  The girls still had a great time!

We went inside for the remained of our umbrella time and made a great craft from No Time for Flash Cards.  Faith really remembered the umbrella well all week and what it started with!  I cut cupcake liners in half and the girls dotted them with the do-a-dot markers.  We then attached pipe cleaners to the bottom to form the umbrella, which this was a great color exercise for Rebekah, and then the girls glued raindrops onto their picture as well.

Another umbrella craft that Faith did at Sabrina's was this U umbrella.  The girls were able to make it rain on their umbrella with some blue paint!  So creative :)

Another umbrella activity we did this week was a counting game from Confessions of a Homeschooler.  I used double sided tape to get the umbrellas and the numbers up there and Faith really enjoyed counting all the raindrops.  Our other U book this week was Floop's New Umbrella.

There aren't many foods that start with U so I kind of had the week off in that respect; although Frank told me to cook up some meat and call it unicorn!  For family night we went with cheeseburger and fries casserole which was actually pretty good and I knew the girls would like it :)  It was such a beautiful night that we set up the picnic table and ate outside with a game before and after dinner.  First we played "Up" with some balloons.  Rather traumatically all 3 of Faith's balloons popped in her face and she ended up not enjoying the game too much (but on a side note, I was so proud of her bravery in helping with the balloons for our neighbor's welcome home celebration after her year long deployment!). 

After dinner the girls decorated some U shapes that I had cut out of cardboard and then we tossed them into a box.  It was basically a pre-school version of horseshoes and went over really well.





ROAR!

This week for our Bible story we learned about Daniel in the lions' den (which incidentally was the sermon in church the Sunday this week started!)  The girls love roaring at every mention of the lions both in the Bible lesson and our Daniel song.  Plus we found Roar! A Noisy Counting Book at the library this week, although having nothing to do with Daniel it still reinforced the lion part of the story!  Our first craft was a lion puppet that turned out so well and the girls loved taking it off the fridge all week and roaring with it!
First we painted the bags yellow....

Then we glued on the arms, legs, face, and mane (I used 2 half circles of felt for this)

Then we roared!

And roared some more!

Sabrina had the girls do a great paper plate lion face with yarn and strips of paper for the whiskers that turned out great.  For another lion craft I had the girls cut (or rip in Rebekah's case) strips of tissue paper and glue them to a lion template.