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Tuesday, November 2, 2010

I changed my mind

Today was the day that I was taking Claire to check out her new pre-school.

well. I changed my mind.


Last night I asked her if she wanted to go to pre-school, 
and without missing a beat (or looking up) she replied with, 

'No.'

I explained to her that it would be super fun, 
she would learn new things,
play with kids
paint & do art

As soon as she heard the word 'art', she got really excited. 

Now truthfully, I have no idea if they do art. I just said that because
I thought it might get her attention. I mean, I'm sure they do art sometimes
but probably not on an every day basis. 

Or do they?

The schedule for this particular pre-school has her getting there at 9:30a 
and then picking her up at 12 noon. This would require me to 
wake her up early in the morning, and then get Charlie up early from his morning nap. 
(which I'd rather not do at this point...)

So this morning I thought we'd do a test run and I woke her up...

... and for the next 45 minutes I had the biggest crabby apple in my home. 

so I nixed the pre-school. 

Instead I decided to take the kids to some 'educational' store
(which I guess sells educational toys and stuff - obviously I've never been there before)
thinking that I can get my own supplies to 'teach' Claire with.

By the way - this was my first trip with both kiddos  - running solo

and it was SO not fun. 

Charlie hates the carrier now because he just wants to run around. 
And since my kids cannot be trusted to 'play nice' while I'm not 12 inches away
I had to carry Charlie on my back. 
Which resulted in him screaming the whole time.
(lovely. but I'm pretty good at ignoring it now)

Anyway, I walked through the aisles and found some good stuff. 

So my new plan is while Charlie takes his morning nap,
Claire and I can have our own 'school time'. Which will consist
of REALLY basic stuff since I don't think I'm cut out to be a home school teacher
(I lack the skill set and the patience)

Here's a peek at what I got:


I'm guessing that these will be fun. 
If anything, it'll keep us busy. 

we started with the 'patterning match-ups' and she LOVED them.

I'm thinking tomorrow we're doing some of the 'printing' books.
Claire loves when I write out words with 'dotted' letters so she can trace them. 
This will save me a BUNCH of time, and the best part - you write
with dry erase markers! So she can do them over and over and over again!


But before you even get a smidge of a fleeting thought 
that I just might have my act together, 
here's what the rest of my dinning room tabled looked like.


I know... I should get off the computer now.

8 comments:

Leah said...

LOL.... Having one on one time with Claire sounds really great, I think. I have no personal experience yet with 2 kids, but sounds like Claire can have her mommie time while Charlie is sleeping. WTG Rach! I've always heard, who cares about the mess, if it's fun making it with the kids - then you're doing good then! Keep up the good work mama! ;)

Jill said...

Wow! Have fun!!! My suggestion as an early childhood teacher and teacher of people wanting to be teachers is this: Read to her A LOT and let her paint and draw all the wants. Don't tell her what to paint - just let her go. Oh, and read to her a lot. :)

Kim said...

You rock! This all part of getting used to having two kiddos!! We did the same thing when Zoey came home!! Sounds like so much fun!!

Oh, and I think we might have the same table!!

Paula Sloan said...

WOO HOO Rachel! That looks awesome! I love the educational store here and have lots of goodies from there. Those pattern match-ups look fun. Try it with M&Ms sometime. Kids love that. Red, blue, green, red, blue, green. Then you can have a special snack together! Love the wipe-off workbooks. Those rock! Big House is right, I keep "art" open in our house at all times and read, read, read! I think you definitely made a wise choice as the new schedule might be too much for her (and you) right now! Hang in there, woman! You're doing GREAT!

mary leigh said...

you seriously make me laugh! so hard.

my fav thing (and I'm sure Claire's too) is the new MARKERS! Can I see my markers?

I will call you later today friend!

Jenny said...

learning at home with mommy sounds way more fun than going to pre-school! :)

JimandJackie said...

Sounds like an awesome plan...I hate when 'a crab get in the house" as we say, better to go with her current schedule!

innotof said...

I think preschool at home is AWESOME!! I did it with my son and we had a blast (most days;)) Looks like you got some great stuff. We mostly played and read LOTS of books. Oh! I just remembered a super great book I used called, "Picture Book Activities" - soooo much fun and it gave me some direction. I had to get a used copy from amazon or half.com b/c it's out of print, but basically you have a different picture book for each week and it gives you lots of suggestions for activities to go along with it. Some are counting/early math skills, some are pre-reading, singing, finger plays, very basic cooking, art, even field trip ideas. Then you pick which/how many activities you want to do each day. Like if your book for the week was Curious George, some ideas might be to count all of the balloons on the page, paint using a balloon to blot paint onto the paper, make monkey cookies, read a non-fiction library book about monkeys, sing 10 Little Monkeys, act out part of the story, visit the monkeys at the zoo, etc. Not that you need any more than what you already have but we liked it so much I thought I'd mention it :) Sorry this got so long. Whatever you use, you'll do great!

 
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