Monkey School: Thanksgiving

• Book:  Thanksgiving is For Giving Thanks.  (not the best thanksgiving book for 2 year olds but the one I had.  

• Song:  I'm a little Turkey (I'm a little Teapot)
• I'm a little turkey
• Fluffy and brown (rub tummy)
• My wings flip-flop
• When I turn around (flap arms and turn around)
• I have lots of feathers,
• On my back (bend down and wave hands over back)
• And a big orange beak 
• that goes click clack (clap hands)
• Gobble Gobble (tickle kids)

• Motor:  Turkey Hunt/Color Match.  
• I hid turkeys around the room and had the kids hunt for them with toilet roll binoculars



Once the kids found the turkeys they put them in their home.



• Art:  Leaf Turkeys  



These turned out so cute.  



• Snack:  Oreo, Candy Corn and Hershey Kiss Turkeys.  









Online inspriations:  

http://www.perfectlypreschool.com/Preschool-Lesson-Plans/Thanksgiving/index.php

http://www.oopseydaisyblog.com/2010/11/t-is-for-thanksgiving.html

You're Here.

Two weeks ago, I started taking a 5:45AM spin class. I love the productive feeling of getting a workout in before my kids wake up.  Unfortunately, the hour nap I end up taking later in the day undermines the overall productive value but it is probably still good for my health.

Now, when you show up at spin class that early, the temptation is (at least for me) to take it a little easy.  After all, just showing up is impressive and any exercise is better than nothing.  All that is true and yet at the second class the instructor yelled encouragement that changed my perspective.  

"You're here. Might as well make it worth it."  

I realized she was right.  Why make all the effort to pull my tired self out of bed, make my husband go later to work (yes he usually leaves the house around 6am) and then coast once I was there?  I have written before about my tendency to cut myself too much slack and this was another prime example.  But what really struck me is that I was already there.  I was going to spend 45 minutes at spin class whether or not I pushed myself.  so why not make it worth it?  Why not indeed.

This is my new motto.  When I took my kids to the park, I sat down on the bench, glad for any break from their constant whining and clinging.  but then I thought, you're here.  Might as well make it worth it.  So I got up and started playing tag with my kids.  We had the best time at the park yet. The kids still talk about playing "trap-out" with mom.  

At church, I was zoning out during the primary songs (I'm in primary now) and then . . . you're here.  Might as well make it worth it.  So I started singing and participating.  The lesson (of course) made me mad but I was engaged in what was going on around me and it was a better Sunday than usual.  

Anyway the motto helped me, I thought it might help you.


You're here.  Might as well make it worth it.  

me, just after my first triathlon post having kids.  

The Glass Castle

People have been trying to get me to read the Glass Castle for years.  I didn't have any interest.  It sounded too depressing.  In my opinion, life has enough angst.  I like my books to be angst free.  A girl growing up with an alcoholic dad and a crazy mom, struggling to find food just didn't seem like a book I'd enjoy.  But, as luck would have it,  it was the first book chosen for my new book club.  I dragged my feet so much that I didn't finish it in time for book club but I read it the next day.  And you know what?  I actually liked it.  Even though the topic was disturbing it was told in such a matter-of-fact way that it didn't seem disturbing.  I was impressed that the author told her story without any sense of self-pity or regret.  It reminded me of something a young man in my neighborhood said after his dad died.  He said "people always try to assign meaning to things, be it good or bad.  but the truth is, somethings just are."  And that's what I liked about the book.  Walls didn't make judgement on her childhood or her parents, she just told her story.  She just told what was.  And she did it with love and compassion for all the members of her family.

We are All Innocent.

Introducing a new feature called Random Music that Makes Me Happy.



I love the rhymes in this song and for some reason, it just makes me want to push harder and be a better person.  It is a great song to run too.

Monkey School

My sister keeps requesting that I do a blog post about some of my preschool ideas.  I have been hesitant to do this because of all the other AWESOME homeschooling type blogs out there.  Blogs with much more polished ideas and projects.  Don't get me wrong, I usually feel pretty positive about my activities (although I have had some major flops) but I don't go the extra mile to make the projects cute, and professional looking.  I just make them kid-functional.

Anyway, Miss M. started *real* preschool so I wanted to do something for Buddy.  He turned 2 in August and has spent his whole life being dragged around to Miss M.'s activities.  So, I invited 4 other moms to bring their 2 year olds to my house for an hour of "Monkey School" (I let Buddy pick the name) once a week.  And because I am a cheap-skate, I requested that they give me 5 dollars per month for supplies.  I don't have a formal curriculum, and I am not trying to teach them letters or numbers.  I just want them to get use to group activities and following directions in a group.  My basic goal is to do a story, a song, a gross motor activity, sensory experience and a project (either science or art). Here is the run down of our last lesson.

Opening Song:  If you Like Monkey School (to the tune of Happy and you know it).
If you like Monkey School, clap your hands (or say hi to so and so, stomp your feet etc.)
If you like Monkey School, clap your hands.
If you like Monkey School and you think it's really cool.
If you like Monkey School, clap your hands.

Book:  The Little Old Lady who Wasn't Afraid of Anything. ( I have props for the kids to hold up and do the actions at the appropriate time)

Gross Motor:  Pumpkin tells dance.

Sensory Bin:  Rice with orange and black spiders.  I put a black circle in the bottom of a pie tin and an orange circle in the bottom of another.  Then I wrapped spider webs around the tins and had the kids dig threw the rice to find spiders and then color sort them into the right web.

Project:  Water color surprise.
I drew Halloween pictures onto white paper with a white crayon and then had the kids water color over it to discover the surprise.

Song:  Oh Once I had a  pumpkin (to the tune of Have you ever seen a lassie). I premade pumpkins on a Popsicle stick and had face shapes cut out.  The kids glued faces on the pumpkins and then we sang the song (flipping the pumpkins around to show the face at the appropriate time).

Oh once I had a pumpkin, a pumpkin, a pumpkin
Oh once I had a with no face at all.
with no eyes and no nose and no mouth and no teeth.
oh once I had a pumpkin with no face at all.

So I made a jackolatern, jackolatern, jackolatern.
so i made a jackolatern with a big scary face.
with big eyes and a big nose and big mouth and sharp teeth.
so I made a jackolatern with a big scary face.

And that is it.  The kids had a good time.  although, it is still a little crazy because this is the first preschool type thing most of the kids have done.

Facebook Withdrawals Day 5

Andy will be so disappointed in me but I am back on facebook.   I missed the connection with my family.  I love my giant extended family (both my parents are the oldest of seven) and facebook truly is the best way I've found to stay in the loop on what is happening in everyone's lives.  So I deleted half my friends and am now down to family and a few good friends. My goal is to check it less (once or twice a day) so it isn't such a time sink.  We'll see how it goes.  

Facebook Withdrawals Day 2

I know this is ridiculous but I miss facebook.  I find myself sitting aimlessly at the computer, feeling lost and unconnected.  I have thought a several things to post (e.g. "brownie batter for lunch was probably not a good idea) and wanted to email a couple of women from church.  but I couldn't because I don't have their actual emails, just facebook messaging.  ugh. 

If I had to decide today, I would undelete my account and just try to work on my willpower to only check it once a day.  But, I committed for a week.  No feeling is final.  Maybe I'll feel differently on Sunday.