Busy day Today

Today was Grace's preschool open house!!  It was so much fun :)  She had a great time playing with the children, and we met a lot of new moms/kids and got some phone numbers for play days!  We went from 9 am-10:30 am and then we went to the library for reading time!  After the reading was over there were otter pops because the theme was "you "otter" go to school!"  I thought it was pretty stinking cute :)  Then we headed home for lunch and naptime, and after that we went to walmart and got just a couple things.  The rest of the day was just here and there.  We got our freezer today!!  The "new" one that was broken was replaced, this one is wonderful, and I'm happy.  Now I don't have to worry anymore about our food defrosting without us knowing it.  Shew.

I wrote up a bit more curriculum today for Grace.  I'm not doing anything too deep because I'm waiting for some teaching manuals to come.  We are going to be doing Montessori style with a twist of our own style, and so the Montessori manuals I want haven't arrived yet.  I also got some Montessori supplies and something called "the Learning Tower."  It's pretty much a stool, but a very steady and safe stool.  Here are all the things I bought.

 These stencils are what you use before you even start focusing on writing.  This helps them learn how to make certain controlled shapes so that when we move on to letters, she will have already worked on control.

 These are really good activities.  It teaches her SO many different things, and I can't wait to work with her with these.

 Sandpaper letters.  We will use these along with the stencils.  She is very tactile, and so before we start working on writing letters, she will trace the letters with her fingers, work on their sounds rather than their names (why teach the names, like "A," when we don't use the names of the letters, but the sounds.  So she will be learning "aah," "buh, etc).  Along with the stencils, we will be working on writing the letters in fine sand with her fingertip.  But that will be in a long time.

 These knobless cylinders will help Grace learn size differences.

 And some great books!!

 This is the learning tower.

All in all, definitely worth every penny.  I'm excited to start working with Grace on the days that she doesn't have preschool.  We are going to start small since I will also be in school full time.

In the early evening we went to the nature park and chased the ducks, and she also got to play with her new magnifying glass!  She loved it!!!  After that we had to get some oil for the car because the screw wasn't tight enough and all the oil had come out.  We were completely empty.  Then home, picked 30 raspberries, 2 giant strawberries, fed Grace dinner, went to bed, and then here I am :)  I'm watching "The Secret Life of Bees" and will be having some yummy ice cream with chocolate sauce!

Grace is such a great girl.  I'm so excited she's going to school and she's just as excited, if not more!  It was so cute to see her light up when she saw the school from a mile away!  And I signed up to help out in the library, at their Halloween and Christmas party, and for their fieldtrips :)  My big girl is growing up too fast!

Amanda