Wednesday, September 7, 2011

The Preschool Schedue

We've been doing a somewhat more formal "school" this week, complete with lesson plans.  Sadie was pretty excited about it, until she started getting grumpy yesterday and then told me that "everything" hurt.  We'd come down with out second illness in two weeks.  Last week was a fever with tummy troubles for the toddler and an ear infection for the baby.  This week it seems that all of us will have a cold.  Apparently the Florida "bugs" are kicking our little California bodies around quite a bit.  I think our immunities must need to adjust.  So today we're taking it easy.

But back to "school."  We start the day with a walk (if it's not raining) and a trip to a park or a water park (there are a lot of free water spout parks around!).  Sometimes we go and run around on the grass in a field.  Then we head home and have a snack.

After that is Sadie's favorite part of the day: dance.  We either put on her ballet shoes or her tap shoes (I was a tap dancer, so that's my favorite) and we play and twirl and Sadie practices her shuffles and shows me that she can tap her heel and her toe.  Today I got out a half dozen of my scarves and she whirled around while I sang Disney Songs and she giggled.

After "dance" Mae usually goes down for a nap and Sadie and I read.  We start with Bible and saint stories, and move on to princess stories.  If Mae wakes up we read some of Mae's "baby books."

Then Sadie colors with crayons or "big crayons" (colored pencils) or plays with play dough.

It's usually around that time that Daddy gets home from class for lunch and we all eat together.

After lunch we have "music lessons."  Sadie will actually say: "I haven't practiced my music yet today!"  It isn't as impressive as she makes it sound, however.  Music lessons involve me putting my keyboard on the ground and putting it on the "red key" setting and letting the girls have at it.  It usually involves a lot of giggling and hysterics.  Sometimes they try to follow along by pressing the red keys and make something that sounds not unlike music.

We sing our ABCs, talk about letters (Sadie likes to tell me that A says "ahhh!  ahhh!  ahhh!") and count.  Then it's time for crafts.

This week our crafts focus has been on the liturgical calendar and Mary's upcoming birthday.  Two days ago Sadie made Mary a "birthday card."  Yesterday I made Bakers Dough by mixing 3 1/2 cups flour with 1 cup salt and 1 1/2 cups water (I ended up adding extra flour to make it smoother) with different colors food coloring and we made "presents."  Sadie was focused on making a "big cupcake."  I made a baby with a blue, swaddled body and a little smiling face and told her I'd made Baby Mary.  We baked the presents for 45 minutes at 300 degrees and they turned out better than I had expected.

And that brings us to today.  Sadie was carrying Baby Mary around all day.  She'd had the baby nurse.  She'd kissed her repeatedly.  Then, quite suddenly, the baby was gone.  I noticed when she said "where is my clay baby?!?!" with a note of panic creeping into her voice.  I began to search.  And then I found "Clay Baby Mary."  In Mae's mouth.  Thankfully she's only flour and salt.  Mae had eaten a small part of the back of the doll (very small).  On the front you can't actually tell.  I guess I'll patch her today and send her back through the oven for a short amount of time.  At the moment the doll is drying.

 Sadie took it well.  She's used to Mae trying to eat her crayons and toys.  Mae tries to eat everything.

And that's our "school day!"  She's having a lot of fun doing it and she's so excited about everything she learns.

5 comments:

  1. I noticed there was no nap in there for Sadie. Is she done with naps? Susi has started resisting naps lately, and I even sometimes consider ruling them out, but with Leo's late work schedule, I need a nap to be able to attend to him when he finally does get home and wants dinner, etc.

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  2. Sadly she's been done with her naps since right around her second birthday. We tried and tried... We'd lay there for hours... but no sleep. On in a while she falls asleep in the car. I wish there was a nap period still! I miss it!

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  3. I, for one, would like to see a picture of "clay baby Mary".

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  4. I need to go search for my camera charger because I want to post pictures of CBM and the card and the cupcakes we have planned for tomorrow. LOL! It's going to be pretty "creative..."

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  5. Sounds like a great school day to me! Sorry about the illnesses though. Hope everyone is healthy again soon!

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