First Day of Preschool

I have a preschooler!  I can't believe my little baby is in school already.  The past three+ years have just flown by.  Eva was so excited to go to school this morning.  I made her purple pancakes for breakfast (her favorite color) and even though the color wasn't dark enough she ate them up.

Then she got dressed in the outfit she picked out special for today and bounced around the driveway waiting for it to be time to go.  She was so excited!

Once there, she found her hook

and then she was off to play with her new friends.

The best part- no tears from either of us!  (Although I'm sure I'll shed a few on Thursday when I actually have to leave her there!)
When we got home I had her draw a picture of herself.  I plan on having her do this at the beginning (and possibly the end) of each school year to see how she changes and grows.  I must warn those who are faint of heart- Eva is in her nudist phase.  All of her drawings are naked because according to her she "doesn't know how to draw shirts."

Back to School

The buses are rolling through the neighborhood again so we broke out a favorite craft from last year- the shape bus.  It's fun to see how much difference a year can make!  Here is last year's:

And here's this year's:

We got fancy this year and added pom poms for lights and Eva wanted other details like a road, hubcaps and a traffic light.  I also had her tell me a sentence about the picture and wrote it down for her to "read".  (By writing down children's own words you give them ownership to the story and because they spoke those words, it will be easier for them to read them.)

Gift Bag Back Pack

I originally planned on making this back pack out of a brown paper bag but I forgot to grab one when we were grocery shopping.  I think using a gift bag made it cuter although there wasn't much child involvement.  To start I removed the ribbon handles and cut about 2 inches off the top of the bag leaving a flap in the back.

(I forgot to take pictures while making it, but you can see the flap here)

Then I poked four holes in the back of the bag and restrung the ribbon from the handles, tying the ends in knots inside the bag.

I threaded a scrap piece of ribbon through the holes that were left in the flap from the original handle and tied it into a bow.  Velcro was placed on the inside of the flap and the outside of the front of the bag for a closure (see above pictures).  Then it was ready for a little preschooler:

Back-to-School Patterns and Collage

I found a pack of 24 school related cut outs in the dollar spot at Target (do they sponsor blogs?  Not many of my posts don't mention the dollar spot!).  There were 6 different cut outs and they were perfect for making patterns.

Eva is really catching on to the whole pattern thing and even made her own pattern today.  She surprised me because she laid out all four of one cut out (the hands) and then went back and put a pencil between each.  It's so amazing to see how her little mind works!

When we were done making patterns, Eva wanted to glue the cut outs so we made a collage (with Hoppy's help).

Another fun decoration to celebrate going back to school!

Shape Bus

The buses are rolling through the neighborhood once again so in their honor we made a shape bus.  In preparation, I cut out a large rectangle and small square from yellow paper, three white rectangles, two blue circles (I didn't have any black paper) and a red octagon.  I also cut out the letters for the word "bus".  Eva started by gluing the big yellow rectangle onto the paper and added the rest of the shapes from there.  We talked about what each shape was as we went along.

Then Eva drew some faces in the bus windows, starting with mouths and then adding eyes and noses.

Hop on the shape bus and zip to the lounge!

Hello September

It's hard to believe that it is September already!  Where did the summer go?  We had a wonderful and quite hot season so it's nice to welcome the cooler temperatures and all the great things that September brings.  Eva got to have her first bonfire last night.  She loved it but got a little upset that we couldn't just "turn it off" when she was done sitting by it.  September also brings the beginning of the new school year in our neck of the woods so we've started doing some school-like things here in the lounge.  The main thing we have begun is learning about calendars.  There is so much that can be incorporated into calendar time- counting, days of the week, months of the year, patterns, letter recognition and so on.  I made our calendar using another big frame (the same kind I used for the felt board).  I drew the calendar right on the glass using paint markers and then stuck velcro in each square to hold the numbers.

For September we have apples and I will change out the numbers each month.  I can put different colored papers in the frame to change the background too.  Eva loves it and is so excited to add a new number each day.  Patterns have been tricky for her but seeing the color pattern grow as we add to the month has been helping a lot.
I also decided to do a monthly sensory tub instead of weekly ones (they were getting hard to maintain and a month gives Eva more time to really delve into them).  Our September one has lots of fun fall items- pinecones, acorns, various silk leaves (I bought a bag of 100 plus a garland that I broke apart at the dollar store) and some fall colored pom poms.

There is also a rake (one of Eva's garden tools) for her to rake the leaves with.

If you want to see a really awesome fall sensory tub, go check out Mari-Ann's at Counting Coconuts- she went all out!  I definitely plan on getting some apples to add to Eva's later in the month.

Back-to-School

Back to school has always been one of my favorite times of the year.  It is all about new beginnings and the joy of learning.  While Eva isn't old enough to go to school yet, we are still celebrating all the buses that are back running through the neighborhood and all the fun things associated with school.  This week we are helping out at my sister's preschool for a few days so we truly will be going back-to-school!  We have also begun having a more structured time in the lounge each day including some calendar work and circle time.

Crafts
Shape Bus- what shapes will we need to create our own school bus?

School Supply Mobile- we'll make pencils, scissors, crayons and other school essentials into a fun mobile to decorate the lounge

Paper Bag Back Pack- one can only imagine the supplies we can carry in this fun bag!

Activities
School Bus Graph- we'll keep track of how many buses we see each day and record our data on a graph

September Sensory Tub- what new things will we discover as we explore the tub this month?

Songs
The Wheels on the Bus
This is the Way We Go To School

Books