Wife, Then Mama

My son has never touched a computer, tablet, or smartphone screen.  He doesn't have any toys that have screens or batteries (a toy drill being the only exception).  Other than in the act of bringing it to me or my husband, he has never held a remote, or game controller. There are a few reasons for these complete oddities in today's world, and I plan to expound on these in the next week or two. 1) Noisy, battery operated toys are annoying, and I don't think they are a positive influence on children's development.  But mostly they are annoying. 2) Electronics are expensive, and my son is three.  I don't have any desire to let a child who can't keep the food in the bowl while stirring play with devices worth hundreds of dollars. 3) Interactive electronics have a very negative impact on the behavior and development of people, particularly small children.  4) Porn. 

Nursery Rhymes are the theme of our Mother Goose Time curriculum this month.  Although Little Guy and I are known to play rousing games of Little Miss/Little Mister Muffet, that is about as far as my interactive nursery rhyme education has gone.  He knows quite a few, because I apparently like to hear the sound of my own voice and am always singing or reciting something, but it hasn't be a focus of our time.  This month we have been doing A LOT of fun activities that not only have helped him learn new nursery rhymes, but worked on a variety of skills, including numbers, phonics, and motor skills.  Since I am working at making homeschooling work for us , we have not really followed the plan, but have been tackling two topics each day, in an order that fits with our schedule for the day.  So I will be sharing some of the fun things we have been doing, along with what skills the project focuses on and the assessment question that is related.  Each assessment...

My mother came and visited for a week early in the month so we had a long break early on in our Nursery Rhymes unit from Mother Goose Time , but I am proud to say we made some changes to our routine and have been ROCKING IT overall.  In previous months I was pretty stuck on that fatal flaw in homeschooling: bringing school home!  It is frequently something that leads to failure in homeschooling, and apparently preschool is no different, at least for this mama.

In many conservative circles, parents refer to training their children.  This term comes from Proverbs 22:6, which says "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it."  Almost unfailingly, when you get into a discussion on this topic, there is a parent that is appalled at the use of "training" on children.  Nine times out of ten, they say "You train dogs, you RAISE children." 

Do you ever feel anxious or angry?  Maybe both?  Well thankfully it isn't just me.  Shannon Popkin has written a book about the problem that many women have with wanting to control things. 

Next month we are going to be learning all about things that you can find at a pond!  Since we got the School Bus Box from Mother Goose Time early this month, I thought I would do an incredibly in-depth preview.  Unfortunately, a lot of my pictures are not nearly as nice as I had hoped, but hopefully it is still helpful!

Every month our Mother Goose Time box includes a Celebration Kit.  It is generally fitting with the time of year, and separate from the regular curriculum.  They seem to be the same every year, which I honestly thought was a little lame, until it came to Valentine's Day.  We don't use our Celebration Kit every month, but last year we did the Valentine's Day Celebration, and Little Guy made a Lovebug Headband.  Which was in the garbage by the next day because he wore it around and it got ruined and we don't keep ruined things in our house. 2016 Lovebug Headband He has talked about his Lovebug since then, as recently as last month I believe.  So I was pretty excited that he was going to be able to make a new one.  I kind of forgot about it on Valentine's Day though, so we did it today.  I handed him the stuff to make it, then I started making one so that he could see how to do the part with the heart cutouts (we didn't do that last year)....

We don't actually do much for Valentine's Day.  My husband and I have tried to go to dinner or something, but everywhere is so crowded we just go home.  The weekend after is a much better time to go out, unless you can afford (and want to spend the money) to go somewhere they take reservations.  But in the interest of love, which should be celebrated all the time!  So, I am going to write about how amazing my little family is! MY HUSBAND:  We have been married for 10 years!  It feels oddly like forever, and no time, all at the same time.  He puts up with all of my nagging, whining, crying, and arguing, never yelling at me, even when I know I deserve it.  The confidence he has in parenting is something I truly admire, and I am blessed to have him as a partner in parenting.  He works hard and has provided me with the life I always dreamed of, and I could not be more thankful.  God has given me a husband that is much better than I...

Giveaway closed! Thank you so much to everyone who entered, I really appreciate it! I have excellent news!  Today is Manipulatives Monday, and Mother Goose Time  is giving away a great prize!  One lucky winner will receive TWO bags of manipulatives!  Mother Goose Time will chose the prizes, but I assure you, whatever they send will be a lot of fun for your children! Manipulatives are a big hit in our house.  Every month we get two new bags of manipulatives, and every month Little Guy asks if he can play with them before the month starts.  The answer is always no, but he tries every month anyways.  During the month we use them for the assigned activities but after we are done with the curriculum, I let him add them to his toy collection. One thing that is in almost every box is a set of counters.  These are often in the shape of animals, which are Little Guy's favorites.  They are used for a variety of activities, and are alwa...

Today was the second day of Nursery Rhymes with Mother Goose Time , and this time Little Guy didn't know the nursery rhyme!  Sing a Song of Sixpence just isn't one of my favorites, because it doesn't make much sense to me.  However, it was an EXCELLENT choice in this instance because the activities to go along with today's rhyme were perfect.  We started off by making play dough, which wasn't really necessary since I have lots of Play-doh, but it was fun, so why not?  Our Science Card had the recipe on it, which we split in half because there is just one Little Guy (Little Girl only comes a few days a week), and didn't need so much. I love that the directions are easy for him to understand even though he can't read.  I still helped him, but he was able to tell what to do next by the pictures. We set the play dough aside and played Fill a Pie with one of our manipulatives we got this month: Shape Beads.  I put the Shape Beads in a ...