Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Letter Learning

As Benjamin enters into the age of preschool I feel like I am constantly asked if we plan to send him to preschool. The first time someone mentioned it, I kind of thought it was funny. I never went to preschool and honestly hadn't even considered it for Benjamin. But the more people asked me about it, the more pressure I started to feel. Someone mentioned that they planned to home school for preschool and told me what curriculum they were using. Curriculum? For preschool?  I mean, does a three year old really need to be in school? Or even to have a formal "school" time at home? I started searching the web for lists of things Benjamin needed to know before kindergarten and one list freaked me out because he isn't even close to knowing how to read or add and subtract, while another list made me feel like he could skip kindergarten and go to first grade now because he knew everything on it. So that was no help. Finally I decided that maybe some intentional training would be good, but that I wasn't ready for a full on scheduled school time. I decided that my goal for him before kindergarten is recognition of letters by sight and knowledge of the sounds they make, as well as recognition of numbers and the ability to count objects correctly. And if he happens to get more of his colors right in the middle of all that, I will feel like he's doing well. Besides that, I really want him to just be a kid during this time. I want him to learn more about using his imagination for play and I want him to continue his love for books. And more than anything, I want him to have more and more of an understanding of who Jesus is.

So last week I started in on my goal of learning a letter a week. We did "A" and came up with all sorts of things that start with A. Here are a few pictures of our learning one afternoon. SO fun!

We had an apple snack and cut the apple into A's.
His "this is delicious" face.
Cheesin'

Monday, September 6, 2010

Camping Out

This past month has been a crazy one. Matt is working through his first yearly audit at his new job and has put in a lot of hours, working many late nights as well as every weekend in August. So, despite the fact that he does not get labor day off, he had this whole past weekend off and it was wonderful! We started the weekend off with a date, which is the best way to start one in my opinion. :-) Then we woke up Saturday morning and made our weekly trip to the farmer's market. Have I mentioned that I really love our local farmer's market? Last week there was a guy selling samples of what he called "forbidden ice cream flavors." He had flavors like cinnamon-basil (a type of basil), Italian parsley, burnt caramel, Dijon mustard, black pepper, and a fruit sorbet. It was three samples for a dollar, so we sampled the basil, parsley, and burnt caramel. I liked the cinnamon basil one so much that this week I found the vendor who was selling the cinnamon basil and I purchased a huge big bunch for $1. We sampled the ice cream again this week and ended up with Lemon Ginger, Cardamom, and another one that my forgetful brain will not remember, but they were all really good. And don't worry, we get healthy stuff at the farmer's market too. I got a pretty large pumpkin for $2 and I'm super excited to cook it up and start in on fall baking. I've heard that canned pumpkin may be hard to come by this year, so I plan to stock my freezer with my own. We will not go without pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving if I can help it. Hahaha!

After making our purchases, we headed over to our favorite trail and did a 7 mile walk. This has become a Saturday morning tradition and I love it! We put Benjamin in the stroller and he gets out and runs/walks for a while, then rides for a while. We are usually tired by the end, but invigorated. This Saturday we decided to follow up our walk with a trip to a local dairy bar for some burgers and ice cream. Yum!

Sometime last week I got it in my head that it would be fun to go camping with Benjamin since Matt had the weekend off. We really aren't big campers, but I love the idea of eating and sleeping outdoors. I did some checking into campsites and then realized it was labor day weekend and there was nothing available within decent driving distance. So, I called our apartment office and asked if they would allow us to camp out in the wooded area behind our apartment building. They agreed to it, and so the rest of our Saturday was filled with setting up camp. There are grills out behind our building, so we grilled hot dogs and then had s'mores with the neighbor kids. I think Saturday was the coolest day we've had since Spring, so when it got dark, we settled in for a cold night. We haven't used our tent in four years and it was a bit tight back then, but we managed to get our air mattress and all three of us inside. Benjamin was pretty excited about being in the tent and having flashlights and books and lots of blankets. Unfortunately, the excitement wore off pretty quickly when it was time to actually sleep. I'm not sure how much he slept, but he was up many times throughout the night and at 6:45, we finally decided he was not going to sleep any more in the tent, so we headed in. Can I just say that I HIGHLY recommend camping out so close to home? :-) Bathroom trips are easier, forgotten items can be retrieved, and when little man is ready to be done camping, we can just head on in. We had everything cleaned up by 8:30 and Benjamin was down for a nap by 10:30. Needless to say, we were all really tired! But when we decided to head inside in the morning, Benjamin said "It was a fun night. I like the tent!" So, all the work and exhaustion were completely worth it!