UPDATE

I keep promising that I'm going to keep up with this, and then keep falling off the wagon. :-( Thankfully, not updating the blog, doesn't mean that we haven't been learning anything! So here are some quick updates:

Adam: Counts to 10, knows most, if not all of his ABCs, and loves to sing along with the song.. his favorite songs are ABCs, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and Bah Bah Black Sheep. Adam has also been developing more physical skills; gross motor skills at gymnastics, and fine motor skills building with Duplo blocks, and making lots of scribble pictures. He also loves to dance, and sing along to songs on the radio.

Reagan: What an explosion! She;s just learning to use stencils to draw things, and loves practicing this on her own all the time. The small shapes she draws have also helped her practice coloring in smaller spaces. There has been a lot more actual drawing recently too, and less scribbles, her favorite topics are animals, camping, houses, people, and rainbows. She LOVES doing her Brain Quest cards, but has been flying through the level 5 and 6 year old ones with such ease that we may have to find her a new set soon! She complained to me one day that her preschool workbook was boring and too easy, so I let her pick out a higher level one from our collection. She chose time and money. She still works on the preschool book, but is loving working on some more challenging stuff too. So far she can read all of the times on the hour on the clock, and can count with pennies, and pennies and one nickel. We're working on counting by fives so so can count more nickles, but she does it pretty well with a counting chart. Reagan has also been working very hard on developing better fine motor skills, practicing writing her name, doing pearler beads, beading, and needlepoint. She's very much looking forward to entering her needlepoint work in the county fair in a couple of weeks! She's also become very enthusiastic about learning about the pioneers, her heritage, and nutrition, so we've been trying to work on those things.

One recent activity:
We recently found a very big caterpillar in out back yard that was munching on our veggies, so we kept him in the house in a jar for a couple days. The kids enjoyed getting to see him crawl around at eat things. We read a couple of stories about them and butterflies, including The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Then we made our own caterpillars by coloring pieces of cardboard egg carton and attaching pipe cleaners for antenna. I had a couple other activities planned that we haven't gotten to yet, but hopefully we'll get to do those soon.

Snipping

Yesterday we completed 62 worksheets, meaning we're over halfway done with the Total Basic Skills Preschool workbook. Phew! I know we did some other activities.. but my head is so full of today's activities that I can't remember what else. lol

Today Reagan did 4 worksheets, an alphabet floor puzzle, an alphabet puzzle about 3 times, finger puppet play, we read the last 2 chapters of Madagascar Escape 2 Africa, chose a new book, went through the complete set of Things Outside Dora flap cards, did some play to practice with the 10 English/ Spanish cards in the set, completed one cutting practice worksheet (our first snipping activity!), and made 2 foam animal crafts. Reagan also spent some time in there reading with her Poingo. I'm sure we will do more this afternoon.. but I wanted to post before I forgot all that! :-)

Father's Day Prep Day!

This morning Reagan sat down and did 27 workbook pages. Then she and Adam each drew a picture while I read them a chapter of Madagascar 2. Reagan made wrapping for a gift for Father's Day and practiced using her cutting skills to do it. (I'll post a picture of this later.) In about half an hour we're headed off to a class to decorate a cake for Daddy for Father's Day, and then to a gymnastics demonstration Reagan was invited to participate in. It's amazing to think she's been doing gymnastics for almost 2 years now!

I'll edit this post to add more later in the day. :-)

Added at 4:15 PM

Reagan had a great time decorating her cake today! She did an awesome job, and only needed mommy's help with keeping the icing flowing out of the piping bag.

One of MANY pictures from Reagan's gymnastics exhibition.

Busy, Busy

We started a BIG workbook today in hopes that it would last longer. It's a preschool workbook, so it's pretty much all things that Reagan knows how to do already. And once she knows the directions, she can complete most activities by herself by recognizing what the directions are. Combining her work before and after lunch she completed a whopping 45 pages! She also took a break in there to draw a picture. We read 3 chapters of Madagascar 2, and played a game of Go Fish. Then she asked to listen to her Spanish Cd, so she did that. There was also some time on the Leap Pad in there! Phew! That girl is busy, busy! The also asked me to make a craft project for her to do this afternoon, but she was getting cranky and tired playing with her brother, so I sent her to play quietly by herself for awhile. We'll see how long it lasts!

Camping

We spent Monday, Tuesday, and part of Wednesday camping at Lynx Lake! The kids had a wonderful time. We read the entire The Littles go Exploring book while we were camping! We also saw a lot of wildlife, and read a book about the life cycle of butterflies. Reagan heard, saw, and found the feather of a crow.

On Tuesday evening the kids spent some time coloring, and Reagan did some beautiful drawings:

"Me feeding the ducks in the water" The large red is Reagan with lots of hair sticking up. Down at the bottom, the red line is the water, and the red and green are three ducks. She was very specific to give them beaks. At right, is a picture of the actual event.


"Daddy, Reagan, and Mommy hiking on the trail" The big red person with the hair is mommy, the red person to the right of that is Reagan, and there is a pale brown person standing in front of/ below Reagan that is Daddy. The yellow lines down the right of the page are the trail. The big red "rectangle" on the left is our car, and the black is it's bumper. It's parked by the trail, and has some nice rainbow colored grass below.


Reagan was also eager to practice her Spanish on the trip, and used Hola, and Adios regularly. She also asked me to help her practice the command words she has learned, for march, clap, sit down, and stand up. She knows 1,2, 5, and 8 in Spanish, and kept having me repeat the numbers 1 through 10 so she could work on knowing more.

Spanish Begins

Today while cleaning in the morning I put on one of Reagan's Spanish learning CDs. She did every well with the first and second lessons. We repeated the first one 3 times, and the second one quite a few times as well. After that she listened, but wasn't repeating as much. However... the program is designed to be interactive, so you;re supposed to be doing things along with what they're saying, to help you learn the words. So of course since Juan said to make paper plate maracas, we had to do it!

Photos of their maracas. Reagan's is has a picture of a pizza with black olives on it on the front. The back of hers ended up being another pizza with olives that she drew, but didn't like.. which is why she made this one. I thought she wanted her original plate she had colored as the back since she was quite disgusted with the first pizza. But as you can see it's in the upper left corner, and ended up not being used on the maraca.


We didn't do any other really structured activities. But Reagan played with her Leap Pad a bunch, and did her alphabet train puzzle. I also got her project patch from Lowes sewn on her apron, and she was thrilled.

Yesterday- Saturday Classes!

Yesterday was Reagan's first building class at Lowes. Daddy was along so she got to pick who she wanted to help her with the project, and she picked him. She had a great time building a Hole in One putting green. She's very excited about this especially after last week's project at the Home Depot, and is looking forward to her next class in two weeks! It seems like we have a new regular Saturday activity!


After class we went for a family hike at Lynx Lake. Then in the evening Reagan helped make cheese omelets for dinner. She was a big help. Oh, and she wore her Lowes apron the ENTIRE time. :-)