Good Friday

Where the Ideas Come From

A friend of mine once commented on a preschool post that I was "so creative." Heh. If only he knew... I just creatively use others' ideas!

Since this is "Greatest Hits" week at Works for Me Wednesday, I thought I'd tell you about those great resources that I depend on to make my happy little preschool work.

Here is a quick list of the free resources I use to plan our preschool time.

1. Books More of a background resource than as a specific planning tool, I have borrowed a number of art, activity, and theory books from the library. Currently the most influential:
   • Mudpies to Magnets: A Preschool Science Curriculum
   • The Little Hands Art Book this just happened to be the book available to me; I am sure that there are better books on the market. I have heard nothing but good reviews of MaryAnn Kohl's books, for example.
   • Basic Montessori: Learning Activities For Under-Fives
   • Teaching Montessori in the Home: Pre-School Years: The Pre-School Years
   
   
2. Blogs Sometimes it is best to see how someone else manages to make preschool work in the real world. In a blog you can see how a Montessori theory applies in the home, or you can get a new angle on an old problem. You may see some of "my" ideas displayed on these blogs in particular:
• Chasing Cheerios
• Mind Games
• Shannon's Sharings
• Muses of Megret
• The Wonder Years
  
  
3. Groups The best ideas come from those in the trenches. I have been a member of the Homepreschool Yahoo group for three years, and although the message volume has ebbed and flowed over time, the advice is always invaluable.
   
   
4. The Google - When in doubt, search the web for answers. A recent search for phonics activities netted two treasures -- Fun Fonix and the Clifford Make-a-Word game , both of which have proved very helpful to Agent 004.
   

How about you? Any resources to suggest to the rest of us?

How We do Preschool (Posts 3+4 of 4)

Two weeks ago I left you with a description of Circle Time. Rereading my own post it sounds like a rigid and monotonous routine. In all honesty, though, that is the only formal school we do, and it really isn't all that formal! I 'm pretty sure that my troop of toddlers is incapable of formal, rigid, or monotonous anyway.

Circle Time is followed by Table Time. While Cousin F sings the alphabet, Agent 004 sits down at the table to complete the weather chart. I watch that F points to each letter as she sings, then set her up with a number or letter task. Today she worked on the clothing number matching cards on her mat.

As soon as Agent 004 completes the weather chart she starts the task that I have set out in her cubby. Recently this has included her sound mat, a maze, or a file folder game.

When the girls complete their assigned task, they move onto "Mat Time," which is a Montessori-ish child led activity period. It isn't so much preschool time as it is time to play with small and messy things that would otherwise drive Mama bonkers.

In practice the only differentiation between Table Time and Mat Time is that I choose the first activity for each child (Table Time) and from that point forth the children choose their own activities (Mat Time).

Here are a few snapshots of Mat Time this week:

Cousin P is gluing a collage while Agent 004 uses a workbook and Cousin F plays a number matching game.

Agent 002 pours split peas while Cousin F, Cousin P, and Agent 004 watercolor.

All four children drawing on the windows with Crayola markers.

And that is how we make preschool time Work for Us.

Unplug Your Kids - Clothing

When I saw that this weeks's Unplugged theme was clothes I wanted to make one of these mini-clotheslines or this matching game.

But I wasn't quite that motivated.

I went with a simple paper matching game to reinforce numeral recognition


Match the numeral on the shirt to the number of dots on the pants.

Visit Unplug Your Kids for lots more creative "clothing" ideas.

No Tutorials on This Blog

This is what art time looks like at my house. Pretty sure that you don't need a tutorial on it. They do clean up after themselves (sort of).

Kind of pretty in an abstract kind of way.

Not sure there was learning involved, but we did manage to "recycle" a whole stack of paintings that have come off display.

Art's Beautiful Byproducts

Although ecological awareness has led us to reduce the number of disposable products we use, there are a few clean-up jobs reserved for paper towels in our home. Not because they do a better job, but because the result is beautiful.

Moisten a paper towel, scrunch it up, and then clean. Use some elbow grease. This is a project all about process,but the product is still pretty impressive.

In addition to wiping magic marker from the calendar wall, I also make beautiful "tie-dyed" towels while the children watercolor.

No matter how many times we explain the rinse-between-colors rule, Cousin P mixes up the paint colors. No harm -- so long as we soak it up right then, his paints stay good-as new. The cloth at right was done with watercolors.

Simple, pretty, practical and fun!

Visit Unplu Your Kids for more wrinkled fun, and join us next week as we think of something creative to do with clothes.

How We do Preschool - Circle Time (Post 2 of 4)

As I explained in my introduction to this series, our preschool time has a set routine.

The first component of Red Room School is Circle Time. All four of us (me, Agent 004, Cousin F and Cousin P) meet on the blue rug at the edge of the room.

As always, we start with a prayer. Most recently, the favorite prayer has been "This is the Day" followed by short petitions. If I've told you that we are praying for you, this is when we do it. Some days the kids do jumping jacks as they sing. I consider it an entirely appropriate way for toddlers and preschoolers to praise the Lord.

After prayer we look at the calendar posted on the outside of the art supply cabinet. The girls tell me what day of the week it is, then they figure out the date. Agent 004 can now automatically add one to yesterday's date, but Cousin F needs time to count all of the previous numbers. As I write the date on the wall, they think about the "code date" and tell me what to write. Agent 004 seems to understand that January=1 and February=2 in code. I think I was 10 years old before I understood that!

This is also when we talk about upcoming events. Cousin P's birthday is marked on the calendar, so the kids have been counting down the days. We flip through the pages of the calendar to figure out when other major events are as well. At 3 and 4 years old respectively, Cousin F and Agent 004 really seem to be getting a handle on the months, seasons, and relative lengths of time.

We have just started observing the weather as part of our circle time. I drew a thermometer on the second art supply cabinet door. After looking up the temperature we color in the thermometer with a red washable marker. Unfortunately the lowest point on the wall thermometer is 0, so for -2 last week I had to erase the "mercury" in the bulb as well :)

Agent 004 is responsible for recording this information in the weather binder. She writes the code date, the temperature, and a one-word description of the weather onto a form. As she does this Cousin F sings the alphabet and points out the letters on the wall chart. She knows all of the letters in order, but still needs reinforcement of letter recognition.

Cousin P (who is not yet 2 years old) sings the prayer with us, but otherwise does his own thing. When he was younger I set up a booster seat with tray to contain him, but he now plays in the rice pool or uses items from the Montessori shelves at his own pace.

All told, circle time lasts five to ten minutes. We cover important concepts and set the tone for the remainder of our preschool session. Writing in the weather binder gives us a seemless transition to "table time" which will be the topic of my next preschool post.

This is my tip for Works for Me Wednesday at Rocks in My Dryer.

How We do Preschool (Part 1 of 4)

I often wonder how other people get this "preschool" thing done with lots of little kids running around.

I see these pictures of fancy craft projects, creative math manipulatives, and smiling children. Then I listen to the cacaphony in my house and wonder how on earth anybody gets kids to do anything productive.

Of course, once I open my eyes, I notice all that they are learning and doing and experiencing all the time. Plus they have some academic skills:

• The 2yo is starting to express thoughts in words and sentences. He loves to scribble, glue, and paint. His new trick is pointing at the letter chart and humming the tune of the alphabet song.


• The 3yo can recognize letters, count to 15 and recognize numerals to 5. She knows her shapes and colors.


• The 4yo can count and recognize numbers to 50, read short vowel words, and write family members' names.

Given my obvious success (pause for chuckle here) I decided to devote my Works for Me Wednesday blog posts this month to explaining how we do it.

First of all, I do not do it at all. My job is to shape the environment and set the routine. Otherwise, the kids run the show.

Routine is the key element. Our entire day has a routine, and preschool time has its own routine. Not only do we repeat the routine every day, it is posted on the wall for their review:


When I was sick last week, Agent 004 and Cousin F did an entire preschool session without any involvement from me. They knew what to do, when. Obviously there was no new material, but they got a great review just by running through the routine.


Preschool time has three components -- Circle Time, Table Time, and Mat Time. I will focus a post on each of these components on the next three Wednesdays.

Please drop a comment if there is anything specific that you would like to make sure I cover in this series of posts.

Beginning - To - Read- Resources

The Agents are both on a reading kick, and it is me that is struggling to keep up with them. Where do I find activities and age-appropriate reading materials?

Agent 004 is working through the Reading A-Z phonics program. I downloaded it for free during their trial week last spring, and from our experience would recommend it to other families. We supplement that with some word family work. She is most proud of her "Word Book" which lists every word that she can read. We are up to 47 words!

I have been writing some of her stories, but I am just not creative enough to make it all from scratch. That is when I refer to various sites online. This is what I have been visiting this week:

• Hubbard's Cupboard : A free, comprehensive, Christian preschool curriculum. We used the Bible and Rhyme 3's Curriculum when the Agents were 2 and 4 years old. It covers the Bible, letters, numbers, colors, shapes, and anything else that a preschooler needs to know. We no longer use it as a curriculum, but we constantly integrate components including the sorting letters, playdough recipes and printable books.
  
  
• Carl's Corner : Maintained by a retired elementary school Language Arts specialist, Carl's Corner is an amazing resource for reading resources. In particular, F uses the alphabet activitied and Agent 004 uses the Word Family activities.
  
  
• Mrs. Meacham's Classroom Snapshots : Although this site's intended audience is elementary school teachers, mnay of the ideas are easily adaptable to the home. Our circle time activities are strongly influenced by her calendar page. Since I have a "multi-age" classroom, I plan on making each of the children a mini-office highlighting the areas that he or she is currently working on. I also get a lot of ideas fro Mrs. Meacham's literacy centers.
  

These Work for me. Do you have any more suggestions of resources for early reading instruction?

7 Quick Takes

In a nod to Jennifer (and to my inability to focus on one topic), today's post will feature seven short bits.

1. We have been passing a head cold through the house for the past month. Nothing major, but just enough to render its victim a boogery embodiment of grumpitude. The latest casualty? Me. I spent most of the past week in a mucousy haze. Thus....
   
2. ... no menu planning. Despite the absence of a plan, we have continued to eat. In fact, we have had some of our favorite dishes like Cincinnati Chili and homemade pizza. If I settle down and make a plan for this week I'll post it. But don't count on it, because I have been very busy...
   
3. ...getting the garden ready for next spring. I had started building long narrow beds before I read and became enamored with Square Foot Gardening, but I think that we can make it work. The lumber was all free, as was the leaf mold. The sole cost of rebuilding our veggie patch? $12 for peat moss. If I get the time and motivation I will put up some process pictures so that you can learn how to garden like a real amateur.
   
4. Don't be insulted if I haven't visited your blog in a while; Google Reader has been on the fritz for a few days. It looks like it is working today, so I'll be commenting away on all your lovely blogs.
   
5. Remember how I told you that I would be cutting back on the number of blogs that I read? That was until I started clicking through the links on the Stephanie's sidebar on Montessori Free Fall. Despite my practical and philosophical issues with Montessori, we seem to be sliding more and more in that direction. And I am so inspired.
   
6. My religious ed class was learning about "discovering God's world" this past Sunday. So what does this this non-Montessori teacher do? I brought in a mystery bag, sound jars, and smelling bottles for my kindergartners to work with. They loved it, and really learned a lot from the experience. So glad that I have this kind of thing just lying around our non-Montessori house.
   
7. We had our annual teacher conference with Agent 002's teacher last night. No new news there, but it was a momentous occasion for us -- my sister watched the Agents while we were out, and offered to keep them for the night. We went out for a date last night and slept in until 7 this morning. Wonderfully refreshing, and what allowed me to write this post. The house is so quiet! I should probably go pick them up now, or maybe I'll savor the solitude for a few more minutes....
   

Thanking Our Veterans

Our "preschool" task this morning was making Thank You cards for the Veterans in our family -- Uncle Ichabod (Iraq), Uncle E (Korea) and Uncle W (World War II). We will mail them this afternoon.

A quick tip for those of you making cards with emergent writers: Make the card from construction paper or cardstock, but have the child write her signature on a piece of lined paper and glue it into place. This way the perfectionist won't stress about messing up the card, and the sloppy child won't make random marks on the card.

What Else is She Hiding From Me?

Agent 004 came accross a picture of a man holding balloons in an activity book.

Without any direction from me, she colored each balloon the color that it was labeled.

Since when does this four-year old child read?

And since when does she follow directions?

Busy Kids Learning

Cousin F and Agent 004 working hard in the Red Room. Agent 004 was using her sound mat; Cousin F was doing some number matching.

Here is another shot of F's number work. I made the game pieces from 3x5 index cards cut so to be self-correcting. I traced around each piece with a marker to ensure that the numbers go in the correct order.
Here is Cousin P doing his own thing. Yes, he does take off his socks that he can get rice between his toes.
And here is Agent 002 writing his manifesto. He has been working on it every afternoon this week, and has a notebook full of scrawls.

Eery Invisible Ghosts

Amber taught me about using white crayon and watercolors "Magic Art," but it was my own idea to create mysteriously reappearing ghosts for Halloween.

To create this spooky effect, draw a ghost with white crayon on white paper. Color it in. This is harder than it sounds, so you may have to do it for the child.



Have the child paint the entire sheet of paper.


If she is feeling particularly spunky, she may paint it varied colors. It does not matter -- so long as she covers the entire picture with paint, the ghost will magically appear.

The kids LOVED watching the ghosts appear as they painted. We will definitely do this again. Maybe I will write secret messages for my emergent readers?

Why We Keep to a Routine

I was a wee bit nervous this morning.

If it were up to me, I would have spent my whole day cleaning. In fact, that was my plan.

But when Agent 004 got up from the breakfast table, she put her dirty bowl in the sink and glanced at the pictorial schedule on the refrigerator. After pointing what she had already accomplished -- "I waked up, put on clothes and ate breakfast" -- she told everyone with excitement, "after we work in the red room we go to the library! I like going to the library!"

So red room and library it was. It was one of our best red room school days in weeks, and I am so glad that our little routine told us to do it. Here are two of my my eager learners:
The homestudy went fine, by the way. Just one more social worker visit and a safety inspection by the fire department, and we will be licensed as foster parents.

Sticky Spider Webs

This week's Unplugged theme is "white."

Of course we used our favorite white art medium -- GLUE!

Using an idea I learned from the fabulous Amber, we dipped string into glue, then laid the strings on wax paper to dry.
Of course, with young children, the purpose is the process, not the product:
There was a bit of a distraction when someone realized that straws fit into the bottom of the chair:

...but we got back on track to create beautiful webs. After leaving the strings to dry for a few days...
... we had stiff spider webs to show for our efforts.

A Tuesday in Detail

I have been trying to write a detailed post about our preschool for weeks. Something like this or this.

As I have said many times, I consider our whole life an education, and am reticent to call one block of the day "preschool." The kids are involved in everything we do and are absorbing information and honing skills all of the time.

Nonetheless, we do have a few times set aside each day for academic and artistic activities. As a public service to my readers (and as a memento for me) I took notes on our activities this morning (Tuesday).

Our day is loosely structured by task (see here for our full routine). Other than assuring that Agent 002 gets on his bus, we do not worry about what time it is throughout the day. In fact, I neither wear a watch nor have a clock visible for most of the day, so none of this is precisely timed.

I start my day packing lunches and serving breakfast. The Agents dress themselves and sit down as they are ready to eat; the Cousins arrive just before 7 ready to eat breakfast. This morning I pulled out a bag of waffles that I had frozen a month ago. As each person was ready to eat I popped a waffle or two in the toaster.

Agent 002 is usually up around 6 with me; for only the second time this year I had to shake him awake at 7 to make sure that he was ready in time for his 7:25 bus. Although he was still drowsy as he dipped his waffle sticks in honey, he was outside in plenty of time.

Since I was alone for nearly an hour this morning, I got the chance to make lunches and mix up bread dough before the breakfast rush began. This really helped me to have a much calmer than average morning.

The girls play while I tidy the kitchen. This morning they built a "doghouse" by draping towels from the mudroom bench. Agent 004 walked her dog (Cousin F) though the house. Cousin P alternated between playing with them and hugging my leg. When he joins in, the girls call him the "neighbor."

Once I have completed my morning routine, the girls clean up their toys. This is usually just before 8am.

Ten minutes later (or 15 if one of the girls balks as she did this morning) the four of us convene in the Red Room. Cousin P sits on my lap and Agent 004 and Cousin F sit on either side of me on their mats (repurposed baby blankets). We start with the sign of the cross, then a sung prayer. Cousin F chose the prayer this morning so we sang six verses of "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands." After the standard first verse we sang "He has the flowers and trees in his hands, "He has Baby P in his hands," "He has F, 004 in his hands," etc.. They really enjoy having their names in the song, and I hope that they get a sense that God cares for them. Cousin P babbled along with the song and gesticulated madly this morning.

He went off and played in the pool of rice while F, 004 and I looked at the calendar together. I reminded them that yesterday was Monday, September 29th, then asked them to tell me today's date. They told me that today was "Tuesday," but it took some prodding (and counting it all out) for Agent 004 to tell me that "30" is the number after 29. She then noticed that there is no "31" in September, so we looked ahead to the October page in the calendar.

After the calendar, we cut one link (#32) off of the paper chain that shows how many days until Halloween. It was Cousin F's turn to cut. She then taped the link onto her wrist as a bracelet.

Agent 004 led us in a singing, pointing rendition of the ABC song. She used a straw filled with rice as her pointer, and did a perfect job of matching her pointing to the letter we were singing. Cousin P came over and pointed at various objects on the wall as we sang.

This seems like a lengthy routine as I typed it, but in reality only 5 or 6 minutes had elapsed since we sat down for prayer. After this group time, the kids sit down for table work.

I strapped Cousin P into a booster seat and gave him a small bowl of paint (flour, salt and water), a paintbrush, and a piece of construction paper. This is one of his favorite activities so he happily sploshed for about 4 minutes before I removed the paints and gave him wooden blocks to stack. This activity was much shorter-lived (90 seconds?), but I let him sit for an additional two minutes while I worked with the girls at the table.

We pulled out individual blocks from the bucket and identified the shapes together. Agent 004 then did two worksheets applying her knowledge of three-dimensional shapes. Other than confusing spheres and cylinders, she knows them very well. Cousin F redid a lesson in her Kumon Tracing book.

Cousin P played happily in the rice pool for the next twenty minutes. He poured rice through toilet paper tubes into a metal coffee can, giggling at the metallic tinkle each time. He also shook a peanut butter jar that one of he other children had filled with rice. He would occasionally move his feet back and forth to hear the rice rubbing against the bottom of the pool. Sensory bliss.

For floor time, Cousin F dressed the lacing bear (Melissa and Doug Lacing Bear Dress-Up), then moved acorns from one basket to another with a spoon. She attempted a shoe lacing activity (Alex One, Two, Tie My Shoe), but put it away quickly in frustration and asked me to set up cornmeal tracing.

Agent 004 did a dinosaur puzzle, then stacked blocks into a wall. She tried to remove one block at a time Jenga style, but was getting frustrated because the whole stack would fall. It took her a while to figure out that this only works if the stacking is with overlapped layers. She wanted to use the Brown Bear felt set, but balked at cleaning up the blocks first. By the time she had cleaned up it was time for our morning activity. In fact, F and P had already gone into the living room, and she was only allowed to join them once the blocks were cleaned up.

Our schedule says that our morning activity on Tuesdays is housecleaning. What this really means is that the kids watch a short movie while I try to catch up on laundry. We popped in Cousin F's library selection from last week (Teletubbies - Bedtime Stories and Lullabies). I dumped the clean laundry on the loveseat and folded while they watched, danced, and occasionally grabbed something that I had just folded. I did not finish, but I did manage to go through 2/3 of Mount Washmore. In case anyone was wondering, the Teletubbies are INANE! This is the first (and probably last) time we have ever watched one of these videos.

As the video was winding down I heated up a pot of homemade chicken soup with rice. We ate that and crackers for lunch. As soon as I had finished my serving I started reading our lunchtime book selections -- Chicken Soup with Rice: A Book of Months (of course) as well as Leaves. It was very cool that Agent 004 noticed when I inadvertently skipped a page. She did not know which month comes between March and May, but she did know that one was missing.

Like usual, Cousin P started to doze in his high chair while I read. The girls are responsible for cleaning the kitchen while put Cousin P down for nap. Don't be too impressed by this fact -- after they bring their own bowls over to the counter, one of them wipes down the placemats with a wet rag while the other one puts away stray items. They don't accomplish a whole lot, but I think it is good for them to have some responsibility commensurate with their age.

Once the kitchen was cleaned we messed it up again. Our after lunch activity is often unstructured art, but today we made two small pans of peach cobbler. This project was inspired by the appearance of two cans of peaches in heavy syrup in our pantry. I just couldn't stomach giving them something so sweet as "fruit," so I figured that we might as well use it in a dessert.

The girls chopped butter while I collected the other ingredients. I tried to save time by creaming the butter and sugar right in the baking dishes. Not such a good idea, especially if a three-year-old is manning the mixer. I'll need to wash the butter off of the walls and cabinets tonight....

After a potty break, the girls went upstairs to their beds. They each grabbed a stack of books, then settled in as I sang three songs -- A Place in the Choir, Puff the Magic Dragon, and Red is the Rose. As I type this both Cousins are sleeping soundly, but Agent 004 is playing quietly with the Littlest Pet Shop in her room. I take that back -- Cousin F is awake but playing quietly in her bed. I went upstairs once to get her out of Agent 004's room.

Quiet time is my time, but there is a lot of work that I should be doing. Not typing up the nitty-gritty details of my life, but living it. I did manage to run the dishwasher as well as bake the peach cobblers and a loaf of rye bread while I have been typing, but I did not make the salsa or tortillas for dinner like I should have, nor did I finish folding the laundry. Oh, well.

I freed the girls around 2pm. I brought all four laundry baskets up to put clothes away as well as set out pajamas and clothes for tomorrow. P woke up while I was working and I brought him up to play. They chased each other through the three connected bedrooms. I admonished P for opening the drawer to Agent 002's private toy stash several times.

We came downstairs and had snack. The girls cut bananas, feeding some to P as he requested it. "DAT!" We also had pretzels. I put clothes into tomorrow drawers and emptied the dishwasher while they ate.Cousin F and Agent 004 went outside (my only involvement in their preperation was to spray the bug spray). They pretended to put leaves back on tree like in lunchtime story Leaves. P was still chomping away at snack. I met Agent 002's bus. He waved a note from his teacher in front of me. She said that he worked very hard in school today and did a wonderful job in his handwriting book. He ate snack, I cleaned up snack, 002 went outside, I got P ready and dumped the compost.

I worked on vegetable beds while the kids played on swings. This is one of those projects that would probably only take 20 minutes if I did it undisturbed, but I have been working on it for the past two weeks. P splashed in abandoned flower pots and dug holes in the garden.

Two of the kids were getting out of control, so I took a break to read Reader's Digest on the glider swing knowing full well that I would not be alone for long. Agent 002 pulled his reading books out of his bag and read us a book (This is Pickles). The girls LOVE when he reads to us.

I rolled up one of the garden hoses, interrupted 437 times to direct P away from the front of the house. I really need a fence.....

Agent 002 started spearing leaves with a stick. He called them marshmallows. Then he built a fire ring out of stones, filled it with logs and pretended to roast marshmallows. The girls joined him and admonished P when he got too near, "No! It's hot!"

They went back on swings. Gnats were something fierce. Even with coating of bug spray I could see bites on Agent 002's face. I later realized that one intrepid gnat had climbed inside of my shirt to bite my upper arm.

My sister arrived around 4:45. We went inside with her to update my calendar with some of her schedule changes and to get her a peach cobbler to bring home.

The Agents continued to play outside while I started dinner. They came in a few minutes later to watch Curious George on PBS.

George ended (as far as they know there are two George stories each day. I have not lied, but have selectively withheld the information that there are in fact four stories each afternoon). I was still working on dinner. Agent 004 pretended to be a be a ghost and chased Agent 002 through the house. Then she noticed me shucking corn and wanted to join in. Agent 002 was disappointed that I had no more ears for him to work on.

Once the corn was in the pot, the Agents went back to their play, this time taking care of their babies. They wrapped Baby Pink Bear and Grover blankets and pushed them through the house in doll strollers. Agent 004 "read" them a few books. At one point Agent 004 told me that she needed to go to a meeting and left her baby with me. "Grammy, I am going to a meeting, you take care of my baby."

Mr warillever came home as I was finishing the salsa. At this point (5:35) I decided to forgo making tortillas from scratch for a 6pm dinner, and emptied a half bag of corn chips into a bowl instead. I really should have been working instead of blogging this afternoon. The corn chips were a fine accompaniment for refried beans and salsa anyway. The cobbler was very good.

During dinner mr warillever told us about the new cases he is working on. Agent 002 told us about his playground escapades and made sure that mr warillever read the wonderful note he brought home from school.

The Agents cleared the table. Mr warillever went downstairs to do some work on a heating vent. Agent 002 took a shower independently while I swept the kitchen, mudroom and back hall. Agent 004 put away stray objects from around the kitchen, then sang along with the Fridge Phonics and paged through some of the books in the book basket.

I cleaned the bathroom while Agent 004 took a bath. Agent 002 played with the Word Whammer. He finally seems to understand that putting a vowel in the middle is the easiest way to build a 3-letter word. He even sounded out a few of the words before the machine read them to him.

Mr warillever brough the Agents upstairs for book club. I scooped lumps from cat litter, brought the garbage and recycling to barn, then sat down at the computer to jot down the second half of this post.

My day is not complete yet, though. I still need to fold a few more loads of laundry, find all of the library books to be returned tomorrow, and take a shower. Hope to be upstairs by 11.

In reality I got upstairs at 11:35, then read (The Omnivore's Dilemma) for the next 45 minutes. All in all a very good day.

The Lamest Unplugged Post

So lame, in fact, that I won't even include photos.

Not at all. The Agents created very cute projects, but this is a lame post because I have no photos -- my camera and camera still won't communicate, and that handy-dandy little external card reader is broken. I bent a pin putting the card in upside. I can't even blame the kids!

The unplugged theme is soft. I asked the Agents what they would like to make -- they decided on kittens and lambs (so far, so good -- they know what soft is). We then chose soft materials. Both Agents chose cotton balls. I chose pink sparkly feathers.

Agent 002 drew a kitten, then glued cotton balls all over its body. He called it "Snowball."

Agent 004 chose pink blue paper (the sky), shredded green scraps and glued those onto the background as grass. She glued many cotton balls onto the paper. A Mama sheep, a baby lamb, a cousin sheep, and a neighbor sheep. And then she moved the gluey mass all over the paper as the sheep socialized. By the end she was sticky and her "art" was destroyed, but she had a grand ole' time.

I made a pink flamingo with glittery pink feathers. Maybe I am glad that you can't see our work...

Two Questions and an Advertisement

Shannon is hosting a backwards WFMW today at Rocks in My Dryer. I'll take advantage of this opportunity to tap the wisdom of the internets.

1. Read-Aloud Suggestions? My husband reads to the children from a novel every night. Thus far they have read Charlotte's Web, Stewart Little, The Trumpeter Swan, Doctor Dolittle, The Just So Stories, and they are currently finishing up the Little House series. We haven't decided what to tackle next. Any suggestions?
   
   
2. Preschool Prayer Songs? We begin "preschool" every day with a prayer. I have only just realized that a song is a good way to do this and get the kids really involved. Cousin F in particular gets into hand motions and spontaneous riffs on well-known songs. We have been singing "He Has the Whole World in His Hands" and "This is the Day." Does anyone know any good Christian songs that a 1, 3 and 4 yo would be able to sing?
   
   
3. Photographs of Nuns? Sr. Mary Martha and her cohert of sisters are organizing a Nun Beauty No Contest to show all of the good work that nuns do around the world. Sr. Mary Martha asked me to advertise this for her, and since when can I say no to a nun? Even in my 1980s nearly secular Catholic school we learned that much! You can read more about the rules (or lack thereof) at her blog.
   

Painting Al Fresco

When it is hot, we bring our art outside.



The kids love to clean up!



For more hot fun, visit this week's "Unplugged Project."