My Fruitful Life: February 2016

Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day is always bitter-sweet. It's the anniversary of the hardest and saddest day of my life, losing my beloved mother, but happy since it's a wonderful day to celebrate love and loving those who mean so much to you. It's been 22 years and I still miss my mom every.single.day!

This year, Blue Rock made Valentine's Day cards for his friends at school. They are doing a fundraiser so I thought it would be fun to incorporate the organic, fair trade chocolates into the cards. They turned out so cute!

Blue Knight ended up catching RSV and tested positive for it last Thursday. Princess has a cold, which means there's a 99% chance that her cold is RSV, so the doctor advised us to mostly stay home and away from crowds through Sunday. We hated to miss church, but most likely that's where the kids caught RSV since it's going around there and we didn't want to risk spreading it even more! It was a 3 day weekend for my husband and the weather was beautiful, so we had some fun family time, mostly at home.

My husband was so sweet this year, he treated me to a one hour hot stone massage, which was heavenly, carrying two babies around is hard on your back! He bought me some chocolate covered strawberries, surprised me with cards the kids made and one he got me, and took us all out to eat at the Cheesecake Factory. We timed it where it was around Blue Knight's nap so we kept him isolated from everyone. Thankfully Princess's nose is no longer running and she's not sneezing which is how it's mostly spread.

I hope you had a wonderful Valentine's Day as well. It's a great day to tell those you love that you love them!

MFW Preschool Unit 1

Princess is loving her preschool program. We are having so much fun and are even including Blue Knight in on some of it! We are finishing up Unit 1: Love. Each unit has a memory verse, animal, color, stories, music, and lots of fun activities to do. We don't do "school" everyday, but when ever I ask her if she wants to she squeals with excitement and will run get her school box. She's memorized her first Bible verse and her first poem, "I am a bunny." I love teaching and watching her learn and grow. We have mostly been doing her schoolwork when her big brother is at his school.

My Father's World All Aboard the Animal Train

Unit 1: Love

Color: red
Animal: Bunny - which is really one of her favorite animals!
Memory Verse: 1John 4:21 - "Love God and love each other!"

Here are some of the fun things we've done as part of our preschool.

Coloring her first picture for the unit

Looking at the bunny and learning her memory verse

She got into the markers one day and gave herself a make-over

Let's remember, she is only 2!

Wedgits are fun!

We went to the stock show and she got to sit on a tractor

She saw some bunnies

We went to a friend's house who is raising rabbits

We even visited a dairy farm!

She loved petting the pig!

Her first time to paint

She LOVED it!

Some of the paintings she painted

Playing with the Discovery Blocks

We spend a lot of time outside! The trampoline is a favorite among my kids.

She likes her little bike

Loves going down her smaller slide.

Sometimes we give wagon rides around our yard.

Red sensory bin

Both kids loved this. It peaked Blue Rock's interest when he saw it.

Sidewalk painting with big brother

They both got Play-Doh for Valentine's Day

Fountains downtown

Coloring the bunny red

She's a good artist

Musical shapes! She LOVED this game! We played it for probably 20 minutes!

More fun outside!

How to Organize My Father's World Preschool Program

Since I homeschool Blue Rock, three days a week, it seems like a good portion of Monday, Wednesday, and Friday is made up of doing and getting school work done. Princess has been begging to participate. She's enjoyed coloring and reading books. However, I wanted something more to do with her. I discovered that My Father's World had a new preschool for 2s and 3s program. It's call All Aboard the Animal Train. While they suggest it more for older 2 and 3 year olds, it is perfect for my newly turned 2 year old. She LOVES books, retains the information well, can sit and pay attention for a good amount of time, and has a willingness to learn. I wanted to wait until after her birthday to start it and have found it to be perfect! Also I loved going through My Father's World Kindergarten with Blue Rock when he was 4. He still has memories of some of the fun activities we did.

A few weeks ago when I told Princess that I bought her some school work she literally jumped around the living room in delight and told Blue Rock, "I have schoolwork, yay!" I put it together in a special filing folder and we have enjoyed going through the first unit and still have another week or two to go.

There are 12 units that are part of the All Aboard the Animal Train. Each unit takes 3 weeks to complete if you are going straight through it. We do not do school everyday, so it will probably take us a month to complete each unit. There are four different activities to do each day: 1. Clean Up and Together Time; 2. Story Time; 3. Surprise Time (she gets to pick one surprise activity/game each day); and 4. Outside Time.

The goals for the 2s and 3s program are: Spiritual Growth which includes twelve character traits, three Bible stories and a memory verse for each character trait. Cognitive Development - songs and fingerplays, creative thinking, problem solving, and imaginative play. Reading and Math: lots of fun stories, poems, print and phonemic awareness kills, informal alphabet readiness, and numbers, colors, and shapes. Science: we're learning about twelve different animals! Music: each unit includes a preschool learning song and Bible song. Physical Development: gross and fine motor skills.

This is how I organized My Father's World Preschool Program, All Aboard the Animal Train.