Daddy Blog: Bad News

About 15 minutes after putting Buddy to bed
Eli: "Daaa-dee!!"
Me: "What"
Eli: "Daddy, I have bad news."
Me: "What is it?"
Eli: "Buzz Lightnear likes Zurg now."
Me: "He does?"
Eli: "Yeah! They're friends!"
Me: "Well, that's good."
Eli: "No! No, it's not. Zurg is still mean to Buzz!"

Soccer Saturday

After a week of moaning about not being old enough for soccer, Eli insisted on dressing as a soccer player this morning to go to Chloe's first practice. Luckily, I had two pair of soccer shorts from Melissa, Blue Cross and Blue Shield has sent me several balls for my good exercising habits, Ryan gave us an old pair of shin guards, and to a three year-old, there is no difference between soccer socks and black dress socks! Most importantly, the whole thing was incredibly laid back, so Eli and Patrick were able to "play soccer" on the sidelines for the entire hour. Not one utterance of "it's not fair!" the entire morning. Score again.

Covil Preschool: Day 8-9

Day 8:
Book- Mouse Count by Ellen Stoll Walsh
Emphasis- Counting, Cause and Effect, Guessing Outcomes, Collage Art
Craft- Make a "mice in the meadow" collage like the one in the book
Snack- Make snake bread sticks and decorate. We used frozen biscuits and let the dough thaw. Then, the kids rolled them into "snakes" and decorated them with cinnamon and sugar, and baked. When they were cooked, they added two M&M eyes.

It's hard to tell where the kids' work ends and the book begins! They did a great job!

Eli's work

Day 9:

Book- Lunch by Denise Fleming

Emphasis- Colors, parts of a book

Activity- Make our own books called "Lunch for Eli Mouse"

Craft- Sponge paint different colored mice and draw eyes, noses, ears, and tails

Game- Picky eating mice. Each child got a plate with a different color taped on thebottom. On the word "Go!" each child filled their plate with only the color (toy) food that their mice liked.

Letter of the Day- E is for Eyes. It was all I had to stick on.

Football Saturday!

Daddy Blog: Daddy's Helper

Little Buddy is such a great helper to his daddy. He doesn't just help out a little bit until the novelty wears off; he actually sticks with it. Whenever I'm working in the yard he's beside me raking or picking up sticks. And the amazing thing is that he is really helpful. He saved me a ton of time a few weeks ago by picking up the limbs and leaves that I had trimmed off the hedges while I was shearing. I love how I have a little shadow on the weekends.

Daddy Blog: Dream Quotes

Middle of the night...
"Daddy, I had a dream about bad guys....but, I KNOW! I can turn the pillow over and have a good dream about Buzz Lightnear!"
The next morning...
"Daddy, I turned the pillow over, but I still dreamed about bad guys!"

Eli insisted on wearing his football outfit to naptime (sans the helmet of course).
Daddy: "Hey, you're going to have football dreams wearing that outfit."
Eli: "Yeah!!"
15 minutes after lying down...
Eli: "Daddy, you hurt my feelings. I did not have a football dream!"

"Daddy, I had a bad dream. I dreamed that Buzz Lightnear started lasering everyone!"

"Daddy, I had a bad dream. Bad dinosaurs turned everything into gold!"

Covil Preschool: Day 7

Day 7

Tuesday was Labor Day (observed) at Covil Preschool, so we spent the day running some errands and (most importantly) scouring the library for new books and ideas for Fall Preschool. I got several good resources and stories to take me through the next couple of weeks, so we should remain on schedule, for a while at least.

Book: It Looked Like Spilt Milk by Charles Shaw

Emphasis: Shapes, in an abstract kind of way

Craft: The kids made milk paint with water, powdered milk, and blue food coloring. They then taped down a shape cutout, and painted milk paint over the entire page to create a cloud illustration just like the ones in the book.

Snack/Activity: Make "Cloud Puff" out of marshmallow fluff and powdered milk. Shape the fluff into a fancy cloud, and eat (if you really want to!).

Game: Cloud charades

Letter of the Day: D (is for Diamond)

Eli's cloud- a Lion

Shaping his Cloud Puff

A Lion cloud!

Yum!

After preschool we headed to pick up J's brother, and spent 2 hours at Kidstown park in Apex. What a big morning!

Covil Preschool: Day 6

Day 6

Emphasis: Colors, Opposites, Counting, Movement in pics


Book: Freight Train by Donald Crews


Activity: Fill a colored box (freight car) with objects of the same color


Craft: Create Freight Train paintings with rectangle sponges, a bottle top, and paint. Make a Daytime and a Nighttime painting.


Game: "Color Train" and recess outdoors


Snack: Chex Mix trains

Letter of the Day: C

Eli's (brokedown looking) Daytime train. He's so proud!

"Eli, is your train moving like the one in the book?"

"Yes, it is moving! And also, it's made out of fire!"

Practicing T-ball during "recess" with his "batter's helmet." Hehee.

Covil Preschool: Day 5

Day 5

Emphasis- Zoo Animals

Books- Eric Carle's 1,2,3 to the Zoo, and Noisytime for Zoo Animals, Splashtime for Zoo Animals, and Mother and Baby Zoo Animals by Caroline Arnold

Activity- Create zoo maps with construction paper and markers. Draw animals on the four corners and glue black paper paths to connect the areas. Practice finding things on a map, and use Elmo to practice navigating routes on a map.

Craft- Zoo animal headbands

Games- A variation of "Mother May I?" and "Pretend Zoo"

Elmo navigating the zoo on E's zoo map

Eli's Zoo Map. CW from top left: Giraffe, Tiger, Lion, Monkey

A Tiger at the Zoo.

Tiger Close-Up.