School Halloween

Kylie's preschool had their Halloween celebration. Small groups went to the school library where they made the following crafts. Kylie's group was one of the last ones to go. She told me, "I could hardly concentrate in class and in Spanish class because I thought I would never get to go!" But she did get to participate and brought home these cool crafts.

Spider web. The orange thing on her finger is a plastic spider ring. The white paint had lots of glitter in it which made her especially happy.






Mummy's hand. A rubber glove filled with candy corn and popcorn.

{this moment} 10/28/11

{this moment} - a Friday ritual. Some photos capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

We made Spinach Balls and Banana Bread together. Kylie learned how to crack an egg. "Gross!" she laughed, wiping her hands on the towel. "Let's do it again!"




This moment posts are inspired by SouleMama's Friday posts.

Writing

Kylie has been writing like crazy! We are so proud of her and yet it has created lots of tense moments around the house.

Take this little bit of writing for example.

While I was folding some laundry, Kylie was in another room writing this. She finds me and asks me to read it. I'm sounding it out the best I can and at first glance I guess "drum?" for the top word. "No!" Kylie yells. (Kylie is normally not a person who yells but she's been pretty dang uptight about my ability to read her writing.)
"Darling, you read it to me," I reply.
"I can't read. YOU can read. Read it to me." Kylie says.
Finally I cipher that she has made a map. Her map reads toyroom, dining room, kitchen, hallway, Kylie's room (that last bit got cut off). But the five or more minutes that it takes the two of us to work this out are some intense minutes.

She wants soooo much for me to read it. I want so much for her to explain it so that I can oohh and ahhh appropriately. For the past week, when she brings me something to read, I feel like I'm on some crazed gameshow where I'm tip-toeing through a minefield trying to read Latin.

Yesterday, she decided to walk around our neighborhood writing down the words she saw on our neighbors' flags, signs and numbers by the road. We started with the Happy Halloween flag in our yard.


And she just kept going and going! Up and down our neighborhood...


until she had an entire page.

Happy Halloween
Hokies (as in Virginia Tech Hokies)
Watson (and several backwards phone numbers for the realty company)
Speed Limit 20
Toter ® (I love that she included the Registered symbol)
Florida
1172
Michigan
ADT
Caution Ghost Xing
1155
Give it Back (written backwards)
Stop
1905
No Dumping
Beck
7714
AEO
Suncast
Telephone
Sienna LE
Toyota


I'm happy to say that today's writing was easy. I figured it out immediately, "I found a nut!", which made the kiddo very happy.

Tigress

This is the character Tigress from the animated movie "Kung Fu Panda".

And Kylie likes to copy her moves.

Fierce!


Powerful!


If only you could hear the sound effects.


She likes to draw Tigress too!

Crafts

Kylie does an amazing job creating her own crafts. She loves construction paper and is really into glue and lately, masking tape. She has her own freestyle flair. But occasionally she asks for a more defined craft. We picked up this craft box and we give it two thumbs up. Follow this link and grab it from amazon because it's cheaper than it was in the store!




Here are just a few things she has made from the kit.








PS- The acorn shoe revolt continues. Kylie had 16 acorns in her shoes today!

Four and a half years old

I forgot to mention that Kylie turned 4 1/2 on Monday. A little ice cream and lots of hugs and kisses to celebrate.

Montessori Showcase

Last night we got to go to Kylie's school for her showcase. For an hour, the kids get to show the parents what they've been working on in their preschool class. The class is divided in half with the 3 year olds participating at 5pm and the 4 year olds, like Kylie, at 6 pm.

Last year, with a different set of teachers, the children got to pick what they wanted to do for showcase. Kylie surprised her teacher last year by picking things for showcase that she had never attempted before. This year, the children had a list of three things to show their parents.

Kylie's activities were the ABC Roll, bead stair and small color box. Kylie was supposed to do the ABC roll with her friend Landon. I was looking forward to watching Kylie interact with Landon on the task. Kylie can be so bossy and I wanted to see if she was that way with Landon. But Landon didn't arrive so Kylie got to do the ABC roll all by herself.


In the basket are all the letters (the vowels are in red) and Kylie placed them on this long roll.


She is so precise!


When she had all the letters in place, she opened a box of small objects and matched them with a letter--like "e" for elephant and "f" for fish.


She cracked me up when she whispered "This one is easy. My Mommy loves Y-Y-Yarn!"


It took a while to do all the letters and objects but Kylie worked quickly and steadily. I never saw her get distracted even with all the parents in the room.

Her second activity was the Bead Stair. Kylie got a rug and showed us the proper way to unroll it. Then she quietly got her activity from the bookshelf.



This activity had small numbered tiles and beads. She put all the tiles in order on her rug. Then she counted the beads and put them next to the matching tile.


When that was done, she gathered the corresponding worksheet and colored pencils she would need to complete the project. She traced her numbers and colored in the beads on the worksheet. Notice how the number two bead string is green and how she used the green pencil on her worksheet for that portion.

Once her teacher checked her work, she put that task away and got out the final one--the small color box. These were small tiles that Kylie matched together. I love how she lined everything up precisely with the top of the rug. This activity had a worksheet as well but we ran out of time before she could do it. Kylie started to get upset about not finishing her work but her teacher said that she could leave it out with her name tag on it and finish it the next morning.


Kylie was so focused. Her teachers said she was a hard worker in class. We are so proud of her and she was proud of herself!

Here In Florida...

Yesterday the temperatures got up to the low 90's. After school, Kylie and I went to the park and after playing, biking the loop several times, climbing ladders and such Kylie and I were dripping with sweat. She hooted with pleasure when she saw the fountain was on. I was jealous as I watched her get drenched. I had fun taking pictures though!

Over the weekend

Kylie got to go to a schoolmate's fourth birthday party. The invitation said to come as a fairy princess or pirate. There were about 20 kids attending at the birthday girl's house. Kylie said her favorite part was decorating the birthday card for her friend (pictured here), the magic show where she got to pet a green dove and a bunny rabbit and dancing with all the girls after eating cake.





And last night I was able to finish a few scrapbook pages I've been working on, including a page celebrating Kylie's third birthday (I'm still so far behind!). Click on an image for the credits.

First dentist appointment

Kylie had her first trip to the Dentist. We found a great pediatric dentist with a kid-friendly staff and office. The appointment started with Kylie brushing her teeth for dentist. She said Kylie did an excellent job! Then Kylie went away from Momma Karen and into treatment room for her x-rays. Kylie had her first cleaning, which was done with just a gritty toothpaste, and a flouride treatment. Kylie was completely at ease. Afterwards she got a certificate, a cute plastic ring and a sticker. We were so relieved it was an easy appointment.

Museum

Last weekend was a four-day weekend for us. Kylie's teachers had a professional development day on Friday and Monday was the Columbus Day holiday. Four-day weekends can make me a bit antsy for something new to do.

So we went to the Museum of Science and History (MOSH) for the first time. I liked the exhibit they had about the human body.




And Kylie liked all the dinosaur replicas.




When I asked Kylie her favorite part she told me she liked excavating the dinosaur bones (pictured here)....and riding the elevator. Sigh.