LEAF CONFETTI NAME PRACTICE




























It's finally looking like fall around here. And now that it looks like fall, it's 80 degrees outside. Bah. Where is my hoodie weather?! 

ANYWAY, on the way out of the library today, Kin and I noticed a tree that was so radiant and gorgeous it really looked like it was glowing. I am a sucker for a hot-orange sugar maple! We dropped our books off in the trunk and took a little leaf-collecting walk (and a couple thousand pictures ;) ) before heading home. 


We were going to do a crushed-leaf name activity today from Pocket of Preschool and I already had her name printed on cardstock (check out the link, Jackie's got a great tool for making adorable printable name cards for crafts, and bonus, it's free!) but we just couldn't bring ourselves to tear up our beautiful leaf treasure, and that's when I remembered! 

EASY FRANKENSTEIN LANTERN


I know, I know. This Frankenstein craft is super late. Halloween is, what, 3 days away? Well, the good news is this adorable craft only takes ten minutes from start to finish! So, that pretty much means you have tons and tons of time to still get it done before the countdown to Turkey Day begins, right?! Let's do this!

I used to do this craft with the babies when I was a daycare lady. I had them paint white paper green to give them an extra step they could do themselves -- telling you this because if you have another little to keep busy during craft time, this could work for both kids at once.

LETTER A WEEK

It's officially our first letter of the week post and I want to make it as simple and easy to follow as possible. If it seems like it's not enough to fill up a whole four days, you are right. We have a theme of the month, too, so we mix in about half of both the letter and the monthly theme every week (this month is Healthy Foods.)

Anyway, I hope you find something here that will inspire you for your own Aa Week! 

SPOOKY BOOKS WE LOVE

I feel it's my duty to warn you, the holidays are coming and I happen to be a completely insane holiday lover. I actually refer to them as the "HOLLA-days!!" :) So, I hope I don't scare you off with my intense crazy obsession ;)

There, I feel better with that off my chest. I don't know how it works at your library, but at our library you have to reserve holiday books waaaaay ahead of time in order to get your mitts on any at all.  Because of this, I pour over other amazing blogs' booklists ( ahem, Cutting Tiny Bites) get out my phone and reserve away. 

We've discovered a bunch of new favorites this year and we are still a couple of weeks, and a whole bunch more reserves, away from the big spooky, amazing day!

HOW I PLANNED OUR FIRST YEAR OF PRESCHOOL

 
Hey y'all! We're BACK! For real this time. Have you missed us?! I've definitely missed writing and I can't wait to get back to it!

Before I get started with the preschool fun, I wanted to tell ya how I came up with our curriculum.  I am planning on homeschooling Kinley long after preschool and I don't plan on buying an all-out super serious curriculum until at least first grade. The idea is to take a late 80's approach to preschool, you know, the way WE were preschooled. No hours of tracing letter worksheets and drilling sight words. Just play, fun, art projects and more fun! Plus, there are so many awesome tried-and-true ideas from moms and preschool teachers floating around on Pinterest and in books and magazines, there is definitely no shortage of fun inpiration for teaching just about any subject you could ever possibly want to cover.

So, with all of these amazing ideas floating around, where exactly do you start? Well, I just chose a start date and an end date for our first year and got to planning! You've gotta start somewhere and I decided to begin with planning our monthly themes.