"Stained Glass Windows"

Every morning that I am home, Kennedy gets up and asks "What are we making for craft today, Mommy?". Cade asks, "Will you get me some cereal, Mom? And some orange juice? And some oatmeal? And some toast?". And Kennedy asks again, "What are we making for craft today, Mommy?".

It's a good thing I'm the daughter of a preschool teacher, and an avid Pinterest peruser, and a person who keeps anything that might be able to be turned into a craft, and the crazy woman who picks up clothes pins and popsicle sticks because "we might need them at some point"!

Yesterday, we made our own stained glass windows. I'm pretty sure this was a project my mom did in preschool at one point. We had all of these little pieces of tissue paper from the package that we got the other day.

The kids put new window clings on the windows in their rooms and we were left with thin, square, clear sheets of plastic. It didn't take long for me to put the two together.

She looks pretty excited, right? Considering she continued to ask me the remainder of the day if she could make more, I think she enjoyed it. Apparently I couldn't catch that with the camera, though.

Cade got a little help with his...Kennedy decided to make a door and two windows...

Hmmm...I wonder what I'll come up with for tomorrow...

Kennedy's School Time

A couple of weeks ago I updated you on Cade's latest accomplishments on the potty training thing. Then last week, I updated you on his slide away from progress. At this point, I'm feeling like when we make the final push, he'll be up for it. But, it's really hard to make that final push when we don't have any underwear for him to wear yet...so, we'll wait a few more weeks until we're out of school and until the underwear have arrived in the mail...
In the meantime, Kennedy has been making progress on learning to read. She also got to pick out a package of stickers when Cade did, and I struggled for a day or two figuring out how I could give her the stickers without earning them until I came up with an idea.

I decided to make her a sticker chart, as well. So, I put down a few words that she could sound out and then helped her to read and write each one. She knows all of her letters and sounds, so we just need to work on putting them together now!

Our schedule has gotten even more busy lately because we go to school most afternoons that I don't work so that I can work out with a friend. That cuts into the time that we had been using for school, but we are getting more work done in the morning now that Cade is becoming more interested in "working" too. On the one afternoon a week that I am not at school, we try to do a craft of some type. This week's is the red and green paper chain to count down to Christmas.

I have also been working on my own lessons: shooting manual with my camera so that I can get some good shots inside now that the weather has gotten cold and creating bokeh with Christmas lights...I'm a little bit addicted to my camera right now!



School Time

My new schedule started this week (though it's a little off still these first 2 weeks), and yesterday was my first day off with the kids...not a single part of the day went as planned. Because Kennedy did not get into Kindergarden this year, I am planning to homeschool her on my days off. We managed to have "school time" for all of about 30 minutes the entire day. She got frustrated, so we had to take a break, then Cade was being a distraction, then I got frustrated and had to take a break...we didn't even leave the house all day and yet we couldn't manage more than a half hour! I guess we'll build up from there!

Thankfully, today has been far more successful. We managed about an hour this morning, and she came to me and said she was ready for school about an hour before I was ready to get started! Then we spent about an hour and a half in the afternoon, and she even started to get it! We're feeling better today!