Christmas Parties

Christmas is always a fun time of get togethers and rejoycing together the "Reason for the Season", but it seems as our kids have gotten older, we have more things during the Holidays!

Here was our schedule this month:

•  December 4th - Ornament Exchange @ Church with the ladies (Jenna went as my date and it was SO much fun!)
• December 9th - Legacy Christmas Party -- which is what I will blog about in a bit.....
• December 10th - Sunday School Party - which was at MY house! O-o
• December 11th - Jason's Work Party (SO FUN)
• December 12th - Legacy Staff Christmas Party (also a TON of fun!)
• December 14th - Class Christmas Party at school (and also a Geometry final for me to give and Joshie's class party all at the same time as my 6th graders' party)

Here's a few pictures from my outing with my little princess, Jenna;

 She was so excited to dress up like a "princess" and wear her special dress her grandma honey bought her for her birthday. She has SO much fun with me listenin to the music....

 Eating dinner and of course cupcakes....

 And we got a beautiful new ornament to hang on our Christmas tree!

Less than a week later we had Joshua's Christmas party for school. It was neat as he and his other pre-k/kindergarten classmates sang a few songs for everyone. Here's a few pictures from that event:

Josh and his buddy, Sage

Waiting for the performance to start

Josh and his awesome music teacher, Mrs. Cone

Sage, Josh and Ben getting ready to start

 And what performance would be complete without a special clip from the actual performance?? Below are two videos of them singing....As you will see, Josh is pretty enthusiastic about performing. LOL

And lastly, we ended the school year with class parties. Although I wasn't able to attend, I had lots of friends that were able to take some pictures for me. Here's a few class pictures from their PreK party:

And what a perfect gift he made at his party for our tree!

I am so thankful for the school we go to and teach at. It is such a blessing to us. These kids he is growing up with are sure to be life long buddies and special friends!



Finishing Strong

We finished school yesterday and I have SO many posts to write to update you all! First, let's talk about Josh and his karate!

Josh has been taking karate at school for one of his electives. He has an hour after classes on Monday's and an hour during Friday enrichment. He has loved it! This past Friday he tested for his new belt - a white belt with a gold stripe. To achieve this new belt, he had to show mastery in some kicks and blocks and break a piece of wood with a certain type of kick. Since I was teaching during this time, a friend captured this movie for me:

Way to Go Joshua!!!!

Ki-Ya!

We're a month into school..... and it feels like it we are loving all the things we get to do! One of the "enrichment" activities Josh is in is Karate. He has it Monday's after classes (so he's VERY tired on these days, being in school from 8:30am to 4:15pm), and on Friday mornings. Yesterday, he earned a white stripe on his belt! I think you need two or three stripes to move up in rank. At any rate, he is not only doing well, but is having a BLAST!

The coolest thing is that he practices right below my classroom in the gym. It happens to also be when I am switching math classes, so I brought my camera to sneak a quick video of him in action:

Nature Walk {Picture Blog}

One of the great things about attending a UMS school is that on Tuesday's and Thursday's you have enriching assignments to compliment the work done at school and to reinforce what teachers teach. One of Joshie's assignments today was in Science. He's been learning about the difference between living and non-living things. So his Science assignment was to go on a nature walk and find three living things and three non-living things. This is what we found as we walked to the mailbox:

"Going on a nature walk was sure fun! I can't wait until I'm big enough to do it too!" ~Jayden

Meet The Teacher

 Thursday evening was Meet the Teacher night at our school. Normally I have the kids stay home with Jason. This year, Joshie is starting Pre-K at Legacy, so he got to meet his wonderful teacher, Mrs. Kim Wright. We kind of laugh because Kim actually was in the childcare dept. when I started, so she has known Josh since he was 10 months old! Are you ready, Kim, for our spunky little guy?

Here's his classroom where he will be taking Kinder math, Kinder language, learning bible, science and history.

 He is excited that Sage, Jenna's best friend, is at his table for class....

 Math meeting board

He woke up today and said: "Today is Saturday, which means tomoorow is Sunday, and then MONDAY!!!!" Can you tell he's excited?  ;)

"Suck It Up"

If you've played sports, then you probably have been told to "suck it up" at some point. It comes when you think you can't give any more... when you have to be pushed to go beyond your physical limits an press on.

That's how I've felt the past two weeks. As I mentioned in my last post, it's inservice, end of summer school, teacher training and school is starting on Monday.

Needless to say, things get neglected

I stay up until 1 am

But I have to press on for them

Let's do this....AND PRESS ON!!!! Because the rewards outweigh the sacrifices....

T-I-R-E-D

It's that time of year again....
I've been staying up past 10 o'clock every night the past few days.

If you're a teacher, you know what I'm talking about.

School starts Monday.

My kids are tired.

My hard-working husband is tired.
And I'm beyond tired....

New blog posts coming soon - I haven't forgotten, just been SUPER busy.

Seasons....

Have you ever noticed that grocery stores have seasons? You have the Halloween season, Fall season, Christmas season, Valentines, St. Patrick's Day, Easter, Summer season and my favorite...Back to School Season!

My oldest, Josh (4) will be starting Pre-K at Legacy this fall and needless to say, he is SO excited! We start in mid-August, so stores are getting their school supplies sales on early....here's what we got!

Josh's favorite thing from the list

What kids doesn't love markers!

We got EVERYTHING on our list for his classroom AND even got a few khaki shorts for his uniform that were on clearance! Hey, wherever there's a deal - get it!

And of course, a video of Joshie practicing his name for Pre-K because he couldn't WAIT to write on the white board! LOL

 What teacher DOESN'T like colorful dry erase markers? I found CRAYONS and they are quite possibly the coolest thing. ever. :)

Storytime with Josh {Video Post}

Josh will be starting Pre-K in the fall at the school I teach at, Legacy Prep. Christian Academy. He has been with me there since I started teaching there, 4 years ago, which means he's technically been a Legacy Lion since about 11 months. He will be five in September....and CAN'T wait to start school. Recently he has wanted to learn how to read...

I mean R-E-A-D....not just baby stuff...He wants to learn the words to his story books. He wants to read everything he is around that has letters on it.

Since I teach 5th through 8th graders math, do you think I know how to teach someone how to read??? I honestly thought that I'd be lucky and just let his wonderful Pre-K teacher do it next year.... HA! I was wrong! He has my zest for learning and also picks up things very easily.

I picked up a book while at Kroger for Kinder readers. It's a "Step 1" book and has many sight words in it for beginner readers. I thought this would be a good idea to learn the sight words first and at least expose him before starting school. Plus it makes for a good inscentive for good behavior. Tonight was night #3 with the book. I was planning on teaching him one new word each night...First we learned "go", then "he" and tonight "is". After reading with him tonight, I had to get the camera and record it again...I was amazed....

The video doesn't do justice - he was trying to read "through" the camera at times and also started to not pay attention. So after you watch the video (grandma, tell grandpa to click on the link in the email to the blog so you can watch it on the computer, and make sure your speakers are on), keep in mind that this wasn't as good as the time right before.. Leave a comment, I'd love to read them!

Animals and Clocks

Julianna has been practicing her animal sounds. I think she needs some work on a few of them... Here's a video of her practicing....

Joshua has been learning time (he knows daddy gets off at "five, zero, zero"), so I decided to teach him some basic times so he could see them on our analog clock. He knows 12 o'clock, 3 o'clock, 6 o'clock, and 9 o'clock so far. It's cool too because he knows that we usually eat at 6 o'clock and nap time for him and Jenna is at noon, so he feels like a big boy looking at the clock and telling the time. :) Here's a video of what he knows:

Ready for School!

I decided to get the kids an actual "backpack" for school since the little back packs that have been serving as "interim diaperbag" have become too small to fit in there a day's supplies of diapers, wipes, extra pair of clothes, lunch, and blankets for nap time. I end up taking their backpacks (times two), each kids lunch box, each kids blanket and a small case that has their milk in it for nap time in a separate cooler thingy since it won't fit in the backpack either. I end up making a separate trip just for their stuff on school days. It takes about 10 minutes just to get the car loaded!!! Well, not anymore!

I found these backpacks on sale at Wal-Mart (I refuse to pay more than $10 for a backpack that my toddler is going to use) and they have wheels so the kids can "carry their own weight"!! LOVE IT! And as you can tell - they did too! We can't wait to use them tomorrow at school....

First Day of School

Yesterday was the first day back to school. I love this time as I get to meet new students and get to know my past students a little better. I am blessed because I got to follow the 6th grade class from last year up to 7th and 8th. All in all the day went really smooth and its nice to be back in a routine again.

Yesterday was Joshie's first day back too. Granted he's not quite oold enough for Pre-K, he goes to school with me and is learning lots of stuff. I think he's learned more things than kids at other places, but I am just amazed at what Gina and Kim do with these little ones.

For example - by the end of this year he will know al his numbers to 10, the colors (red, blue, pink, brown, black, white, grey, yellow, orange, green, white, and purple), shapes (circle, square, oval, triangle, star, etc) and lots of songs too. Here's the first thing he made in school. I have to say that as a mom I am so proud of him! He knew to use blue for the water, and that the fish go inside the fish bowl (I think #5 is jumping out though). He's growing up so fast!!! Before you know it he'll be reciting the quadratic equation! (just kidding!)