October 2013 Preschool Themes and Activities

In October, I did not do as much every day with preschool as I had in September. But I did do some things. We had the following themes for Preschool activities: Apples, In the Kitchen, On the Farm and Halloween.

Apples

I planned more than we actually did, you can see some of the ideas on this pinterest board. The things we actually did were to taste different kinds of apples, make an apple pie from leftover apple slices, make apple jacks necklaces, make a letter A mini book, do apple print painting, read many apple books, make caramel apples and color apple pictures.We also made apple pie spice playdough, but not until the following week.

For the apple tasting, I made a sheet for identifying characteristics of the apples, so we could evaluate them. The kids were to decide if it was a crisp or soft apple, a tart or sweet apple, a juicy or dry apple and then rate them from favorite to least favorite. Since the classification was science-y, this was a great activity for everyone!

 Tasting the different kinds of apples was so much fun! . I had collected 14 different kinds of apples from 2 different grocery stores.

In using my apple cutter on the very first apple - the apple cutter broke. Oops. So it was back to using a knife the old fashioned way!

 So eating a slice of 14 kinds of apples can actually fill you up! We had leftover apples plenty to make into an apple pie.

In this photo, I had Princess line up the apples by color gradient, from darkest red to red/yellow to green. I didn't tell her yes or no on the color choices she made, it was interesting to see how she did it.

We enjoyed tasting the apples so much that the next day when friends came to visit, we did it again! I had bought at least 2 of each apple, not being sure how much I'd need - it turns out 1 of each apple was plenty but having extras made it possible for us to repeat the experiment which was lots of fun.

13 of the varieties. The Sweetango didn't quite make it in the frame.

 We had made necklaces previously with froot loops and it was a popular activity. Repeating it with apple jacks during apple week was an easy activity. This is a great one for helping with small object coordination since they thread them onto the needle and thread. You can use beads, but edible sugary cereal is so much more fun. I did buy some cheap large plastic needles for these activities, and then I just use yarn because I have so much of it.

Big brother wanted a sugar necklace too! He started making patterns at first but I think got impatient.

Mmm... tasty!

A picture of the two littles with their necklaces before they ate them.

Eating caramel apples. (Later in the month, but we still did it!) I bought the caramel apple kit at the store. Sheets of caramel you wrap around an apple and heat in the oven for a few minutes. I can do that!

I did not get a picture of apple print painting since I was busy supervising the painting. But I cut the apples in half sideways so that you could see the star inside and put out red, yellow and green paint on paper plates with some apples for each color, the goal being they would not get covered in paint but use one apple for each color print. Princess LOVED seeing the star in her print. Dinoguy enjoyed smearing his apple with paint around on his page but was intrigued when I showed him the print. I had them do the prints on large pieces of paper and figure we can use the paper as wrapping paper now if wanted.

There are tons of apple books at the library and we had fun reading many of them, from fiction stories like Apples to Oregon to non fiction about Johnny Appleseed and the basics of growing apples.

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In The Kitchen

I don't think it is a secret I like to cook and bake. I try to have my kids join me in this also so they will learn the skills and enjoy food preparation. So a kitchen theme seemed easy and fun, perfect for very pregnant mommy. We could cook! We could do food experiments!We also made a mini book for the letter K, colored food pictures and read some great food themed books like The Little Red Hen, Stone Soup and Who Stole the Cookies from the Cookie Jar?

The first thing we did is to make another batch of play dough and make homemade pumpkin pie spice and apple pie spice to scent the dough this time. So we mixed in spices, coloring and glitter. You can't buy dough this awesome. It did smell fabulous, and I enjoyed playing with the kids with it more since it didn't just smell like play dough. I dived the dough into three colors and we had red apple pie, green apple pie and orange pumpkin pie.

Playing with apple pie spice playdough and pumpkin pie spice playdough.

Princess has the green apple dough here.

Little guy experiments with his orange dough.

One of the cool kitchen experiments I've been wanting to try for a while is the density jar of layers. Like this one or this one. What I learned is that it is harder than it looks to make! Some of our layers mixed and wouldn't separate, so it takes some skills to make them look as awesome as the pictures. But it was neat. However one suggested shaking and watching it separate again - ours never separated again. Oh well.

Our density jar and their pasta pictures.

I did not have penne pasta on hand like I thought so instead of making pasta necklaces, we glued elbow macaroni to stick figure outlines. Playing with glue is always fun!

Of course we baked cookies and muffins this week but I didn't even think to take pictures. That is just too common of an activity I guess. :)

One of the simplest activities that surprised me on how much the kids learned was freezing a small toy in ice and then melting it out. Both kids were genuinely concerned that their toy would melt also!

There were more things I wanted to do that we didn't do that week but that just means we can have more kitchen experiments in the future!

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On The Farm

Honestly my reason for this weeks' theme was that we had a trip planned to a farm activity where the kids could see farm animals. I read them books about farm animals also this week but don't think we did much more than the field trip. There were other things happening like birthdays and Halloween prep. But I have great pictures from the field trip!

As in previous years, holding the baby chicks and sitting on the tractor were my kids' favorite things. Dinoguy wanted to pet all the animals while the rest weren't going near some of them. Goats sound more like what I expect from Sheep and the sheep sounds were kind of alarming. I learned about cold branding also which turns the horse hair white. That was interesting.

Scouts, Soccer and Some other pictures (September 2013)

Trainboy earned his wolf badge in September pack meeting. He was very excited, he also earned 5 arrow points and several belt loops.

Because Fixitman had a class scheduled at the same time as pack meeting, I had the joy of taking my two younger ones with me to pack meeting by myself. Enter the use of electronic babysitters. Coloring and reading have not worked in the past, but sadly the tablets didn't seem to keep them quiet enough either. But they did allow me to go up with him for receiving his badge so he could put the mom pin on me. I think there was a fingerprint smudge on my lens for these pictures because they all have a slightly out of focus sheen to them. Oh well.

Dinoguy also earned quite a few badges and things at this pack meeting. He had earned his arrow of light at this point but the crossover ceremony was planned for the following month.

He loves scouting!

Trainboy really enjoyed both practices and playing in the games and was quite into what was happening.

For the first time, Dinoguy and Trainboy chose different sports. Dinoguy chose to do flag football again but Trainboy decided he wanted to play soccer. The limitations of a camera phone are extremely apparent when attempting to photograph sports.

On the far left here, running to assist his teammates.

On the far left here also. Their team had the dubious distinction of getting the "hot pink" jerseys. I always argued it was a fluorescent shade of orange but that may have been my sunglasses distorting the color. They decided to call their team the Panthers.

I decided to take pictures of my pregnant self at 32 weeks pregnant.So here I am at age 32, 32 weeks pregnant. Being a number lover, 32 = 2^5, and I am pregnant with my fifth child. Yay for numbers!

One Sunday before heading to church. She asked for a picture.

Trainboy is ready for church with scriptures and tithing ready to go!

I love this snapshot, I just took it one day while we were waiting to pick up Dinoguy from violin lessons. Isn't he handsome?

Of course Princess ask me to take her picture too!

Princess is developing her photo bombing skills here.

FHE Lesson - Avoiding Bondage

Our next FHE lesson, it was my turn to be teacher again. I have been struggling to read the book of Jeremiah in the Bible recently and so I was drawn toward the talk by Quentin L Cook who expounds on some of the messages of Jeremiah and what we can learn and apply in our own lives. His talk was called Lamentations of Jeremiah: Beware of Bondage

My notes as I prepared

I spent a lot of time reading and re-reading this talk and then looking up all the footnotes. I also opened up my old Old Testament Student Manual and started really trying to understand Jeremiah better. It became quite interesting and I had to tear myself away and work on my lesson plan instead of just studying more.

Perhaps because my kids have recently been watching a Flintstones version of A Christmas Carol, but the idea of bondage immediately made me think of Jacob Marley in chains. I started thinking of other images that might help my kids understand the concept of things that can hold us in bondage and put together a series of pictures on my iPad to use at the beginning of the lesson. I had a picture of Jacob Marley, a guy in jail, a person smoking, a person buying lots of stuff with a credit card, people playing video games and someone using a social media site. I asked them what these people might all have in common.

Then I used a heavy rope and some small free weights to create some bonds like Jacob Marley's for one of my kids. I added a small weight to the rope describing an addiction or bondage they might have happen in their lives. Trainboy was my helper for this and he was a good sport, holding the weights and rope up. I thought this would be a good visual for the kids.

Next I had several quotes for reading and discussing, knowing that Little Guy would love handing those out to people to read. I probably had too many but there were so many great quotes in the talk!

Turning from the worship of the true and living God and worshipping false gods like wealth and fame and engaging in immoral and unrighteous conduct result in bondage in all its insidious manifestations.

Bondage, subjugation, addictions, and servitude come in many forms. They can be literal physical enslavement but can also be loss or impairment of moral agency that can impede our progress.

God intended that men and women would be free to make choices between good and evil.

Substituting the philosophies of men for gospel truth can lead us away from the simplicity of the Savior’s message. 

 Our primary emphasis, however, should always be to make any necessary sacrifices to protect our own family and the rising generation.

 Our challenge is to avoid bondage of any kind, help the Lord gather His elect, and sacrifice for the rising generation 

 We must always remember that we do not save ourselves. We are liberated by the love, grace, and atoning sacrifice of the Savior. 

 Lastly because I really liked the comparison and discussion of Jeremiah and Lehi, who were prophets in Jerusalem in the same period but had very different missions, I had some pictures of Lehi and the Liahona to go along with the last quote about following the light and keeping the commandments like Lehi's family followed the Liahona and I found a great connect the dots picture of the Liahona to use with the kids at the end of the lesson.

When Lehi’s family fled, they were led by the Lord’s light. If we are true to His light, follow His commandments, and rely on His merits, we will avoid spiritual, physical, and intellectual bondage as well as the lamentation of wandering in our own wilderness, for He is mighty to save.

My mom was here visiting because of our new baby when we had this lesson and she gave me a low five afterward, hopefully because she liked the lesson, not just because it was over! I am not sure I did a good job at focusing on one message only for the kids but I tried. I feel like I learned a lot about Jeremiah and how to liken his difficult messages to our life today and I hope I shared some interesting ideas with my family about avoiding bondage.

Grandma put new baby boy to sleep quickly. He was out!

We had mini cupcakes for dessert and played a quick game of Set for our activity before bed. Set is a great family game, Little Guy yelled "Set!" every two seconds the whole game. He also likes to hold any sets I found. Princess almost has the concept of what makes a set figured out and really tried. Fixitman handed her any sets he found while the older two easily find sets on their own at this point, often before I see them.

Arrival of new baby boy Duff (November 2013)

After my last post about the birth rally, you may be wondering how the birth of our fifth child went. I am happy to report he arrived quickly and safely and was quite healthy. I am still processing the birth in my mind and will write the birth story here on the blog later but here are some pictures of our new baby boy!

Rally to Improve Birth September 2013

Let's start with some background:

So here I am pregnant with my fifth child in a place I have not given birth in before. I have previously had two babies in a hospital setting and two at birthing centers. I personally preferred the birthing center environment and was happy to find one birthing center in the area. However after meeting with the midwife and doing some research, it turns out I was unable to have my prenatal care and birth experience at this birthing center because it did not accept my insurance and I could not pay several thousand dollars cash instead. The next closest birthing center was over an hour drive away. I would either have a ton of driving to do over this pregnancy and birth or I would need to choose an alternative. Alternatives include a home birth with a midwife (insurance doesn't cover, can't afford to pay myself), an unassisted homebirth (Fixitman and I both did not wish to choose this), temporarily moving elsewhere that had better care or a hospital birth.

I really prayed about this a ton. I did not know what to do! If ever someone felt they needed Heavenly guidance and inspiration about a difficult decision, it was me. I knew my wonderful husband would support me in whatever decision I made.

The impression came several times to meet with a certain doctor some of my friends had used. They all had positive experiences and had spontaneously told me what a great doctor he was. I resisted the impression and kept trying to figure out what to do. I tried to choose moving away and did not feel good about it. I tried to choose driving to the further away birth center that did accept my insurance and did not feel good about that decision. The impression came again that I should use this doctor. So reluctantly I called his office and scheduled a visit.

I told the doctor I was unhappy with having to give birth in a hospital setting and he recommended the birth center. I explained that I had already explored that option and it was unavailable to me. We talked for quite a while and I felt like we might be able to make it work at the hospital. He seemed willing to work with me and my desire for an unmedicated birth with as little intervention as possible.

Fast forward to late summer. Because of my experience having choices unavailable to me, I was doing a lot of research about birth interventions and standard practices and procedures. I came across a group called Improving Birth. Their goal isto make the best care available to all women. This did not mean telling women they could not use pain relief drugs or what kind of care provider to choose. It meant using scientific research to inform the practices of care providers all over the USA.

I really liked what I read and found many useful articles. They were planning a nationwide birth rally on Labor Day 2013 and I wanted to participate! However the closest planned rally to me was 90 miles away. I would either have to drive to it or start a rally in my own town. I resisted this idea because it was so outside my comfort zone. Eventually I decided to do it, feeling that my own lack of options in birth could be turned to some good by trying to bring change to my community. So I jumped into the uncomfortable planning with both feet. It was not easy for me, but I kept at it.

My kids mostly played on a playground at the local park and ate popsicles but they did hold up signs for a little bit. (It was HOT!)

Because I started planning with less than a month to go and did not get the word out all over the community and there turned out to be another birth event in my town on the same day that I had not known about, I didn't have super high attendance. I did have people join me though and we did get on a local TV station so we took the message to more people that way. I did feel happy about making the effort. I did my best and I shared a message I really believed in.I joined the movement, I tried. Overall the rally happened nationwide in more than 160 cities. Women everywhere want to have more options and better care when giving birth.

You can see more about the local rally and find great articles about improving the state of maternity care in this nation at my local rally page on Facebook.

You can watch the local TV station news clip at this link.

Yes I am planning to participate in the rally next year and hope to make it bigger and better. It is a peace rally intent only on helping bring education and information to the community. It is something I have a little bit of a passion about also. Women deserve better care! I have not gone into details in this post about what can be improved because this is my personal blog and that is not the point of this post. But you can find lots of details in the links I have created above.