Fire trucks, pumpkins, and Tot school oh my!

So we have been so busy around here lately and I have not been in the blogging mood. We are finally getting this place in order so we can put it up for sale and it looks so good. Now we just have to keep it this way which is not easy with two little ones running around.

On a side note I feel I have to address our pictures... I have noticed most of the time my boys are not dressed or half dressed... Ok we do get dressed everyday. Most of the time we do school in the morning before we head upstairs to make beds and get ready for the day. A also dislikes pajamas most of the time and likes to sleep in his pull up so in the morning I usually do not put him in them until we get dressed. He is also potty training which helps explain the pants missing most of the time. With M, he is a terror to change and get dressed. He wants nothing to do with it so a cute little clothed bottom you get to see most of the time. Ok... so we do get dressed just in case anyone else noticed that most of my pictures my boys are missing clothing.

We have been doing a pumpkin theme this month and A is loving it. He has learned the 5 little pumpkins song so most our activities I have tired to base around that.

we made a five little pumpkin folder which I used to keep all of his worksheets 

Our pumpkin craft A made for his favorite neighbor Miss Barb. 

Some of our Pumpkin worksheets and activities... Thank you Confessions of a Homeschooler!

 Here we were sorting pumpkins into the correct cup. Each pumpkin had a number on it. It was fun for oh about 30 seconds and then A decided it was time to put them all in one cup and mix them up... I am so glad he has so much patience (insert sarcastic tone here).

This worksheet, A had to color the 3 pumpkins and them I cut them out and he had to glue them in order, Large, Medium and small. He actually did really good but was a little confused since he was not familiar with the word or concept of "medium".


I was so excited to introduce this simple beginning pattern worksheet for A. I had no clue if patterns were even in his range of ability but he got it! I had to slow him down and repeat the pattern a few times but I was so happy that he was able to comprehend.

 Here is the sweetest picture. A was so excited he completed the worksheet. I am so glad he gets proud of himself. 

Here we were sorting pumpkins sizes again. A tolerated this one a little bit longer but as soon as I got up to take care of our Itty Bitty, that was the end. 

We continued on our slow lesson of Creation. We are on day 6 now. A had to color a six and them place stickers on it. He also did a worksheet where he had to place his fingerprints on. He really enjoyed this. 

This may not look like much but to my sweet little A, he had spelled his name. In sheer excitement he ran over to me in the kitchen yelling "mama mama, me spell A...." 

A fun game we played was a color hop. I called out a color and my little jumping bean had to hop to that color. 

some miscellaneous activities we did were...

"help" his little brother with his school

practice cutting

cut and paste dino number matching worksheet

We have also had many field trips over the last couple of weeks. 

We had a play date at the zoo with our good friends Jessica, her two little ones, Angela and her new baby. Us mama's got to talk cloth diapers which we all do and love and the little ones, got to play. 

We also attended the open house at the fire station right down the street from us. To A this was as good as Christmas morning. A LOVES anything "fire truck man".

Our township had a Halloween event for young kids at the local park. They got to walk a path and get candy, pick a pumpkin out of a pumpkin patch, and have cider and donuts. I think as Christian parents we have struggled with how much "Halloween" we allow into our children's life.  As A and M get older I am realizing that they are surrounded by "Halloween" and we don't want to seclude them but edit and filter what they participate in. So for right now our take is they can dress up in nothing "dark", We avoid typical Halloween type items such as skulls, ghosts, vampires and such, and we participate is church events instead of trick or treating. 

Cider Mill

Lastly on one of our nicer days, I took the boys to one of our parks. A is starting to get more daring which means this mama's heart is starting to jump out of my chest. A did really good but did get his feet caught under him while trying to go down a slide and face planted on the ground. Luckily he was ok, but that was enough for me. How am I going to survive this age!

And here was just a sweet (rare) moment between the boys. 

Fall is here!

Well the fall is here and we could not be more excited. Its so nice being able to take the boys outside anytime of day instead of at 8:00 in the morning before it gets to hot. Its has been so nice being in sweatshirts and jeans. The boys are soaking up all of the outside time and love playing in their sandbox any chance they get.

Tot school has been very informal for past couple of weeks. One week A was totally anti-school and wanted nothing to do with workboxes. This past week daddy went back to school and is working late nights at his other job so we are all adjusting back to a crazy schedule. We have managed sneak in some planned activities and have done lots of informal learning.

A who was totally anti-counting and anti-numbers has again showed me that just because he WONT do something doesn't mean he doesn't know how. For awhile now he has easily been able to count to 4 (when he wants to and never on command or when asked). This week since its been so crazy for all of us, he has had a lot of free play. Well the other day while playing with his puzzles (when I mean playing, I mean lining them up on the floor and hopping on top of each one. That's my A always thinking outside the box) I heard him counting. He would say 1-2-3-4, 5-6, 8-9-19. He was screaming it over and over as he hopped from one puzzle to the next. I was so amazed that he even knew the sequence and didn't mind at all that he was skipping 7. Even last night he started saying 8-9-10 in front of his dad and his dad was shocked. Just goes to show that toddlers retain a lot of information regardless if they l let you know or not.

I have been working on our printables because I am really working on writing with A. He has mastered a circles at about 1 1/2 so now we are working on control of the pencil. He is doing really well for the most part and loves tracing but lacks the patience to go slow and concentrate.  A did manage to make his very own A and was so proud. Usually I help him but he did it all on his own this time.

The learning placemat was a hit with A and he wasted no time identifying the letters he knew and telling me all about the pictures on it. I have taken a different approach with A on counting and numbers. I know now he does in fact know how to count and knows the sequence of the numbers but I do not think he gets the concept of what it means. He can tell you if you have one of something or two of something but when he is asked to count something he does not understand to apply a number to an object. I have decided to just present his numbers to him with groups of objects so he can visualize how many belong. I have not pushed him to count things and just let him do it on his own time. Along with grouping on the placemat I also did an activity for him where I put each number on an index card and then used little dot stickers to show how many with that number. I had A place pom poms on each sticker. To my surprise he actually liked it for a little bit.

Out outside time is going to be coming to an end soon so as of right now we are spending as much time as we can (meaning and much as I can take before someone runs off or doesn't listen) outside. A learned how to roll down a hill the other day and thought this was very fun. He has been enjoying looking for the ducks in our nearby pond, but since its colder weather they have all went to Florida or Taco Bell as A will tell you.