Blurry Thursday

Well, I snapped a few photos today and we managed to squeeze in a little school work despite the sad news we received first thing this morning. Daddy Monkey's dear Uncle (Unk) passed away. We seem to be in a state of shock here as he seems to young to leave this earth, but we are each called in our own time, right? He was a very kindhearted and generous man. In fact, the boys just received 2 new Cars puzzles from him yesterday delivered via the grandparents. May we all remember our time here with loved ones is short.

So what did we accomplish today? We started with some tracing. These patterns were much harder for Big Monkey. I'm hoping to get him re-interested in coloring maybe with markers as I think this would help him with his pre-writing skills development. He seems to be having a slightly hard time holding the markers and getting them to go where he wants. He tries though and seems to enjoy it.

Then we moved on to a new activity. Count and clip is what I have been calling it and Big Monkey did a great job. The hardest part for him? Squeezing the clothespins hard enough to open them. Again, some fine motor skills that we will be working on this year. Anyway, he counted the items on the wheel and selected the clothespin with the correct number to clip on.

Oh and yes, all my printables seem to be a shade of red/pink right now. It's not just you or your computer. My printer is clogged or broken or something and Daddy Monkey will be bringing our color laser printer from storage next week. Just wait until you see the pink monsters will be studying next week! It's comical, especially when some of the printouts say "the yellow monster..."

We read our two stories for the week and did another activity that I did not take a photo of and cannot now remember for the life of me. Helpful, right?

Then we tried out a new motor skills activity. Big Monkey got to "walk the line." I put down a piece of masking tape on the tile and had him practice walking heel to toe on it. At first he just wanted to run back and forth along the line, so he did. Then I said, "put one foot in front of the other." Well, he took that literally. He put one foot down on the line, then put the other foot in front of it. Then he stepped back and put the opposite foot down on the line and then put the other foot in front. Ooops on my part! I think I need to be a little more specific. He eventually got the hang of it and even let me take some photos.

I let him finish the day playing with our wood spoons and wood eggs. Of course, despite all the activities today, he still kept saying he wanted to do more school. I think I'll need to have extra activities on hand in future weeks in case he keeps asking for more. I take that as a good sign though. At least he's stopped helping himself to my supply bins trying to find his own activities. We are working on learning that mommy determines what activities we do while we're in the school room.

Oh yes, and I'd like to mention my newest obsession with this homeschooling adventure. I bought a laminating machine! I was laminating with those self stick laminating sheets before - so not the way to go! I got a Scotch Thermal Laminator  and some generic laminating pouches. They work great! The laminating pouches come out thick and sturdy and I've even starting laminating things like the paper money that came with our toy cash register and even my grocery lists (you can make a master list blank or not and then use dry erase pens to reuse one list over and over). It's great and oh so much fun (in case you didn't already know I was a little strange).