School Has Begun

So, as most of you know I decided to keep the girls home from preschool this year and do it myself. It has been quite the adventure so far and it's fun. I had a call with Headstart and when big E overheard she said "But, mommy I wanted you to teach me!" So, what is a mother to do with that? Well, I had already made up my mind what I was going to do and that was to keep my girls home their last year and teach them myself.

I have an Associate of Arts Degree in Early Childhood so I'm perfectly suited for teaching preschool and I'm loving doing it! Our first week we did an All about me theme.
*This post may contain affiliate links, I receive a small commission when purchases are made at no cost to you. 

 I had them draw/color their favorite outfits. Here is little E with her Elsa dress! She wore that dress out and has been begging me for another. We'll have to see what "Santa" might bring her this year for Christmas.

 Big E drew her version of her Anna dress! She loves that dress. It's been mended many, many times, but she still wears it. Maybe "Santa" will bring a new one for her for Christmas this year.

 This is Little E on our first day of school at her desk. I was able to borrow desks that were not being used from the Academy where my husband teaches and they work wonderfully for the girls and they love them!

 Here are both girls posing for their first day of school photo behind their desks. They were so excited to start school. Grandma made them special school outfits to wear 5 different ones. A cherry one, sunflower one, Shopkins one, Hello Kitty one, and a Watermelon one. I believe some others may be in the works with some material that I had on hand. They love their school outfits as do I. My mother is an excellent seamstress and does such beautiful work. These outfits take her about 45 minutes to whip up. If any of you would be interested in ordering she does take orders. You can contact me and I'll put you in contact with her.

 This is Big E posing on the first day of school! She's super excited to get started!

 At the end of our first week we did self portrait paintings and the girls had an absolute blast with that. They had been asking all week when we were going to paint. We actually got to paint during our library day, which was a surprise, but then they also got to do this at the end of our school day. Above is Big E and below is Little E.

 Here are both girls with their self portraits they were so involved in their projects I had a hard time getting them to pose for these pictures.

 Here I was able to get some in action shots. We started studying the letter Ii this past week so we made little books with the Letter "I" and made books that went along with the short vowel sound for I. This coming week we'll do the Long vowel sound.

Here they are doing their math sheet. We were focusing on the number 5 this past week. They can count really good up to 10 and sometimes even beyond that. They sometimes do tend to add in extras that are not there, but we're working on it.

I've created a read aloud list of Letter I books from the Letter of the Week book list which you can find here and you can find my Youtube Read Aloud List here.

A most awesome potty training product!

http://www.pottymd.com?aff=5

Photo credit: PottyMD.com 

As a mom you'll understand the ups and downs of potty training! Well with twins it's doubly different. You would think it would be easier since they have a sibling to help and encourage them, but nope! Big E was pretty easy to potty train and did very well and has done very well. She freaks out if she wets the bed or has an accident. However, Little E has been a different story. She's such a busy little critter that I think she just gets involved and forgets it's time to go.

A few months ago I had the opportunity to get a kit from PottyMD for potty training. And I jumped on it! It has been awesome and has helped Little E tremendously!

Little E loves her Potty Monkey! (It makes different sounds too and has different settings on the battery box, you just have to try out different settings) 

The kit comes with this adorable fluffy monkey who talks and says he has to go potty and asks if you have to go too! There is also a potty that makes the flushing sound when the button is pushed. Let's just say that for awhile that monkey went everywhere with Little E and it made Big E a bit jealous!

One of the things that we were struggling with was bed wetting and guess what?? Little E has been bed wet free for several weeks now! Our kit came with the Wet Stop 3 Alarm that you hook up to them at night. One end kind of looks like a phone jack but has a highly sensitive sensor on it that picks up any dampness including if they pull up undies too quickly after going potty. The other part the box will vibrate and set off an alarm when it senses wetness. It did the trick. Although it seemed to scare the girls and I think that also helped to cure the night time wetting because Little E finally decided that she didn't want to have to wear the alarm at night so she started making herself get up to go potty. So now, no more wearing the alarm and no more waking mommy up because she wet the bed. Yipee! I'm so thankful for having found this amazing program. I highly recommend it. It took us a couple of months for it to take effect but it worked!
Click here to purchase or view on their website!

*Please note, I did receive the whole kit for free in exchange for this review. However, the opinions stated here are my own and are true.

A 4 Year Old's Summer

I keep forgetting I have this family blog to be updating. But, maybe I'll post more here than on social media coming up.

This summer seems to have flown by and now it's the weekend before school begins. Hubby goes back to work full time on Monday and I will be teaching the little's at home this year. We are still at Carolina Christian Academy however, I am not teaching at the academy this year. Hubby is teaching US History and Life Science as well as supervising in the ACE learning center for Junior and Senior High school. He's excited to get back into the swing of things and the girls are delighted to be starting preschool with mommy!

This is our preschool corner. It's part of mommy's room!

 These are bulletin boards I did for Hubby's classroom since he's teaching Life Science and US History this year. I so enjoy doing creative things like this. I found the ideas on Pinterest, but added my own twist. (You can follow me here!)

The academy does offer a K4 program for 4 year olds, but the girls just weren't ready to go this year. In fact, not that we base our decisions on their opinions because come on they're 4, but I did ask them if they wanted to go to school or stay home with mommy and they chose mommy. So I get the pleasure of teaching them this year and I'm excited and a little nervous about it. We'll use the K4 Abeka program as well as Letter of the Week and other curriculum as we go. We're starting out with an "All about Me" theme in which I'm hoping to teach them about writing their names.

 Little E loved this twirly thing and climbing all over!

 Mommy got to enjoy some time at the park with the munchkins this week while Daddy had staff in-service. We enjoyed seeing the fish in the pond, playing on the playground and even meeting new friends. They love being outside and it's amazing what it has done for their growth. Of course the heat makes it difficult as it was around 90 degrees this day, so we ended up grabbing some chicken nuggets and ice cream after our park adventures. :)

Little E is definitely a mama's girl and loves to snuggle with me any chance she gets. She cozied right up for this picture. Even though she is a lot more on the go, she does have her moments when she just wants cuddles and snuggles. 

 After crossing this bridge Little E said she didn't like bridges anymore. She's not much for heights or things she can see through and walk across. (which neither is mommy.)

Big E was all about climbing and swinging and hanging on the monkey bars this day. And she did awesome! Of course mommy helped, because it's a scary thing swinging on those monkey bars. They do it often here at home on the playground, but need help. Big E's favorite color is pink and Little E's favorite is blue except she keeps switching and liking pink too, so who knows! LOL