And Now For Plan B

On to plan B...

We've been on plan B for two full weeks now and it's going great.

We are now doing Rock Star Preschool. I shared the name with Frog and he loved it and then told me he wanted to pick the name next time.

I shared a lot of the basics with him like why we were starting with the letter L instead of A. We are both very taken with it. It's a great PRESCHOOL program with singing, routine and great game ideas. We're having a lot more fun now. Little Bird joins us in the singing and it's real easy to print off a page or two just like Frog's so she can join us. I have esecailly liked the crafts so far too. That's something I've been wanting to get better at doing with both kids. I don't usually know the songs in the packets but we have lots of our own that we substitute in.

I love having everything printed and set out for me. I still do extra activites after Rock Star Preschool and use the work boxes. Having something we always do makes it easier to plan the rest. There are a few things we do differently and I'll post on that at a later date.

Here is my "fancy" schedule sheet

Wednesday:

1. Pray

2. Rock Star

3. Writing Practice- Name- Box A

4. Count 100 Chart (we usually count to 20 using a pointer and then I will ask him questions like find number 24. Which number is bigger than 24?

5. More or Less activity- Box C

6. Play Doh- Box D- Frog builds letters with the play doh (example here).

7. Read Together

Thank you Carisa at 1+1+1=1

http://1plus1plus1equals1.blogspot.com/

Devotional Time and Prayer Every Day!

For devotional time with Super Frog and Little Bird each morning before school I decided to try something revolutionary...I'm using books we already own. I've picked up tons of cute little Bible story books, toddler devotions and poems over the years. We read them here and there but never in one sitting. As a result; we went through each book reading one or two pages everyday. Here are the books we've gone through so far: Special Times, Bible Promises for Toddlers, My Great Big God and Jesus is for me. Most of the books include Bible references and we'll look up at least one verse everyday.
For prayer time we used What Shall We Pray About? as a great jumping off point. Then we made our own list together and pick a few things from it each day to pray about.

This is not how I pictured it going!

My plan is not going well. There are a lot of things wrong with it. Probably one of the biggest ones is that I sit and have to plan everything (mostly the night before when it's late) with out much of a clear direction. I feel tired and overwhelmed and mostly don't want to do anything when I sit down to plan.

No, this is my bigger problem...I'm expecting too much out of my preschooler. We are siting and doing seat work; hard core writing practice, phonic drills and worksheets. Frog is frustrated I'm frustrated. Throw Little Bird in and it's too much.

I'm overwhelmed with house work and projects that are bigger than I first thought they would be. I need to stop and rethink some things.

Would you like to pray or have your tooth pulled?

This summer I carried around a notebook on our many travels and kept a running list of ideas and plans for our new school year. One of our last trips was to an Intervarsity Staff Conference, which is basically like a retreat for me-the wife of a staff worker. I enjoyed the fellowship and inspirational times of worship or speakers. I also enjoyed lots of time to myself in prayer and planning. Little Bird and Super Frog loved playing with the other staff kids and there was a team a wonderful babysitters :) A perfect combination!
One thing I heard clearly there was that Frog needed to learn to pray. Getting him to pray any time is like pulling teeth and I started to think about it...I don't think we've ever specifically taught him to pray. I was so encouraged to hear on a walk with my husband one night that he had also been burdened with Frog's lack of prayer--or willingness to pray.
I was reminded there at the retreat to keep the main things the main things. Frog will learn all those important school things in the years to come. I want to firmly establish the ideas and concepts that surround our faith and love of Jesus...and Lord willing that faith and love will be created in him too.
Earlier in the spring I had purchased a book at our MOPS resale (along with many other things--puzzles, games and more books). The book is What Shall We Pray About by Andy Robb. It's a cute book that gives suggestions of things to pray about with fun, friendly pictures. It was a great starting point for Frog. We read a page each day and talked about the pictures. We each chose one thing to pray about and prayed right then. Daddy also started requiring Frog to pick one thing to pray for every night. At first Frog would pick things like the wall...Daddy did a wonderful job of being graceful and thanking God in his prayer for the wall too, because it holds up our house and we need a house to live in...
Now that we are done the book Frog is into the routine of praying with very little prompting. We made a list of all the people around us, our family, all the activities we're involved in and much more to pray for. So now we take out that list every morning and I give him a few suggestions. I think the key is he helped me to make that list. I envisioned doing something real fancy with colorful pictures but our handwritten list is doing just fine.
Another note: Little Bird has picked up on our prayer time and often folds her hands and bows her head too. We ask her what she wants to pray for and usually she says, "Layla, hit car..." Which means she wants to pray for the lady that got hit by a car in the parking lot of the grocery store one day. It was a very minor injury but we helped by calling 911 (just as I was teaching Frog about dialing 911 for emergencies that week). I think it has made a big impression on her. We saw the ambulance come and everything. Again, the lady was not badly hurt but we pray for her to heal and know Jesus almost everyday.