Little sickies

Last weekend we had some sick kids. Katie had a fever the whole weekend and got as high as 104. JD started his coughing again. It got so bad that on Sunday he was coughing about every 3-5 seconds. He woke up about 10 minutes after his nap and was so tired. We called the advice nurse and she said to bring him in to the er since it was Sunday. The Dr heard some wheezing and gave him a breathing treatment. We also went home with an inhaler. I used it once in the middle of that night. He still has a cough here and there but not as bad. At the Dr there were these mickey mouse masks. JD and I brought one home for Katie.

Pink and Blue ice cream

On our way to Tahoe we stopped and got ice cream at a Rite Aid.  I wish our rite aid had the ice cream counter.  Katie got cotton candy ice cream and we saw they sell it at our rite aid. I bought these tiny ice cream cones and of course the kids loved it.  I just love JD's blue goatee.

Denise, Dina, me and the kids

The Zoo

John went on a weekend fishing trip with the guys while Dina and Sophie stayed with us.  We went to the zoo one day and had a great time.  JD and Sophie really enjoyed watching the otters.  It was feeding time.

JD is 2!

I am so behind on blogging and so on but...we had so much fun at home with just mommy, daddy, Katie and Grandpa on JD's actual birthday.  It is hard to believe that this little guy is two years old.  He is such a joy to have.  He brings us a lot of laughter, hugs and kisses.

Preschooler Activities

Since Katie is not attending preschool yet (she'll be 4 in less than 4 months) I am constantly trying to make sure that I come up with good activities for her. I am putting some of what we've been doing together so that I can easily find it again.  : )

Thanks to The Talking words factory and the Letter Factory both Katie and JD know their letters and the sounds they make very well.  We also do puzzles and have started the hooked on phonics for  kindergarten for Katie.

The best learning to write book that I've found it the one that we call her "Gorilla book" because it has a gorilla on the front. This is one of the Kumon books and teaches Uppercase Letters.  I love this one because it is very basic.  It has the letters organized according to how they are written.  For example all the letters with curved lines are grouped together and so on.  Most books have you trace the letter a couple times and then have the child write 10 or so of their own letter.  This does not work very well on someone who has never practiced their letters before.  The Kumon books just have you trace each letter about 3 times or so.  Then there is always a review too.

Online I am working on some of the sight dolch words.  You can print them out for free and there is a list of activities that we are going to try.

So here is what I'll be doing.  I printed out set 1 which looks like the above.  You can print it out from here.

Next I printed out the pictures of the nouns above. You can print yours from this link.

Then I will cut them all out and do an activity similar to activity one from this site.

I'll start with phrases instead of sentences.  For example I might start with the word "a" and have her place it next to each noun and say the phrase.  Then I'll add the word "big."  I'll progress from there and see where it goes.

Update:  Check out how I turned this into a Spanish activity!