Life With a 3 Year Old

Today I share a little of what I get to see every day with the life of a 3 year old boy.

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Little boy takes a pint jar and fills it with a tea towel - so half in, half out. He proceeds to toss the jar on the bed and throws himself away. Then he makes a huge dramatic ka-boom sound with motions and falls limp to the bed in mock death - his eyes closed and his tongue drooping to one side. Then repeats because he can see me laughing my head off.

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Noah was playing a game of fishing off the side of my bed last night. { I was trying to read } He throws his tea towel line off the bed and pulls it back in. Removes his imaginary fish and throws the line back out. Again, he brings his line back in and then starts wildly thrashing about and yelling that a "shark eating my butt, shark eating my butt".

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Here's two ways that I use a magnetic board with alphabet letters:

1. have the letters all mixed up all over the place. Put the board down leaning on a wall and call that the ocean - then label the bed as a boat. Ask your 3 year old to dive down to the bottom of the ocean and bring back a particular letter. Repeat for all the letters that he knows.

2. have all the letters all mixed up all over the place and then call them out one by one in alphabetical order and line them up as you go.

Noah Can Hold a Pencil

When your 3.5 year old can hold a pencil properly.

I bought him some new super big pencils designed to help beginner writers...

 Now that we have our pencil grip we'll just have to strengthen them up a little. So exciting because of what will come thereafter. The Writing Road to Reading teaches writing { phonograms } with learning to read.

Preschool - Touch Point Numeral One

Even though I feel that I've transitioned from early learning to being more relaxed, I have discovered that there are still some eager learners out there.  I suppose all children are eager, but perhaps the shift is in the scheduling and delivery.  :)  Either way, I do purpose to be more relaxed with Noah over the next 3 years, but today when he asked for "school" my philosophy wouldn't let me turn him down.  Oh, no.  No good opportunity should be wasted.  So I set this up for him.

Touch Math - Touch Point Cube for the numeral 1.

You can grab a FREE copy from their website by clicking HERE.

In fact, you'll notice that they have a whole stack of them to pick up.

You can print them out in color or black and white.

I put it together for him. 

I also pulled out a fresh new page/pack of numerals to pair up to the cube activity.  If you never buy anything else from them, buy a pack of these.  They're awesome!  So handy to have.

Then after we looked at the cube and the card for the numeral 1 I set up a salt tray for him to practice writing the numeral.  I always keep a separate container of cooking salt just for tray work.  You can use it for all sorts of things.

After that, school for him was over.

But I think he did listen in on Charlottes SOTW II story for the day.  lol

School Update

Well my little chookies we've finished our school year commitment and now we'll be on holidays until January.  It's going to be LONG holiday.  In all truthfulness though they'll still do the odd thing, in particular they'll continue reading.  We'll just be dumping all the textbook/written work.  So I guess they'll still do some math as well - since they can do that online.


My baby is almost 2.  Almost.  He'll be 2 next week.
I am hoping to give him his first haircut the day he turns 2.
He's never had one yet.

Even though we are on holidays, I am not one to let good opportunities go, so...

Here's my next years planner all good to go:

I've also been particularly busy on YouTube.  I've got all sorts of things up there now:  

Grocery Hauls

Minimize Mondays

Meals & Cooking

School Show and Tell

I've just started a Weekly Update one as well.

So yes, do pop in and visit.

My YouTube Channel

Thanks for visiting chookies.

Random Catch Up

Charlotte finished her Beginning Sounds workbook.  Yay!!

She also completed Lesson 15 in Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.

I've tried doing video's a couple of different ways now - my camera, my laptop, hubbies phone....... so I'm still trying to work out which one yields a better video.

Noah having a cute moment.

A drawing by Phebe.

Thanks for visiting.

Week 22

The colder months are now upon us.  It's even started snowing up on the hills.

What better time to enjoy savoury cheese scones on those cold, wintry wet afternoons.

Noah loves to have me take photos.

Charlotte loves to do her maths on her own.  It makes her feel accomplished.

Here she is with her Touch Numerals.

The girls are growing as well.  

Phebe 9

Chloe and Phebe

Chloe and Phebe

Thanks for visiting.

Week 17

A paper plate craft we did recently:

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This week we made the jump to have our online maths subscription to CTC maths transferred over to the Australian curriculum - mathsonline.  Same company, pretty much the same thing, just set for the different countries.  I figured that since Chloe is going to be doing high school { homeschool } next year I should sort of start lining that up.  

Speaking of highschool:  I already have her English and Science organised too.  The only subject I haven't settled on is History.  Should we take a detour year?  Should we do Australian History?  Yeah, I haven't settled on that one, yet.

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Books we're reading to Miss 4.

and she did her FIRST ever test:

The older girls....

Bible - Read, Outline, Write, Illustrate { trace the picture }.

Favorite photo of the week:

This week I'll be linking up with:

I hope you will join us.

Week 14

This week Chloe started a new English workbook.  I did start her below her grade level when we first started using this series, but she is doing great in the catch up department.

Some Bible time:

Noah continues to grow.

Vocabulary was also on the books this week as well.

Looks like we had a slack week, but yeah, nah, we still got on with the work.

Anyway, this week I'll be linking up with:

I hope you will join us.

Week 5

Last week we took a few days off and went camping.  It was our first time as a family in a tent.  It went great.  We can't wait to do another one.

As you all know I also use our get-aways to peruse strange second hand shops for books.  Yes, I found some more bargains on this trip too.  In particular I bought this:

A total bargain at $4.  All his paintings in a neat and organised book.

Noah is growing up.  I finally have a little toddler boy!

In the Maths department we started using these grid booklets for the girls to work out their questions.  I chose the ones that are roughly 1cm.  It's helping to keep all those numbers in the right columns.

Charlotte has been doing bits and pieces.  Each day I have it so she does something in the reading department, some flash cards, something from the maths department, and a random worksheet.   Occasionally I'll be adding a craft as well.

If you'd like a free copy of this worksheet, just click to download.

Miss 4 practiced her 3's a lot this week and she also started some morning work that I picked up from TpT.

Miss 8 gave me the BEST essay that she's ever written.  It's amazing how much improvement can be made on a little guidance.

This week I'll be linking up with:

I hope you will join us.

Thanks for visiting.

Week 3

Yep, can you believe it, we are already down and done with week 3 for the 2016 year.  We started the last week of December.

We've started counting books.
One may peruse our current listing HERE.

The girls have also done their 3rd Van Gogh.

You can find 30 FREE coloring pages for Vincent Van Gogh HERE.

This year Miss 4 has officially started formal education:

Miss 10 gave me an essay for Science:

And the girls continued with Nature Study.

This week the Cupmoth Caterpillar.

And finally, the little boy.

Thanks for visiting.

Today I'll be linking up with:

I hope you will join us.