September At A Glance

September was a lot of fun around here! Here is a BIG collection of pictures documenting some of our memories!

Handwriting is not this boy’s favorite activity and something that is very challenging for him at this age. We don’t do a lot of it currently, but I have been trying to teach him to write his name. We are choosing to learn cursive first...at least for now. (I know it sounds crazy, but there is some fascinating research out there about the benefits of doing so!)  I was so proud of his attempt to write his name by himself (see bottom line) that it warranted a picture!

Brothers enjoying each other!

Sweetness.

We kicked off our new school year with our now-annual imaginary hot air balloon ride!

Despite its blurriness, Adoniah’s delight was so cute, I had to share!

No such thing as Pinterest perfect around here! Sometimes, even my children have bad attitudes and sulk (gasp!).  

Happier times around the table making hot air balloon snacks!

I love Josiah’s careful precision. Check out his ring of fruit around the “balloon” portion.

Notice Adoniah’s idea of a creative design: very little on the plate in favor of being stuffed in his cheeks! :)

Isaac got fancy with his design.

Fine motor practice: Marbles in a Bottle

Here Josiah is counting out the amount of marbles for each container based on the number on the card. This was a great activity for him since he is learning number recognition and LOVES to put things into containers! The flower pots made the marbles have a satisfying “thwack”!

Little Bits wanted in on the marble fun too! He must have sat with this activity, repeating it over and over, for at least 20 or 30 minutes!

Isaac was pretty thrilled with the hot air balloon he rigged that night for one of his Fisher Price “persons."

One of the things our preschool curriculum suggests in the month of September is creating a “My World” book by letting the child walk around with a camera and take pictures of whatever they want, printing out those pictures, and putting them into a special book with their own descriptions. You may remember when I posted these pictures from Isaac last year.  Well, here are a few from Josiah’s collection this year:

The pensive photographer himself.

~~~~~~~

The kids loved playing with plastic bugs in their herbal tea play dough along with items from outside like sticks and leaves...

despite the fact that this particular batch of play dough was a bit of a flop! (Not sure why since I’ve made it several times before without a problem!)

All ready for church in their cute, matching vests!

My little loves.

Josiah drew a picture on the chalkboard one morning. When I asked him what it was, he said, “A snail!” I added the face and antennas, and sure enough - it did look like a snail!

One of my favorite art activities: “BIG” painting with knee-high hose thwackers!

The kids had fun with it - but I think I had more fun!

Our finished product: wrapping paper!

We ended up reading a LOT of books from the library about frogs and toads, so after the painting, we made our own sensory bin by creating a pretend pond for our toy frogs.

Isaac working on spelling. As I mentioned above, writing is very hard for him still, though we do work on it a little each day, so usually he spells using manipulative like these rubber stamps or alphabet magnets.

He’s making good progress!

One thing that’s been fun about going back through our preschool curriculum this year is trying out some of the ideas we skipped last year - like this weaving loom made with chicken wire!

Here is Isaac’s design.

And here is Josiah’s.

Back at it with play dough again!

We also used rubber stamps to spell words on the play dough...and then this lovely creation took shape.

We had a blast going on a nature walk around our property and collecting flowers, leaves, and berries to document in our nature journal.

So many pretty colors!

More handwriting practice.  It’s coming...slowly but surely!

At the end of September, I hosted a baby shower for my good friend, Korey, who is expecting her first baby (a boy) in November!  I had a LOT of help putting this together from friends and even my mother-in-law who came down for a day to help. We definitely did “have a ball!"

Gifts for the guest of honor.

Blessed by a big living room for holding lots of people!

The pretty mama herself.

We packed around 30 people in this room while we played games and watched Korey open her gifts!

I’ll close this massive post with a video in which Silas tries acorn squash as his first solid food! Despite his apparent satisfaction with feeding #1, all subsequent feedings produced looks of disgust and dismay at having to eat this stuff!  I have since had to mix everything with banana just to get it in his system!  Sweet tooth like his daddy!