The Folders and Update

School officially starts tomorrow at BHS. Part of me is super relieved not to be dealing with the stress of starting a new school year while another part is sad to miss the excitement of new ideas and planning and of course new supplies (particularly a pack of the new Sharpie pens, which I just can't justify needing without a classroom).

I am falling into a pattern of domesticity here at home and enjoying my full time job of being wife, mom and homemaker. Even at nine months very pregnant. Thanks to my mom, sisters, MIL and of course Adam I was able to get "caught up" on big jobs so I can focus on the day to day. I am cutting coupons and watching sales to plan our menus, I saved $40 dollars this week! I am not to the point of walking away with 21 meals for the week for the three of us for $20. But I am enjoying watching our grocery bill get smaller and smaller. And I am loving having the time to really "cook" for my boys and trying out new things. I have a routine for our laundry which is working really well and currently is all caught up.(Knowing me well,you know that is an amazing feat!)

With things running smoothly and the waiting on Miller to arrive I have thought about things I can do to supplement Noah's preschool curriculum. He is doing great at recognizing letters and beginning to work on the sounds they make. But numbers and math are another thing. I haven't really stressed counting, maybe because I hate math. So I thought I'd make some file folder activities about counting, patterns, matching and upper and lowercase letters. I did these yesterday. He is doing this serious face thing when we take pictures lately. Some of them are too challenging for him now but we will get there. We tried out two of them this morning and he loved it! I was so glad. I love that he finds learning fun.The one above is patterns. There are blanks and then in the baggie I made cards with the missing stickers to fill in the blanks. The one below is capital letters and then in the baggie are the lowercase pairs to match up. The one above is words and pictures. And then in the baggie I made tiles from scrapbook stickers to match up on top of the words. I am trying get the concept across that letters come together to form words. The one below is one we did today. It is birds who ask for a certain number of feathers and colors. He loved it! He wanted to get the feathers just right to make the birds happy. He played with it for about 20 minutes. The one above is simply number recognition and counting. I wrote out some numbers and cut out some circles in the baggie. Noah just counts out the circles and puts them next to the number. Today I had to tell him what the numbers were and then helped him count. But maybe in a month or so he can do it himself. The one below is more counting using foam shapes. In the baggie I wrote the answers on cards to match up. That part is too hard right now as well but in a few months it should be good. You can tell now why I changed from Early Ed to Secondary Ed. These folders were way cuter in my head but I am glad that Noah doesn't mind that they look a mess. I am glad we have something else structured to do. I have been disappointed by how many hours of TV we have been watching lately!

I also went to the doctor this morning. I didn't gain any weight again so I am still at 15lbs for this pregnancy. I guess there some good things about this diet. My blood pressure was perfect and everything is healthy! She did check and see if there has been any progress and I am 2cm dilated but not at all effaced. She said I could go on like this for weeks or go into labor tomorrow. It wasn't the best case scenario but I am glad to see that things are moving at least. She did say that the exam might spur some action. That would be nice. Wouldn't it?