Preschool - Leafy Name Pictures

This was a "spin-off" of an idea from the Horizon 4-year-old Preschool Curriculum.


Go to a park or outside .....

1.  Pick out your favorite colored construction paper.

2.  Using a good quality School or Craft Glue, Adult writes their name in glue and a border if wanted or if it is a really short name.

3.  Encourage your child to find items to glue onto their picture.


You could also give your child a bag and take a nature walk.  Then use the collected items to make their pictures.   Help them learn the names of as many items as possible that they find as an extra learning experience.




Here is how the names turned out after the kids worked on them. Mostly without help.

Life Gave Us Some Lemons

I have always enjoyed blogging ... as it gives me an outlet to reach out to others that I don't have otherwise.

But it wasn't until Story pointed it out to me that I realized that I have been mostly missing for over a year.    two and a half years.

Where have I been?

Just surviving.   I had a long post planned out a year or so ago ... but decided it sounded too whiny and never posted it.  So this is a rework on that one.

We were in a major car wreck Thanksgiving 2009, right at the end of our little 1/2 mile road.  It was horrific, and yet we came out fairly well all things considered - but I've always been prone to night mares, and they took their toll on my health and emotions.  Coupled with having just lost my mom that Spring, the Ref being unemployed and having a heart attack, extra kids to watch and other responsibilities.   When my Aunt came to live in my Dad's house, something inside me just quit ... I had been holding things together for so long as the oldest ... grief, exhaustion, and stress just snowballed into me just zoning out into auto-pilot.   To most people, I was functioning just fine, but at home, I would fight sleep all day, and be unable to sleep at night.

There was nothing that hundreds of others haven't survived, and it wasn't really so bad as many have it.  But there was no break, and even a strong rope will fray if rubbed long enough.

So, for about 18 months, I just stopped.

Life is improving.  By bits.  I got one of those fancy Activity Tracker Watches last month. ....  And I started moving.  A lot more.  I'm not seeing much in the weight loss department.  Though some of my shorts are a bit looser.  But I am seeing improvement in my heart rate, and I'm walking farther.  I can usually top 5,000 steps, and most days top 6,000 steps.   Currently my goal is beating 6000 steps a day for a solid month.  Not easy in this summer heat.  Sleep is still weirdly sporadic, especially with the Ref's ever changing McD work schedule.

Just as I planned to start blogging, I insisted a friend let me help her catch two of her kids up in their school work ... which has turned into full time schooling.  We are on a 3 week / 4 day at my house 24/7 and then 1 week and 3 day weekends at home.  Sometimes they have homework at home, sometimes there is a 2 week break - and halfway through we break for Christmas and Summer.   We scramble if anyone gets sick, but with Aunts help, we've managed pretty good.

But I REALLY want to start blogging again.

And I've been researching Fitness Watches ... so I'm going to try to do some reviews on the ones we've purchased so far ... and what I'm looking at for Scholar and later for Sunshine.   I'll try to finish the blog posts that I had been working on ... and round out what I'm doing with school right now.   Maybe with some tenacity and better planning, I can get some stuff done.  Maybe.