Learning about letters...

I always had in my mind that Lilly would start some sort of preschool around age 3. After I got pregnant, I thought this would work out perfectly. Joy would be born in June, we would have the whole summer together, then Lilly could go to preschool and I could have some one on one time with Joy. Well now that it is really a reality, I can't imagine not having Lilly home during the day with us. As most of you know you have to sign up for a spot in most of the really good preschools around January or February. Well at the beginning of the year, Josh and I spent lots of time talking about this and praying about this decision. I always had the feeling we needed to wait. Three just seems so young to start any kind of school. Most of the programs in town are for two days from 9 to about 2.

Right now our schedule looks something like this: Monday - we get together with some friends for play group, Tuesday- we go to Kindermusik, Wednesday - we go to Community Bible Study (Where Lilly is in the 2 year old class - she has story time, crafts, snacks, a music teacher, and play time - this is basically a preschool setting without the nap and with the focus on the Bible, what could get any better than that!) Thursday - we go to the library for Storytime on most days, and Friday - Josh is off and we try to do something fun together as a family. As you can see there are not two days free for her to be in preschool if we keep up this current schedule next year. And you can tell Lilly gets plenty of socialization with other kids her age in the midst of all of our activities.

I cherish the time I have with Lilly right now, especially since we only have about 10 weeks together before Joy is born. There will come a time when she is required to go to school every day from 9 till 4. So for now I am happy to say that we are planning to have some Mommy, Lilly, and Joy days together come this August. For the time being I have decided to start working on some preschool activities at home with Lilly. I found a few websites that I use each week to get new ideas. I also have a filing cabinet full of my kindergarten files (one for each letter) that I pull from each week. Lilly is so excited each week as we learn a new letter and fill our week full of fun activities to go along with the letter. I have realized that I am capable of teaching her preschool concepts at home and the best part is we still get to be together all day. Sure it would be nice to run errands by myself, have lunch with a friend, or just do whatever I wanted to for a few hours....but I know one day I will have all the time in the world for those kind of things and for now I just want to soak up every minute I have with my ever changing 2 year old. We are making precious memories together that will fill my heart forever.


The first week we learned about letter A. Here is Lilly making some apple prints with an apple dipped in red paint, after she discovered the star hidden inside.

This past week we learned about F. We filled up our F outline with Froot Loops to begin.

Then put the Froot Loops on a string to make a necklace.


Lilly's favorite part: eating them all off the necklace.