Homeschool Tot School

Genevieve will be three years old in a couple of weeks and is growing up in so many ways, academically, socially, and physically. She just loves it when someone says how tall she has gotten and after every nap, she stands up in her bed and asks me if she looks taller. (I told both my girls at a very young age that the human growth hormone is secreted during sleep, or "You grow when you sleep, so the better you sleep, the faster you will grow!" This has been the best motivation for them to sleep well at night and take good naps.) Genevieve loves to make friends and always likes to talk to the "little girls" (usually a couple of years older than her) at any park we go to.

We have also started doing more "school" at home, and she enjoys preschool with mom, especially the art projects and writing. We are using the book, *Chicka Chicka Boom Boom* as the basis for our alphabet study. I pull resources from various books but one of my favorite blogs to borrow ideas from is Confessions of a Homeschooler. She has wonderful letter of the week activities and freely shares her documents. I've been cutting and laminating like crazy and can't believe how fast Eve is doing the activities. We will probably do them again in the fall (she will be able to do so much and understand so much more then) and she enjoys it so much that I don't mind doing all the evening preparation.

Here are some pictures of our morning tot school:

Genevieve makes her own puppets for a Valentine story.

Genevieve makes a peanut butter and jelly cracker lunch all by herself. She loves her spreaders!

Genevieve now writes a "G" for her name.

Book Cooks! Often I read a book to her and we do either a related art or cooking activity.

I print out uppercase and lowercase letters and Genevieve uses giant push pins to follow the letter strokes. This is one of her favorite letter activities because she gets to use something that is usually off-limits (a tack and a huge one at that). This activity is for fine motor skills and letter recognition.

Purple and pink are by far her favorite colors to use when we paint.

Watching the kids grow up and having the opportunity to be a stay-at-home mom and an active parent in my children's lives is such a wonderful gift!

Let's go Geocaching!

We have started geocaching as a family and are finding that treasure hunting can be addicting! We've gone in the rain and sunshine, by ourselves and invited friends, and it's been such a wonderful adventure. We are hiking places that we have never been before. So far, we have found all the cache's we have set out looking for, so it's nice that the girls have experienced success. Success can be so motivating, and believe me, we have had many at-home science experiments flop and are in need of some positive results. One of our most recent science flops: making a battery out of a lemon. When life gives us lemons we will now stick to making lemonade...not batteries!

Olivia is learning about navigating latitude and longitude, and both girls like the family time.

Brian has even checked to see what cache's are nearby his work in case he gets a lunch break one of these days. We have been discussing where we will hide a cache of our own and what we will put in it for other cachers.

We are preparing for the trip by coding waypoints in Brian's GPS. The girls also gather treasures to trade with the cache they find.

Even a downpour can't stop us when we're on the hunt for treasure!

The Happy Geocachers!

The Kite family came hunting with us on this geocaching trip.

The journey was fun and all the hard work ends in success! The cache has been found!

Love those Lady Longhorns

We met Uncle Brad, Aunt Nicole, and Cousin Celeste at the Erwin Center last Saturday to watch the Lady Longhorns basketball team play. We had a great time and even though UT lost this time, it was so inspiring for the girls to watch these athletes play. Olivia was intrigued by the game and wanted to know all about the rules. Genevieve loved watching the cheerleaders and the cotton candy vendor. Celeste had fun dancing to the band music and clapping when her mommy and daddy were cheering for the 'horns. Olivia has already been asking when we can go again, and I hope the answer is "soon".

More Snow Pictures

The forecast high in Georgetown, TX, for Tuesday is 74 degrees F, but I still have some more snow pictures from just two weeks ago to post. Texas weather can be quite unpredictable this time of year. In June, July, and August, you can bet that it will be blazing hot, but in February and March it is hard to know whether to put away the sweaters or keep them out just a little bit longer.

Speaking of clothes, you may notice that in the pictures of this post and the previous one, Olivia has a total of three different outfits on in one day. I had so much laundry to do after one day of snow that it made me thankful that snowfall like this only happens once every ten years in Austin.