My Well- Worn Path

A few weeks ago one of our pastor's wives gave a little mini message on creating a well worn path. She didn't know, but God had really been laying this same vision in my heart. I know that God speaks to everyone differently but so often in my life God uses people that just walk in & out of my life to encourage & confirm what He is speaking to me.

If my well worn path was visible this is what I imagine it to look like. I imagine Jesus is at the end of this path, just sitting with arms wide open waiting for me. The greatest ting about this path is it is finally cleared. The path used to be covered with moss, grass, trees, rocks... But everyday as I walked on it to find Jesus I would clear it a little bit more each day, moving that rock, or branch. The more times I run to Jesus, the more of His word I put into my life, the more I listened to His soft voice the clearer my path became. Now my path is cleared I can run quickly to the arm of my God. Every once in a while the storm may pass and leave behind some branches in my path, but I now know how to pick them up & continue running. Life is not perfect and times get hard, struggles come for everyone. But if you have created a well worn path that run or struggle is so much easier. Sometimes I believe that Jesus even sees me running & though the path may have some debris on it, He meets me right where & I am helps me make that path clear again.

I am not a person that forces 'religion' on anyone. I think religion is useless & certainly will not get you to heaven. And it is not often that I blog about my personal walk, but I have been challenged to step out of my comfort zones. This isn't much, but something that has been really heavy on my heart lately & a way God is speaking to me. For me sometimes I get lost in bible readings, or sermons & I need a visual. This made my walk with God become clear. So now I can ask myself daily, "how does your path look? Have you went running to your Father today?" It all starts with just one step, put one foot in front of the other.

Proverbs 4:18-19 The ways of right-living people glow with light; the longer they live, the brighter they shine. But the road of wrongdoing gets darker and darker-travelers can't see a thing; they fall flat on their faces. (message)

Preschool Week 3-- B's & C's

Week 3: 

whew! This past week was packed full of fun.

This week we worked on the Letter B!

I happened on the best website bursting of free adorable & very well thought printables. www.confessionsofahoneschooler.com

Since Karly's Dance classes just started back up last Saturday I decided to go with:

B is for Ballerina!

http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/blog/2011/08/letter-b-for-ballerina-free-preschool-printables.html (here are all the free printables!!!)

 Dotting B: she loves these Bingo Markers (you can get them at the Dollar Store)

 Karly is a puzzle FREAK! She can beat me at puzzles any day of the week. Must get it from her father! ;) She is was excited to make her very own.

 Hard to see (sorry bad lighting) but this is the Patterns Worksheet. Love it!

Journal time: Draw a picture of a ballerina. For whatever reason she wanted her ballerina to be Light Green so she is kinda hard to see, but I loved that she added a tutu on her! 

Animals on Land or Sea: I found awesome Animal Planet Sticker packs at Big Lots for $1.50 loaded with stickers of 'real' animals. I divided the paper in half: one side Land Animals & other side Sea/Water Animals & she had to figure out what columns the animal lives in...

 Story Time! Buster is a super cute book with lots of B words. We also read Elmo's B is for Book.

 As much as I love academic curriculum I am also a HUGE fan of practical life learning. So to stay along our B theme. In the BATH we use washcloths. Karly learned how to fold a washcloth. As you can see, she thought this was the best thing ever!

 Computer Time: Sesame Street: Cookie Monster's Letter of the Day-- B!

Snack-- BlueBerries!

 Craft: Bear. http://www.first-school.ws/t/craft/bearcd_headbw.htm -- click link for template & print out.

 

 B is for Butterfly. Mosaic Butterfly. I cut squares of tissue paper & she glued it on the butterfly. http://www.first-school.ws/t/pattern/butterfly-1.htm

After a playdate with a Bunch of Bigby's! LOL!

 We finished up the day by BAKING cookies... Which is also a great way to introduce Letter C!

**On a side note! This is a great find. The dollar store had a huge pack of name tags for school desk. I took a few of them to laminate & bought a pack of dry erase markers (again hit up the $ store!) I dotted out her name on the cards before laminating so she can practice writing her name over & over & over! Often times this is keeping her busy while I am cooking dinner or picking up the house. Have I mentioned how much I love the dollar store & all its greatness!

C is for Candy!

Yes, I did it... (Bad mom, i know) I totally let her junk out on candy but she loved it & it was just for one day :)

Started C day off with learning about God's Creation:

Free Creation Print-Out

 Journal Time: Color a Creative Picture:

"This is a picture of the whole wide world" -- Karly.

Candy Corn Mosaic

Practice Writing C

Free Print Out

Computer Time:

Cookie Monster Letter of the Day- C (video)

Often times in the midst of coloring sheets & projects she starts to ware out on me, so I 've started to throw in a little computer time/ video reinforcement. It gives her a time to veg out, yet she is still learning the topic.

 Added in numbers this week: #2

Numbers in a Jar Print Out

How Many Candy Corns are in the Jar? An estimation game. I remember doing this all the time in school & never getting anywhere close... so I thought I would go old school & break it out for Karly. Looks like we will be doing this a lot, 

"200!" was her estimate! :) (she was only one 0 too much!)

Candy Corn Count:

http://www.4shared.com/photo/OTelcSd1/Candy_Corn_small.html

Roll the dice & eat the candycorn off the # you rolled.

 A game for number recognition & counting.

 Candy Collage

 We finished up the Letter C with a trip to Crown Candy. What a fun place!

 Had a refresher course in B as well as we ate out Banana Split! :)

 So this was our week in a nutshell. I am finding out that I always over plan, these are just the projects we get to... Right now we are gearing up for D= DINO Week, she is super excited to start Letter D!

Bad day? make a wreath.

This week I hit a funk that I have not been in, in a long long time. Was in a horrible mood, had a horrible attitude. My 3 year old was not being cooperative (AT ALL). my husband was working his brains out & I felt like I had not talked to an adult in days. For the past month I have been on a quest to get really healthy, eating clean, diligently working out like a mad woman, in between eating rabbit food & working out I managed to gain 5 lbs. (I know I know muscle weighs more than fat... I still don't like to see that # on the scale increase when I am working my boo-tay off!) Let's just say the world would have been a better place had I stayed in bed! I was on a pitty party from Pitty-ville! But one thing is certain I LOVE fall, there is just something about it. it is like watching God create new beauty everyday. I love the smells the colors, fresh air, it reminds me of falling in love, getting engaged, a beautiful time in my life... so I stopped everything that was going on that day. I threw the kid in the car picked up a couple supplies, came home & put her down for a nap & sat down and made a new fall wreath for my door. I know might sound crazy, but it worked! In a matter of minutes I was able to stop & think about how incredibly blessed I am. It gave me time to slow down & just be me. Nothing makes me happier than creating things- my artsy fartsy mind at work ;) So for $5 I made a new wreath that I really do love & I got to enjoy the rest of my day!

preschool week 2

Can I just tell you how much we are loving this weather!? Come on Fall! So I got a little inspired by the weather & threw out some of the  'themed' stuff & made it an anything goes week...

 Due to the incredible weather- I decided that we would get ready to take a Nature Scavenger hunt. I printed off pictures of things we would find on a nature hunt. She cut & glued them to an egg carton. We got all prepared to go & then terrible three's kicked in & we had a major melt down so now we are prepared to go next week! LOL.

 Mr Acorn Man! Karly loves Acorns- I don't really get it but she collects them, I find them all through out the house (obnoxious!) but I thought he was pretty cute! She colored & glued- I was just happy that his 'parts' all ended up in the correct spots!  ;)

 acorn man template

 I'm always trying to find new ways to do things. I have these popsicle trays that I NEVER use. Karly thinks it is SO much to play with Qtips so we turned it into a counting game.

YAY for a gorgeous day. we woke up on Wed & I could no longer resist we packed a bag & headed to the Botanical Gardens. One of our favorite places! We spent the entire day, walking, talking, learning. One of my favorite days that I have spent with my little love in a long time. No rush, no plans, no schedules, no phones, just me & her walking through the gardens creating forever memories!

Mirrored Image-- this was a 1st for her. I was so proud of her.

Journal Time-- So I stole this from my mom who is a 1st grade teacher. Every morning her students come into class they have journal time. SO I picked up a notebook for $1 & let her decorate it with stickers & glue on her name... I told her that every day we would begin with journal time. This might be her most fav part of 'school'. Our first day was: Draw a picture of a rainbow.

Bragging Rights- a few months ago we did rainbows & colors. I gave her all the colors of the rainbow but gave her no directions. With no prompting she got all the colors in the correct order!!! YAY! I love when I see my work with her is paying off!

 Animal Collage-- Ok so I am guilty that I don't let her have scissors often. I have heard so many horror stories of little girls cutting their hair that she only gets them if I can watch everything she does! So needless to say we need more scissor projects. I gave her some old magazines & had her cut all the animals out that she could find & then we made a collage with the pictures.

 Letter S- The one letter that gives Kar a lot of trouble is S. She always wants to call it a C. So here is to many more S projects to come!

 Big & Baby Letter Memory Game. I have stacks of old business cards that I cut in half. On one half I put "M" the other half 'm', mixed them all up & had letter memory. I dud use matching colors for the letters to help sight recognition.

 How many fishies? Started our first project on measuring. I think she ate more that she measured :)

Farm Animal Sewing. Check out that proud face! 

That's a wrap of our preschool mornings! :)