Learning With ABCmouse.com

This morning V woke up at 6 A.M., not quite her normal but a great place to be. When she wakes up this early she usually takes her nap earlier in the day which then means that she goes to bed at a decent time. 

Judging by what I just wrote, you can probably tell her  sleeping times are not set in stone. Let me first explain before I go on with ABCmouse.com.., V co-slept with us for about a year and a half. Our bed is higher than usual, so after she had her heart surgery and became really mobile, I started rocking her to sleep and putting her in her crib. The thing about rocking her is that falling asleep and then transferring her to her bed is a fairly slow process --like around two hours! I don't like letting her "cry-it-out", we've tried that route and she doesn't give up and my heart shatters with every tear that she sheds. Anyway, I get V ready for bed at the same time every night and have recently found if I keep her up until 8 P.M. and then lay with her, she is asleep before 9 P.M. Its later when I start her bedtime at 7 P.M. So, if I lay with her she falls asleep quicker, wakes up earlier and takes a much better nap during the day. Spoiled? Probably, but she is happy and so are we and that's what counts. :)

Back to 6 A.M. this morning...

We were the only ones awake. I had fed her breakfast and I put the Bernstein Bears in for her to watch while I made some coffee. V wasn't interested in watching a show or playing with her toys, she had a full belly and was tired again but I was determined to not let her fall back asleep. 

I have been looking online for learning program's geared towards preschool aged children and one that I have really been interested in is ABCmouse.com, so I decided to try it out this morning. With V on my lap we went through the tutorials, we practiced using the mouse and then we dove into the toddler section (for ages 2+). 

Our first stop was a "field trip" to the virtual farm, where we learned all about farm animals, like cows, sheep and horses. We even read books that were specific to each animal.

Next we decided to check out ABCmouse.com's zoo. Like the farm, we were able to choose which animals we wanted to visit, we could hear their specific sounds that they make and learn about their different characteristic.

After our "field trips" we began the alphabet section, this was after already investing an hour in the program! We spent about five minutes in this section and then Vada spotted her sister eating banana bread, so Vada's attention began to diminish.

I did however, get a chance to look through the learning options in this section and "Wow!" is all I can say. 

V can color things that start with a specific letter, she can learn songs, read books, play games and much, much more! There are even printable work sheets for lowercase and uppercase letters and sight words. 

I love that we tried this site! Are there any sites that you specifically use with your toddler?

At The Table

Vada had breakfast at the table this morning. Well, she does everyday but the difference about this morning is where she sat and it wasn't in her high chair!

 Vada sits in her high chair almost all of the time however, these last couple of months she has been sitting really well without any high chair or booster seat --like when were out at a restaurant or at a friends house. 

She can barely see over our table top but she loved being a "big girl" while eating her oatmeal.

As I was coming to the table with her cereal she signed eat, pounded her tiny fist onto the table top and then signed eat again. It was as if she was telling me to put the bowl down right here. 

I was taking pictures of her feet. Its funny to me that they come straight out without bending. She is so small, yet so big! While I was getting the photo that I wanted she peeked under and gave me this look. She may not vocalize too many words but to me, here, she is telling me to put the camera down and to get back to my business of feeding her! 

Look at these little legger sticking out!

And when we were all done, this is what I got... big 'ol puppy dog eyes.

 I think breakfast may be served at the table and her sitting on a "big girl chair" for now on. :)

Learning From Home First

Learning From Home First, it has a catchy ring to it doesn't it? I may just start a new blog and call it that since I may be homeschooling much longer than just the preschool years!

I have had such a great amount of people with resources for homeschooling help me over the last two weeks and my husband seems more excited than nervous about this foreign concept. 

This last week I had a friend come over and have lunch with both Justin and I. We were able to ask her all kinds of questions and she was a well of endless knowledge! It was fabulous and Justin is more than on board, so much more than he was when he was just agreeing to let me home school V for preschool!!! Our friend has home schooled her four children so she has great advice, tips and even other resources for us to use.

So, I may have a future in this Cross your fingers, toes and what ever else you want, say a prayer and wish me luck because the outcome is looking good! Over the next few months we will be finding our groove and getting into a solid routine!

Music Class ?

For a two and a half year old this surely could be considered just that! Justin is teaching me to play the Bass Guitar. So far I have learned Lightning Crashes by Live (fantastically sad song, but beautiful, btw) and the Twelve Bar Blues. 

Vada loves music and she especially loves it when her PaPa plays his guitar and sings to her in the morning. He just got home from working a twelve hour night shift in these photos, yet he makes time to play music with me and for his daughter. He's a pretty great man!

Vada really enjoys feeling the music as its being played.

The lighted button is pretty fun as well!

We worked on colors later in the morning today. I found this book at Wal Mart in their bargain book section, it was only one dollar.
Its a sticker book which I thought was an added bonus because that meant that V would get her texture stimulation in as well as working on her color recognition.

Christy, Check out this pincer grasp!!! Not bad, eh?

Vada worked on lacing beads which is actually quite difficult to learn but she is getting better and better at it each time that we bring the beads out!

Look at the determination coming from this girl! She is cram packed full of it!

This is hard to do. It may look easy enough but it takes a level of skill that is achieved only through practice.  

Blowing is another hard thing to learn let alone teach. Why do I want her to learn how to blow out? Well, its just another skill to be learned. Once she learns how to blow out she can blow whistles, bubbles and even bubbles into her milk (yes, I will let her do that! --even if its only once :P)

So today I brought out a cheap party whistle and I tried to get her to blow. I cant quite put it into words how I am trying to teach her, I do a lot of bowing in her face then bowing into the whistle. We have a lot of different whistles. I went to a party story that sold cheap party favors and found a kinds of whistles for twenty-five cents. 

We also have these fancier whistles that make some real noise...

Vada has not learned to blow yet but she is catching onto the concept!

We worked on building muscle. Well, kind of. This fruit and veggie slice food is perfect for working on coordination --she has to match the Velcro up to get them to stick. When I ask V to take them apart or put them back together, we are working on her listening skills as well as her skills for following directions. The puling apart of the toys is where her strength needed though, the Velcro is really strong and so it does take a lot of effort on Vada's part to pull the play food apart. The way that I have been explained this is comparable to how I am going to explain it to you...

Having low muscle tone can be compared like this, If I asked you to hold a slice a bread in one hand and a loaf in another, the weight of the loaf would be comparable to how the slice alone would feel to Vada. Obviously, I don't know how it truly feels for V or any other child who has low muscle tone but this is just an analogy so that you may understand how difficult some of the easiest things are for V to do, yet she does them (and not always with a smile on her face --but most of the time). 

We worked on reading and matching today as well. This is a book that I purchased and then tweaked it by scanning copies of each page. I then printed the copied photos, cut the words separate from the picture (for a later time) and laminated each copied photo and word.

I first read the book to Vada, this makes her happy, she loves books! I then go through the book again and pick out photos that I want her to match with the copied cards that I made. While holding the photo card,  I say this to her, "Vada, this says dog", and then I show her the card and say again, "Vada, this says dog." I then put the dog photo card onto the dog photo in the book and then say, "I put the dog onto the dog, can you put the dog onto the dog?" I remove the card and hand it to her and then ideally, she does the same steps. This, she is great at! This is why I am super eager for Vada to do GiGi's Playhouse Literacy training --when she turns three.

Vada likes the computer, a lot! So much in fact that I ended u putting up this huge baby gate that surrounded our computer desk. Well, that enclosed area became a disaster so I took it down and now I am back to grabbing her away from the computer desk. However, I have been looking at different online programs to use with V, that's geared towards learning. 

I found a couple of free program sites but the one that I am really interested in is ABCMOUSE.Com. Has anyone heard of it or does anyone have a membership to it? What are your thoughts? Likes? Dislikes? Its around eighty dollars a year or eight dollars a month, with the first month being free but I need to give my credit card info to get the trial month and im not fond of doing programs like that unless I know that I want more than just the trial. So I am curious of who has it, if it is liked or not. If they see interest from their young child with the games and programs. If you have any other suggestions for programs, especially online learning sites, please feel free to let me know about them!