Our Story

I have struggled with the decision to share this or not. But I want to give God the glory for all the good He does in our lives.

Last year on my birthday, I sat in a waiting room waiting for a second ultrasound to confirm what we already knew; we had lost our second baby.  We had lost our first 7 months earlier. We were devastated. Heartbroken. Angry. We were a lot of things. But hopeless was not one of them. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that God would give me a child. I read Sarah and Abraham’s story. I read Hannah’s story. And I prayed. I told God I was angry with Him. He could have changed this, saved my baby. He didn’t. 

I told God we were on Time Out. I loved Him, but I needed space. Space so I would not become bitter with Him. I needed time to be angry. I believe my Heavenly Father graciously stepped back and gave me the space I needed. I believe He wanted to hold me and share in my pain. I believe he wanted to comfort me. But I believe He knew what I needed. He created me after all. He made me the woman I am. He made me independent. He knows how I operate. He knows I do not like to be coddled.  And I believe He was ok with it. He stepped back, but never out of my life. He gave me the space I needed to deal with the circumstances that were thrust upon me. I believe He knew that allowing me the distance I needed, it would draw me closer to Him. 

I never stopped loving Him or believing Him. I did not stop praying. I just stopped pleading. I stopped telling Him what I wanted and why I was angry and how hurt I was. I just existed. I went through my life acknowledging God, His power, His presence, but I kept my distance. I felt like the errant teenager ever at odds with her parents, who spent her days, hours, and minutes caged in her room. Protecting herself, tolerating circumstances that were beyond her control. Loving her parents, but not understanding them. My relationship with God grew stronger. I grew closer to Him through the distance I imposed. It was inevitable, or I fear I would have become bitter towards Him.  

During this time a 3rd miscarriage occurred. But I did not delve into a deep depression, a sea of hopelessness. Instead, I demanded answers from doctors. I made an appointment at a fertility clinic and prayed that God would put me in the care of the right doctors. He did. He so came through. Within 6 weeks of my appointment, I had 2 diagnoses. Both easily managed. My Dr. was proactive, he wasted no time. This is my kind of doctor. This was God’s hand. His provision. For that I am so thankful. 

I could go into specifics with you. But I won’t. I am very transparent about my feelings, but I do not like sympathy. So please do not feel sorry for my husband and I. We are so blessed. Blessed that the few family and friends who knew what we were going through prayed for us. Believed God for us. We are blessed that we have three angel babies in Heaven waiting to meet us someday. We are blessed that our situation has given us vast knowledge about infertility and are able to help others in their own struggles with infertility. We are blessed that our problems were easily fixed. We are blessed. 

This year on my birthday, I sat in a waiting room, waiting to hear my baby’s heartbeat. She is strong, healthy and measuring perfectly. Though sorrow may last for the night joy comes in the morning, friends. We are blessed that we are 22 weeks along with a healthy baby girl. See, God was always there. He never left us. I imagine Him standing with His head against my bedroom door that I locked myself in, whispering, “I know you don’t understand, but I promise this will all be okay. I love you and am taking care of you.”  He did. He took care of us. Though the journey has been painful, there is a sweetness in the sorrow. Seeing God glorified. For the destination is beyond any beauty that I can imagine. Just because something hurts, it does not mean God has forsaken us. It means that He is with us; that we do not have to bear it alone. Our pain is His. I cannot say that I am like James, or heeding his advice in “counting it all joy”. Losing our babies was devastating and painful. But I can see where James is coming from. I have joy in knowing that my Heavenly Father took care of me, even when I distanced myself from Him. There is joy in knowing that I have proactive doctors. There is joy in knowing that He is in control.  I am glad I did not have to do this alone. God gave me the perfect husband, who also knows how I operate. He dealt wonderfully with my out of character erratic emotions. And God was there the whole time, waiting for me. Waiting for me to be ready to be close to Him again. It is painful. It hurts. It’s not fair. But, it will be okay, for He is always near to us. 

All the Children of the World

Last year I published one of my most popular/pinned posts about our Children of the World unit in preschool. Go here to see it.

This year I added some new things and I wanted to share one of them with you today. It is important to affirm a child's identity, promote diversity and understand what skin color means. We can do this by making sure we have our classrooms stocked with toys and books that promote diversity. Multi-cultural dolls, costumes in dramatic play, food in our kitchen centers are ways to do this. Don't forget the book corner too! I will share some new books that I was able to get this year for my classroom that will affirm identity and promote diversity.

 This year I taught my kiddos that our skin color tells our story. It tells us where our families our from, what our heritage is.  We mapped our heritage again this year:

We read books and stocked our Book Corner with these:

You can find it Here.

Go here

Go here

Go here

Go here

We also made a craft of our faces to hold while we sang "Jesus Loves the Little Children"

I originally told kiddos to pick  a head that is their skin color. Then make it look like them.

One class did a great job matching their skin color. My other class insisted they wanted to be different colors, brown mostly! 

I let them choose. 

Provide them with multi colored faces, yarn, scissors, googley eyes, eye stickers, markers and sequins for earrings. We taped sticks to the back. 

Investing in Your Child's Life: Please Put Down the Electronics Part 2

Today I wanted to share a few items that you can invest in or make at home that will provide tons of fun while allowing kiddos the opportunity to use their imaginations and build creative and problem solving skills. Invest a few dollars and some of your  time. I know what those Nintendos and iPads cost. This will be much more inexpensive!

#1. Children's Scissors
       I often hear, "Oh Mrs. B, you're brave!" when a parent walks into my classroom a sees scissors at each child's spot for our Table Time activity. What they mean is... "My child has never came into contact with scissors, except when I wasn't paying attention and they cut their hair into a mullet."

Children learn in many different ways. But some things are learned best by doing, by trying. If I simply explain how to hold the scissors, but never give them an opportunity to use them, to try them, can I expect that suddenly in Kindergarten they will pick up  pair and cut like a pro?  Absolutely not. We often use scissors in preschool, and still we are correcting grip and teaching them how to hold and turn the paper. Practice makes perfect.

They love to chop things to smithereens! Give them a magazine or the junk mail. Give them post cards that come in the mail to invite you to somebody's home party. Give them scissors and let them go. It is not necessary to make them practice cutting lines or shapes. Just cutting something into tiny unrecognizable pieces will result in fruitful building of fine motor skills and comfort using scissors. Don't be scared, give them the scissors! :)

I like Wescott brand, but Fiskars is great too. You can usually find these at the beginning of the school year for about $2. Or you can grab them here.

#2 Dot Painters

   I am up for any type of paint, but if you want to make a minimal mess these are the painters for you. You can usually find them at Michael's for about $15.00 a set. Use a 40% off coupon and that makes them about $9. Totally worth it. You can choose from a few different sets of colors, each set containing six painters. You can also buy them here.

Here are just 2 examples of how we used them in class  Dot Painter Names and Jellyfish

#3 Free Art

 Save the TP tubes and egg cartons. Grab a bin and fill it with recycled items, unused coffee filters, paper, glue and markers. Don't forget the scissors. Throw in a roll of tape (this makes a great fine motor activity). Then, just let them go. Give them the opportunity to create and use their imagination! When they are looking at an app, video game or TV show, kiddos are simply accepting what someone else has put in front of them. This does not necessarily foster the best environment for them to explore their own creativity. 

So spend the $20.00 and give them an opportunity to learn through doing and to be creative! 

Please Put Down The Electronics Part 1: Play-Doh

Kids are so easily over stimulated today. Everywhere we look there are kids on iphones, Kindles, handheld games or parked in front of a TV. The kids at my MIL's daycare can operate my husband's iPad without any instruction. It feels like it is born into them. I think all of these electronic devices have awesome qualities that can help kids learn and keep them entertained. But I have a problem when the iPad becomes a child's number one source in learning and entertainment. These devices are not meant to replace parent involvement in a child's life or education. 

I was recently at and Early Ed meeting where Pre-K and Kindergarten teachers come together to share and learn. One of the interesting points made was the large number of Kindergarten students who could "swipe" their index finger (thank you iPad), but could not maintain a correct pencil grip. 

So why is this so important? Fine motor development begins at birth and continues to develop until about the age of six. Squeezing, grabbing, pinching, coordination of hands and fingers, reaching, etc all start to develop early and continue throughout childhood.  There are checkpoints that children should be at different ages. From ages 3-4 children should be able to maintain a correct tripod or pincer grip, trace with a dominant hand and stabilize the paper with the other. These skills also lead into cutting skills as well. By Kindergarten mastery of the dominant hand should be evident. Students should be able to color inside the lines, copy lines steadily without wiggles, cut precisely. Correct pencil grip, thus the development of fine motor skills, is extremely important in order to hit these benchmarks on time.

The preschool program I teach for offers classes for 3&4 year olds and 4 turning 5 year olds. We spend time everyday correcting pencil, crayon and scissor grip. We allow them opportunities through craft, art, free play, centers, gym, and exploration to develop these important skills. However, this does not COMPLETELY replace parent involvement at home.  We have kiddos for a very short period of time. Parents need to spend some nurturing these skills in their child as well. 

So how can you help prepare your child for Kindergarten at home?

1. PLAY-DOH

 Please for the love of all things good, stop worrying about the mess things are going to make and start letting your kids play with Play-doh! Play-doh is a wonderful fine motor skill builder. Kids pinch it, roll it, squeeze it, and pull it. They smash it and use cookie cutters and play-do tools to create things. They are using their imagination to create things rather than accepting graphics that pop up on a screen! This builds spatial skills: Is this blob of Play-doh big enough to cut out this shape with a cookie cutter? Do I need to roll it out flatter? How can this much Play-doh that fits in a can roll out to look like so much more? 

It is also a great sensory experience. Who doesn't love the feel of Play-doh?

The conversation that this can foster between an adult and child or child to child can help build concepts and vocabulary. Help them make shapes. Help them roll it into letters. Use words like squish, squeeze, flatten.  They will "bake" you cookies, make you "pizza" and present you with Play-doh gifts that will get your brain working to figure out what it is. They will build you castles and houses. They will be creative. They will use their imagination. Best part? It will usually entertain them for a while. While you make dinner, set out the Play-doh. You can be a part of the conversation and learning experience without actually having to play with the Play-doh yourself the whole time. 

And guess what? You don't need all those fancy Play-doh toys. Grab some cookie cutters that you never use from the back of your junk drawer, a rolling pin and some butter knives and let them have at it. Play-doh is rather inexpensive. I am a Play-doh snob. You buy the brand name stuff or you make it at home. None of that cheap knock off stuff. It will take you less than 5 minutes and few cents to whip up a large batch. The kids LOVE to help make it. We make it in preschool every year. 

Here is my favorite recipe because it is colorful and smells good. ( I have used this recipe for years and cannot remember where I found it originally.)

Kool-Aid Play-Doh

Ingredients:

1 cup of flour

1/2 cup of salt

1 package Kool-Aid mix

3 tablespoon cooking oil

1 cup boiling water

Mix all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Add boiling water slowly. Mix well with a fork. As the mixture cools, mix with hands. Add oil, kneed and fold with hands until the consistency of play-dough.  Add glitter if you desire! Enjoy! (Store in a large gallon zip top bag or in an airtight container.)

If you are really worried about a mess, only allow them to play with it on hard floors or outside. In the summer, we play with it at the picnic table then hose down the deck when finished. You can also lay down a vinyl table cloth on the floor to contain the mess then shake outside when you are finished. 

Let them make messes. We clean up so many unnecessary messes all day long. Helping your kids learn and develop is necessary. So what if you have to vacuum again? You are creating a wonderful learning experience for your kiddo!

Check back soon for Part 2! 

Oh Baby...

 My husband and I are very excited to announce that we will be welcoming the first addition to our little family in August. We are so blessed. 

Preschool: F is for Fish

So I saw this idea on Pinterest a while back. I was looking to change up my letter 'F' craft, so I thought I would give this a try. While I really liked the result, I think next time I will use water color paper and have the kids use light blue liquid water color for the water part. It will help make it more translucent and the fish will pop more. I changed this up by using colored rice for the aquarium rocks. 

We painted the fish bowls at Table Time and added the fish and rice during craft time. My assistant and I cut out the bowls after they were all dry. Cute! 

The original idea was from this blog here! 

February Round Up

Here is a round up of last year's February Posts!

Easy Homemade Donuts

Smartie Valentines with Free Printable

Valentine's Love Box

Valentine's Cinnamon Pretzel Bark