I am not canned meat.

Apparently, for a few days, I was considered to be a spam blog. Interesting. I can think if nothing, other than the length of my last post, that might make any spam sniffing software think that this was a spam blog. Oh well.

I am busy as can be right now planning a story time program and an outdoor program for kids aged 3 to 7, especially for home schoolers. I am also searching out fresh ideas for Laural & Micah's home school this fall. Putting together two lesson plans plus the 2 programs is a bit of a challenge, but it will be worth it once everything is underway.

A bit about the Nature Program. I want it to be a combination of activities and crafts that put an emphasis on outdoor time. Some of the crafts will include recycled crafts - or crafts using recycled items such as toilet paper tubes, formula cans, milk cartons and soda bottles. Activities will include scavenger hunts and nature walks. During the nature walks, we will focus on a particular subject like birds and their calls or trees identification and leaves.

I haven't started getting into the story time planning quite as much. I need to pick a weekly theme and then pick out some books to go along with that theme. I also need to put together some action rhymes and finger plays to do for each week. Overall, the schedule for that shouldn't take very long to put together.

My homeschool planning is going to take some time. There are so many different methods and curricula that I am learning about that I love! I am definitely going to be an eclectic home schooler. Besides our regular schedule, I am going to include lapbooks, workboxes on a small scale) and a few other gems I have found.

For the summer, I am finishing Laural up on her letters. She recognizes all of her letters and can write most of them. I need to get her caught up so we can start working on phonics and learning to sound out words. She is already starting to get the hang of it. She gets a little hung up on vowel sounds though. She's still pretty advanced for her age though. I am really looking forward to seeing how Micah will do with things. He is, of course only 15 months and will be about 18 months when we start, so I am not expecting miracles, but I hope that he will be as bright as his sister. I haven't spent as much time with him as I did with Laural doing school-like things. I've had him try coloring a couple of times. He did ok with that. He was, of course, more interested in putting the crayons in his mouth. So cute.

I suppose I should get back to my planning for now. I will begin posting some of my schedules as I get them made up.