Practice school

Madeleine pretty much never falls asleep during the afternoons anymore.  However, she's had a hard time being happy and finding things to do.  We were both having a hard time.  She and I were both often grumpy and unhappy with ourselves and each other.  I prayed for help to know how to help her deal with the afternoons.  I really value peace at home and a mutual love between us. It was really emotionally hard when she was getting mad at me for the littlest, silliest things day after day.  I knew she was tired, but I didn't know how to help her deal with it.  I'm glad to say we've come up with several solutions.  One clear impression I had was to teach her.  I decided we were going to have a special Mommy and Maddie school.  We made a poster board with our agenda and she loves following it step by step.  

I made up a welcome to school song.  If you're curious, it goes like this: 

Welcome to our school

Welcome to our school

where we learn, and we play and we have a great day

Welcome to our school

Not very fancy.  I feel sheepish as I type it out.  But that's all it is and she loves it.  Then we say a prayer and read a scripture or learn a scripture story for the rest of welcome time.  

Next is writing time.  I've found some great preschool and kindergarten resources online and I print out a couple of writing worksheets for her to do a day.  We are going through each letter of the alphabet.  So if it's a letter worksheet I circle her best upper and lower case letter and then all finished worksheets get a check plus, and a smiley face, and a sticker, sometimes.  Haha.  :)  She really likes positive feedback and tells me what to add if I've only done a partial job.  

Our printer hasn't been working lately so I've gotten out some boxes from the kitchen with minimal writing on them and then we read what it says and she copies the words.  We did the sandwich bag box and a produce box.  

Numbers time is next.  Usually worksheets practicing writing the numbers, but some number sense stuff too, like what comes before and after a number, beginning addition, and we'll learn beginning subtraction.  Also shapes, patterns, measurement... things like that.

Then we have a 5-10 minute play time.  Sometimes we go outside; sometimes we play inside.  Then it's story time.  We sit on the sofa together and I read a few picture books to her.

Then it's art time.  She really likes cutting and pasting because she just learned how to do it.  I got her first pair of real kid scissors, verses of the safety ones that don't actually cut.  She also loves drawing, painting, or using markers too.  Clean up time is last and we're done.  

She loves school.  She asks for it and has ideas for things to do during school.  And it can be quick or take all afternoon, depending on what time it is when we start and her.  I got a couple of old school desks and chairs from KSL a few weeks ago so she keeps all of her papers in there.  It has really worked wonderfully to turn tired, grumpy afternoons into productive happy time together.  I can even sneak away for a few minutes while she's working and do other things.

Me and my happy girl:

Here are a few pictures of her and me at the balloon festival a few weeks ago.  It was too early in the morning for Matt and Lucy this year, so M and I just went together.  It was a beautiful morning and we had a great little morning date together!