School

Yesterday I was asked if Amelia would be attending preschool in the fall.  YIKES!  I don't ever plan on sending her to school unless some awesome and affordable private school becomes an option.  This is for a number of reasons, none of which I intend to go into great detail about on the internet.  But still, to think that she could attend preschool is emotional.  Amelia has spent everyday of her life thus far with me.  Not every minute, but certainly most of them.  My baby girl is growing up so fast.  Just the other day Aaron wanted me to look at her.  He said "look, her face has changed".  It always seems to happen over night, a physical change, an emotional change, an educational change.....they all seem to happen at an instant.  We think she is awesome and are totally in love with her, but we do wish we could slow down time.

This year we are starting to do some more formal homeschooling.  Just a little bit everyday.  I was torn between two curriculum options.  The first is ABCmouse which is an online curriculum that is for ages 2-6.  It grows with your child which is great and is very interactive.  It has games, songs, puzzles, etc and even a pet hamster and a fish tank.  It covers reading, music, art, math and science as well as a number of other topics.  The other curriculum is Letter of the Week, a program for toddlers available on the popular homeschool blog Confessions of a Homeschooler.  This curriculum is completely offline and focuses on reading, math, and fine motor skills.  Both seemed great to me.  I was, and am still, tempted to do both.  But for right now we have started using the ABCmouse program.  Amelia loves it and will do multiple lessons in a row (each lesson teaching her about 1 topic/theme using 5 activities: a song, a coloring activity, 2 different types of puzzles, and a story).  She also loves all of the bonus games and activities.  We have some fun pre-k work books too.

Amelia will also be taking swim classes twice a week in the fall, gymnastics once a week, and 2 music classes (on the same day).  Her first music class is the same one we took this summer which involved playing lots of different instruments, singing songs, dancing, and musical stories.  The second music class will be new and is called Sing, Dance, and Paint.  Amelia LOVES to paint, and I hate her painting in the house, so this will be great.  It will be a busy fall, but should be lots of fun.  All of Amelia's classes at this phase are Mommy and Me classes, and I love learning all of these fun things with her.

In other news:  Amelia has started doing the cutest thing.  Everyday, she takes her special stuffed animals (the ones that make the cut and get to be upstairs instead of in the playroom) and she carefully puts them in her bed, covers them with her blanket, kisses each one of them, says "sweet dreams" and closes her bedroom door so they can sleep.  It is 5 stuffed animals; her favorite pink teddy that she got the day she was born, her brown teddy/puppet, her big pink teddy, her bunny "millie", and her glow sea-horse.  Hours later she will go wake them up, rubbing each one gently on the back whispering "up".  I love this sweet girl.  And we love that she is sweet, but can also hang with the boys, lol.  Yesterday when I picked her up from child care at the gym her teacher told me how surprised she was by Amelia's fearlessness.  I guess some of the slightly older boys there were playing a game somewhat like dodge ball and she said Amelia was right in there laughing and stealing the ball.  I wasn't surprised, and neither was Aaron when I told him to the story.