Monday, January 31, 2011

Is Preschool Necessary? (part two)

Part one of this post is here. 

Socialization in Preschool

What exactly do people mean when they say preschool is good (or even necessary) for socialization?  Honestly, it’s something I’ve had a hard time understanding.

My best guess is that people who speak of preschool as being necessary for socialization actually mean something like this:

  • preschool can help the child learn to get along with other children (sharing, taking turns, manners, etc).
  • preschool will give the child an environment in which to make friends his own age.
  • preschool can help the child get ready for formal schooling in a classroom setting.

I think that everyone who has encouraged us to send M to preschool has good intentions.  All of these people care about him on some level.  I feel I need to take their concerns and look at them, not just dismiss them, in the spirit of maintaining healthy, caring, and peaceful relationships.

Let’s get the third reason out of the way first.  Since I tend to think that the older a child is, and the more developmentally ready he is, the better he’ll be able to learn in a classroom setting, I don’t give a lot of weight to this particular argument.  Also, with 13 years of school ahead of him, most likely he’s got time to figure all that out, if necessary.  Also, most preschool classrooms are very different from the classroom of a higher grade, as they should be.  I agree that it’s important for a child to learn to respect authority figures other than his parents, but this can be achieved in many other ways.

Now, in regards to learning social skills and making friends…

It seems to me that the best way to learn social skills is to have parents who are good role models and who make the time and effort to teach their child the kind of behavior that will best equip him for healthy relationships in the future.

Why the parents?  Simply because parents are the people most important to the child; their opinion matters most to him; from them he gets (or should get) the nurturing his body and mind and soul crave, which helps develop his confidence and a sense of his self-worth.  And this is exactly what he’ll take with him into the “real world” where he will have to get along with others, and form friendships, and know how to behave in a variety of situations.

Doesn’t it seem that, as adults, we often find ourselves looking to other people in our lives to meet some need we feel?  Quite often it seems (to me) that need stems from something that was lacking in our childhood.  For example, children who were abandoned or always in fear of abandonment, still fear it in adulthood and can place unrealistic expectations on another person, hoping that this person will finally make them feel safe.  That’s an extreme example to make a point, but I think the principle plays out in other, less dramatic, ways also.  It’s hard to overestimate the value of developing a good, secure, relationship between parents and children.  And it’s something we can’t rush along.  And “attachment” isn’t a bad thing at 4 or 5 years old.

As M’s mother, I am in a position to stay on top of behavior issues with him – I can remind him a hundred times a day (and I think there have been days like that!) that he needs to share and take turns and develop a caring heart towards others.  I can take him with me to the store, the post office, church, playgroups, etc. and show him by my example how to be polite and mannerly.  I can take him with me to pick out toys for less fortunate children; donate diapers and formula for new babies; or take him to visit elderly people on a Meals on Wheels route, all the while teaching him about the respect we owe to each person, and the inherent dignity of each human being regardless of where they live or what their abilities are. 

By talking to him one-on-one about these things, I’m able to discern his growth in these areas of true “socialization”, answer questions he may have, and help him develop a greater understanding of what we, as a family, hold valuable.  I would not, for the world, give up the amazingly deep conversations about these things that we sometimes have.  For the record, I know that doing these things would still be important if he went to preschool.  But finding time for them would be much more difficult! 

So, it would seem to me that it’s better and more do-able to socialize a child out in the “real world” during normal day to day life with mom and dad, rather than in a preschool. 

However, parents are people, and as such have strengths and weaknesses, and can not be all things to all children. Many parents have strengths in areas where I am definitely weak (healthful cooking; rough playing, especially with boys; etc).  For some families, preschool meets a need and is great.

But one of the areas in which I have done well has been making sure we have ample opportunities to learn and socialize outside of our home.  (I actually feel that we are too busy sometimes, and try to limit our days away from home to no more than 3 per week, not including weekends).

I’ve been thinking about the social skills that M already has – he’s polite (most of the time, hee hee), truly cares about others, knows how to share and take turns, can carry on conversations with anyone of any age, plays well with other children (provided there are not too many other children… this is something I’ll talk about in my next post, in regards to the socialization of a shy child), and is developing a sense of responsibility in his every day life.  By my standards, he has great social skills for a 4 year old!   

In addition to the activities mentioned in an earlier paragraph, we have 1 to 2 playgroup meetings per week, as well as one-on-one play dates quite often (he does have a few friends!), a nature center class each week, a music class most weeks, frequent outings to indoor playgrounds in the winter and parks in the summer, and weekly trips to the library.  Add to this lots of time with mom and dad at home, as well as seeing cousins and grandparents most weekends, and you’ve got a pretty well-rounded and happy kid. 

Preschool can be fun, there’s no doubt about it.  It can provide a lot of wonderful, stimulating ideas and activities.  Many children love preschool!  I am not trying to bash preschool, and I sure hope it doesn’t seem like that’s my point here.  I know wonderful, wonderful preschool teachers who are doing great jobs.  I hope that throughout M’s life he has teachers (regardless of grade) like Deborah over at Teach Preschool, who wrote this very encouraging post (it’s well worth reading!).  The problem I have is the apparent confusion between socializing and socialization.  Socializing with children of the same age is not the same as teaching the child good social skills.  In fact, I’ve seen and heard of situations where the opposite effect has occurred – being around a large group of children for a while or on a regular basis can cause a child to pick up attitudes and phrases and all kinds of things that we definitely do not consider good social skills! 

Maybe my opinions on this subject stem from my own experiences in school – throughout all of my school years, I clearly remember being told that I was there to learn, “not to socialize”. ;)  (I’m a “talker”, as you can see by the length of this post!)  Remember, the family is the most basic building block of society.  If a child does not learn social skills and how to be a good friend from his family first, most likely no school will be able to do the job later on.

Whew – that’s enough for now.  I want to talk about shyness and socialization in my next post on this subject.  I promise it won’t be this long!

Your comments are always welcome!

Have a beautiful day! :)

 

Saturday, January 29, 2011

Books of the Week – January 29, 2011


We’ve been reading so many great books lately!  There’s nothing quite like snuggling up in a warm blanket and reading away winter afternoons, is there?  We have a date on the couch each afternoon at 3:30 and M does not let me forget about it, ever. :) 

The Adventures of Paddy the Beaver, by Thornton W. Burgess is one of our top favorites of Burgess’ animal stories (these are chapter books, and I wrote more about the series here).  There is so much fun, adventure, and real learning in this little book, it’s amazing.  The work of Paddy the beaver is really fascinating!  So we checked out two more books about beavers - Beaver at Long Pond, by William T. George; and Beaver at Long Pond, by Jim Arnosky.  Both are excellent!

Animal Tales, (sorry, I can’t seem to find any link for this one) also by Burgess, is a collection of very short stories about his animal characters.  These are fun little stories, and each has a lot of nice illustrations, something the longer ones are short on.  Since we’ve now finished all the longer Burgess stories that we own, this little book gave us our “Green Forest” (where all the animals live) fix for a while.  I plan to order the other stories as soon as possible.

Bartholomew and the Oobleck, by Dr. Seuss was a new one for M (although we have made oobleck before).  I enjoyed it, but I’m not sure what M thought of it – he just said it was long.  Which it is. :)  To make oobleck… use 1 part liquid starch to 1 part white glue – mix it together gradually until it forms a rubbery, non-sticky ball (add green food coloring if you want it to match the book).  Lots of slimey, gooey fun. :)

Carl’s Snowy Afternoon, by Alexandra Day is a sweet and charming book.  It has hardly any words, but the pictures tell a story that almost every child has thought of – a big dog who is a best friend and does things like letting you ride on his back and sled down a hill with him.  I love Carl.  M loves Carl.  I so wish we had a dog just like Carl!  And I just found out that this is just one in a series of books about Carl – yay!  We’ll be checking more of these out for sure.  This is a book that non-readers will love since they can simply look at the beautiful illustrations and tell the story on their own.  I’d say this book is the hit of the week.

Although, this book is a probably a tie for hit of the week:  A Child’s Garden of Verses, by Robert Louis Stevenson.  I’ve been wanting to introduce real poetry – something more than nursery rhymes – to M for a while now, but had completely forgotten about this sweet book.  Oh. my. goodness.  You have to check out this book – it is full of poems about childhood, and they are something children can really understand and relate to.  It’s a bit dated, and some of it is not very politically correct, but we love it.

For more reviews of children’s books, check out Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns.

Have a beautiful day! :)
 

Friday, January 28, 2011

Learning by Heart – January

“The mother’s heart is the child’s schoolroom”
– Henry Ward Beecher

deerThe sweet deer that visit us weekly at our nature center.
  We are getting to be good friends with these graceful and beautiful animals. :)

I’m not sure where the time has gone this month!  We haven’t done a ton of learning activities, but we are slowly getting back into the swing of things.  I’m re-thinking and re-planning some things as we go.  I’ll try to just hit the highlights of this month in this post (sorry if it gets too long!).

~M is 4 years old~

SHELF ACTIVITIES
(independent or semi-independent activities)

Mostly, I’ve been rotating toys on M’s shelves this month.  New toys from Christmas make this easy to do for a while.  I have plans to create a page where I can list all the activities I rotate on the shelves for M, because I think it’s fun to read that kind of thing, but also because I think it gets kind of tedious on these weekly posts to keep listing the same things time after time.  I will, however, make sure to mention any new items that I put out for him.

Folding:

M folds laundry like a pro (towels and washcloths mostly), but has been practicing his paper-folding skills since we got this great little book.  He loves this book, and I let him do as many pages as he wants.  He tends to get obsessed with something until he has mastered it; apparently this is just what makes him happy and how he learns best, so I don’t really follow the rule of stopping an activity while he’s still enjoying it.  Doing that frustrates him and makes him less likely to take it up again.  Here’s a little example of what this book is like:

See the little mouse?folding paper

Eek!  It’s really a giant elephant! ;)folding paper 2

It is so much fun – I’m not much of a fan of traditional workbooks, but the Kumon group of books is excellent.

 

Cutting and Pasting – I cut construction paper in several colors to size, hole-punched the edges, stuck it all in a 3-ring binder and gave it to M for his own photo album: M, working on his photo albumHe has his own digital camera (an old camera of ours that doesn’t have a memory card, but takes about 20 pictures at a time), so I’ve been printing out some of his photos for him.  He loves to cut them out and place them on the pages.  He actually uses double-stick tape most of the time for the “pasting” part of this.  I think it will be so much fun for him to look back through when he’s older.  It’s not the best quality, but it’s simple, inexpensive, fun, and a good way to sharpen those scissor skills. :)

As you can see, he’s fond of self-portraits, hee hee: photo album

 

Mazes and dot-to-dots - I also made a little book of these for M.  The mazes were from another Kumon book, and the dot-to-dots were something I found on Amazon.  I cut off the binding and placed each page in a page protector, then all of it went into another 3-ring binder: maze book

This has been a big hit with him.  There are, I think, roughly 80 mazes – great for reasoning skills and fine motor skills.  The dot-to-dots each go up to 100, which is a real challenge for him right now, and we normally do those together.  Since the pages are all in page protectors, he uses a dry-erase marker to do them, erases them with a piece of felt, and then does them over and over again.  I think this will be a great car-trip book!

Math: Not much has been done on this front, although M continues to enjoy counting anything and everything.  One day he decided he wanted to count to 100 and surprised himself by actually doing it. :)  He only needs a little help once in a while, and he does not recognize the written higher numbers, but wants to, so that’s what we’ll do next. 

Science: M loves doing this: coloring ice cubes

Mixing colors of water in an ice cube tray.  He asked to do this, which he does from time to time.  It’s one of his favorite things.  He likes to watch the colors mix, use the pipette, etc.  Normally he then asks for these ice cubes when he’s taking a bath, and enjoys watching them melt and color the bath water.

We’ve been doing one mama-led science experiment per week, and I’ll post about these at Science Sunday on Ticia’s blog – stay tuned!

As you may know, M is obsessed with all things electric, especially light bulbs and batteries.  He has been itching to know how these things are made, and I found a couple of interesting you tube videos about just that – How Light Bulbs are Made, and How Batteries are Made.  He was fascinated by the machines that make these things and loved the videos, although I’m not sure how much he really understood (the voice over sounds like a computer voice and has what might be a British accent).  I was pretty fascinated too!

 

Literacy:  We’ve been reading, reading, and reading some more these past weeks.  We are content for now for that to be the main thing in this area.  Actually, more than content, we are loving it.  I feel like we’ve found so many great books lately, which I hope to post about soon.  I’ve decided to wait until this fall to start any book units with extension activities – that’s what we will do if M doesn’t go to a “real” preschool then.  We’ve been reading chapter books at lunch over several days, and picture books for about 1/2 hour each afternoon (snuggle time!).  M’s comprehension of the longer books continues to amaze me.  Sometimes he understands things I don’t even catch!  He’s developing a real love of books, which makes this mama very happy. :)

He is also a rhyming fiend.  Everything has to rhyme lately – oh goodness, you can imagine the nonsense going on here.  Things like, “Mommy, did you ever see a bug licking a fug?”  {Sigh}  or “Are you a dishwasher, made out of fishfasher?”  {Sigh again}

I found some great nursery rhyme sequencing cards here.  I made a little cardstock mat to place them on:sequencing mat 

I printed out several sets of sequencing cards, and by looking at the cards, M was usually able to tell which poem they were for.  Then we’d say it together and then he’d say it again, while setting the cards out, in order, on the appropriate square.  He really enjoyed this.  I’ll probably set this out on his shelf with more cards for him to do independently.sequencing nursery rhymes

 

Karen at Prekinders has these fantastic rhyming mats and cards, which we also did.  M always enjoys doing these!rhyming match game

 

Art:  We’ve started going to a weekly music class – it’s very informal – lots of playing around with a great assortment and variety of instruments, some movement songs, and lots of rhythm activities.  We enjoy it a lot, but I’ve noticed it’s the same activities, in the same order each week.  Occasionally there’s a new song thrown into the mix, but there just isn’t enough variety to keep us interested in going each week.  There are only 6 more sessions, so I think we’ll try to make it to 2 or 3 more.  It could be such a wonderful program if a little more effort went into the planning.

As far as other art – this drawing cracks me up:drawing of M jumping

It’s just a regular drawing of him, but see the rectangle drawn around him?  And how his feet aren’t touching the bottom?  It’s M jumping!  Hee hee, I love it.

We’ve also been doing one planned art project per week.  Most recently, we colored on white construction paper with crayons, then rubbed over it with mineral oil.crayons and oil rubbing art project  This was an idea from one of Mary Ann Kohl’s books (can’t think of which one right now), and it was supposed to make the colors brighter.  It didn’t really seem to be working, so I showed M how to make a loopy design and then color in each open area, hoping that with more color all over the paper it would work better.crayons and oil rubbing art project 2

It worked okay, and actually the oil made the paper seem more like a thick vellum, which was pretty neat.  We hung the finished artwork in the window to be a suncatcher, but unfortunately we haven’t had much sun lately. finished art

 

Miscellaneous:  Lately I wander around my house, seeing things like this:taking toys apart

screwdrivers and taken apart toys left lying around

tightening screws on my wobbly rocking chairM has definitely mastered his screwdriver skills, and I realized that I really don’t need to worry about providing many fine motor skill activities for him anymore. :)

 

This is a little old, but every year, once Christmas is finished, we set our tree outside and make treats for the animals:

bagels, peanut butter, and birdseed

stringing popcorn

the decorated "After-Christmas Tree"

This little red squirrel does not like to share.

We also read The After Christmas Tree, by Linda Wagner Tyler:   which talks about the tree’s “second season of giving”. 

 

Finally, I’m not sure what category this falls into, but it was fun!  I filled a bowl with water, added a bunch of small objects, and let it freeze outside overnight.  The next day M chiseled away at it to get all the little things out.  He really enjoyed this! pounding ice

After the pounding was through :) 

Hope your winter is full of coziness! 

 

I’m linking this post up to Preschool Corner, Friday Wrap Up,and Weekly Wrap-Up; be sure to check them out!

Have a beautiful day! :)

 

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Sorry I’ve been MIA lately.  My email inbox is piling up, and so is a list of blog posts I want to write.  The hours in the mornings that I usually use for blogging have been sabotaged lately by sleepless nights due to M being sick for what seems like ages.  Poor little guy!  Anyway, I just wanted to let you know I’m trying my best to get back on track; and if you are waiting for an email please be patient for just a little longer! :)

I appreciate you all so much!

Have a beautiful day! :)

 

Friday, January 21, 2011

Is Preschool Necessary? (part one)

Most of you know I don’t want to send M to preschool.  Intuitively, I want to keep him with me one more year – doing what we’ve been doing all along – hopefully helping him grow into a confident, capable boy with a caring heart.

I operate on intuition a lot.  This doesn’t mean logic and reason don’t come into play when I make decisions – they definitely do.  It just means that I am comfortable listening to my feelings and examining what my heart is telling me.  I have found that, quite often, my heart is picking up on easy-to-miss little things and whispering to me to pay attention!.

Intuition has “told” me of many engagements, new lives, even deaths, before I actually heard the news.  My family is never surprised when I know something before they tell me. 

Intuition told me to stay home with my new baby and let the world of work rush by without me; that what he really needed was for Mama to hold him and love him and know him, and that if I just did that everything else would fall into place.

Intuition had me at his side those first few weeks, loving him and bonding with him, hurrying to his side whenever he cried.  And intuition is what told me that in the natural course of things he wouldn’t always be so needy, and that at 6 months I would respond a tiny bit differently than at 6 weeks, and a bit more differently at a year, and so on.  I felt, quite often at that time, that I was being judged (although it could very well have just been those hormones!) for jumping up whenever he needed me.  When I began teaching him that he needed to be patient for mama and that mama would always come, but that sometimes learning to go to sleep is important too I would let him cry for a few minutes (never much though, to be honest).  And I distinctly remember seeing looks exchanged between people, as if to say – “wow, she’s finally learned!”  But the truth is, it was just intuition telling me that a baby at one year has different needs than a baby at 6 weeks.  It was a sense of his development and just knowing in my heart what he was ready for and what was best for our family.  I would still rush to a new baby as soon as possible if he cried!

Intuition is telling me, in a bit more than its usual whisper, that preschool is not right for M.  Not right now anyway.  Who knows, things may change by fall, I don’t know.  I do try to keep my mind open and pray that what is right and best for him is what ends up happening.  No matter how much I pray though, I keep coming back to the thought that as M’s mother, God has given me this gift of intuition to help me know what the right thing to do is.  As his mother, I understand and know him better than anyone else.  I am the primary advocate of his well-being, and it’s a job I don’t take lightly.

For his sake, as well as my own peace of mind, I want to take what I am feeling intuitively, and support it with reason.  There are a few factors that I want to explore and write about in relation to preschool:

  • socialization, especially in light of the fact that he is naturally an introvert and can be a bit shy at times.
  • academics – what is being taught in the preschool that we would send him to, and how this lines up with what he needs, wants, and is developmentally ready for, as well as what we want for him.
  • the idea of “mothering” him too much – does he, at this age, need formal school time away from me?  If so, why? 

I’m trying to be so orderly about getting my thoughts put down on paper (cyber paper, that is), and it’s not an easy task for this jumbled up brain of mine. :)  Hopefully over the next few weeks I’ll be able to write posts about all of these things.  Feedback is so very, very appreciated!

Have a beautiful day! :)

 

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Crafty Science Experiment – Crystal Snowflakes

pretty green crystal snowflakeWinter has been around for a while, and M recently decided he needed something other than leaves hanging in front of his bedroom window (maybe I was in denial about the whole winter thing?).

I’ve seen this little project everywhere, so I’m sure it is new to no one except us.  I don’t know why we didn’t get around to doing it sooner.

It’s all about saturated solutions.  We used the following items:suppliesBorax, 5 pipecleaners, 2 dowels, food coloring, 5 glasses, measuring spoons, and a kettle for boiling the water.

First, boil some water.  We had a full kettle and used almost all of it to make 5 snowflakes.

While your water is boiling, form the pipecleaners into snowflakes.  We cut each snowflake into 3 sections, leaving one longer than the others (for hanging), and twisted them together in the middle, then pulled apart the six points of the snowflake.  Twist the long end around one of the dowels, then hang in a glass.  Make sure your snowflake is not touching the sides of the glass:pipecleaner snowflakes hanging in glasses
Next, I poured the boiling water into each glass, and M began measuring tablespoons of borax into them. (Note – borax can be harmful if swallowed, so make sure your child is able to do this without deciding to take a taste!).  He stirred until the borax dissolved, then added more until there was a bit that wouldn’t dissolve, making a saturated solution – yay! :)  I think it took about 3 tablespoons of borax for every cup or so of water.  We weren’t too exact, to be honest. ;)M, spooning in the borax

watching the borax dissolve
We decided a little color would be nice, so M stirred in a bit of food coloring.  We added in a quick color-mixing review, and made one of them purple by using blue and red together.adding the food coloring
Then we let all the little snowflakes hang out over night:crystal snowflakes (7)
They stayed in their solution for about 18 hours total.  The following day, the glasses looked like this:crystal-coated glass Isn’t it beautiful?  I think it would be really neat to do this to a glass jar to make a pretty votive holder.  I hated washing all those pretty crystals off, but decided we do need drinking glasses after all.
The snowflakes turned out great!  Here are some of them:finished snowflakes, waiting to dry
sparkly!
We let them dry on a paper towel, then moved them all to a clean dowel rod and hung them in front of the window:crystal snowflakes hanging in front of M's window
blue crystal snowflake
You can also do this with sugar or salt.  The main thing is making sure your water is saturated with whatever it is you are using.  If you use sugar, use a string instead of a pipe cleaner, and make rock candy!  (You could use a pipecleaner, but I’m thinking about the fuzz getting in my mouth – bleck!)
I’m linking this up to   Be sure to check it out!

Have a beautiful day! :)

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Preschool Art – Epiphany Stars and Corn Syrup Painting

swirling colorsToday is the 12th day of Christmas – are your little drummers drumming?  If they aren’t, I bet they will if you tell them they can. ;)  I’m sure mine will, although that’s only one drummer, not twelve.  I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be ok with it if I had twelve drummers!

Tomorrow is Epiphany, and we’ll be moving the wise men all the way to the stable, where they finally get to see the baby they’ve been looking for.  They will bring gifts, and I plan to have a little something (a very little $5.00 something) for them to give to M also.

We decided to make some stars to help celebrate, and I turned it into a full-fledged art project by introducing a technique we’ve never tried before – painting with corn syrup.  This was fun and I wished we’d tried it sooner.  It is not as messy as it sounds!

Here’s what you’ll need:suppliesCorn syrup, food coloring, small paint brushes, glitter, craft sticks, and stars cut from cardboard or cardstock.  And, because I just wouldn’t be me if I included all the supplies in the photo, we also used parchment paper, double-stick tape, scissors, and an ice cube tray.

First, pour a puddle of corn syrup onto one of the stars:puddle of corn syrup 

Then use a craft stick to spread it out towards the points.  You want to cover the entire star: spreading out corn syrup

Next, squeeze on a couple of drops of food coloring:dripping food coloring 

And use the pointy end of a paintbrush to swirl the colors (you could use a toothpick or skewer for this too, obviously):swirling colors

We loved watching the colors swirl around – so pretty!

Keep swirling out towards the points, until you have it just the way you want it.  We should have left it at that, because it was beautiful.  However, M was sure a little glitter would be great, and a little glitter probably would have been fine.  I think I liked it better before the glitter, but apparently I forgot to get a photo of that.  Here’s with glitter: Finished, glittered, corn syrup shiny star

You can’t tell in the photo, but the corn syrup makes it very, very shiny – perfect for a star!  It almost leaves it looking like painted glass or ceramic.

Leave them to dry overnight.  Depending on your humidity level, drying could take a couple of days.  Our air is very dry these days, and it only took one night for our stars to dry.  They look just as shiny after they are dry, but are no longer sticky.

Next, we decided to try painting our cardboard stars with colored corn syrup and paint brushes instead of a craft stick.

I poured a little corn syrup into four wells of an ice cube tray, added some food coloring, and a tiny amount of glitter:corn syrup paint with glitter 

We each painted one star (after watching, I just had to try this for myself – it was a lot of fun!):Painting, instead of swirling

Painting with the paint brushes left a much thinner layer of corn syrup, which meant less mess and a shorter drying time.  However, we weren’t able to achieve the swirling effect from earlier.  The swirling was mesmerizing and beautiful to watch.  When we do this again, we will paint plain corn syrup onto our paper, then drip on food coloring and swirl.  Hopefully that will mean a thinner layer of corn syrup, while still having the swirled look.

Our finished (painted) stars:Painted star

my finished star

We have company coming over for dinner tonight, and one last evening enjoying the light of our Christmas tree.  We may watch The Little Drummer Boy, read Little Star, and sing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.  We’ll read the story of the Three Kings from M’s little Bible tomorrow and I have a little mosaic crown project set up for him (pictures of that later).

I’m linking this up to Kids Get Crafty!

Have a beautiful day! :)

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