Valentine's Counting Practice (with video)

Parenting Early Years ($3-$5 for 2 years)

Edited again to add:  Offer still good today!
Edited to add:  I should have mentioned earlier that if you are new to Eversave, you get a $2 credit, which makes the subscription only $3!

You can get two years of Parenting Early Years for $5 today only at Eversave.  Parenting Early Years has had the great Amazon diaper coupons in the past.

Amazon Workbooks 4 for $4.20

Not that I am a big advocate of workbooks, but I bought some of these for a trip we have coming up to keep S busy and thought I should let you know about this deal.  School Zone workbooks are only $1.40 right now at Amazon and they are also part of the Amazon 4 for 3 promotion.  If you scroll down to "Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought" you can see other $1.40 choices.  You can mix your 4 choices and get 4 of them for $4.20.  Here are the ones I ordered, but there are more choices:

Preschool Basics

Uppercase Alphabet

Lowercase Alphabet

Beginning Sounds

Dollar Tree and dollar bins at Target also carry workbooks for (obviously) $1, but I think these may be a little higher quality. 

42 Pampers Points

To get 42 points enter code VMF776C7HMXXT4A at Pampers Gifts to Grow.

Thanks, Money Saving Mom!

Letter Formation

(This is a sideways J.  I didn't have the energy to figure out how to rotate the photo.)

S has just started to show an interest in writing letters and so we began with making letters in a tray of sand (I used a small box lid).  What I love about this is that he can use his finger instead of a writing instrument and it's very tactile, but it's a little too "open ended" for him right now.  He needs more of a guide...

(Again, too tired to rotate this.)

That's when I saw this idea and wanted to give it a try.  I bought the same border from Dollar Tree, cut it up, and laminated each letter.  You can use dry or wet erase markers.  I love it because there is room for error and it gives S a guide, but the dry erase markers are a little cumbersome for him still.

I think I might back it up a bit and try having him trace puffy paint letters with his finger first because they are so tactile. 

When his writing skills are more developed I plan to start using a highlighter to write letters/numbers and draw shapes and have him trace over my highlighter with a pencil, but he needs more room for error for now.

Parents Magazine $1

Barnes and Noble is offering a one year subscription to Parents Magazine for $1 with the code K9B9J4H.  If you already receive this magazine, you can extend your subscription by a year.  There may be valuable coupons in it as well!

Qwirkle $14

This is such a great game for kids AND adults and $13.99 is a great price (free shipping if you're signed up for free Amazon Mom or spend $25).  The price could change any minute on Amazon though.  S is too young to play right now, but the pieces can be used by preschoolers to sort by different attributes or a toddler could do simple matching.  They are also fun to dump out of toy dump trucks!

10 Pampers Points

Enter code 4WJDHKU4RPP6PT2 at Pampers Gifts to Grow for 10 points.  This code expires on January 21st.

Thanks, Money Saving Mom!

I'm (maybe) back!

No commitment or promise.  Let's just see how this goes.  It's been almost a YEAR since I went "on hiatus" and while we have been busy the past year, I'll just catch you up to what we've been up to in the past WEEK...

I is for Igloo.  Since the start of the school year, we've been working on a letter each week...or two weeks...or four when a new baby is born :)  My mom got us the cardboard letters from Lakeshore (can't find an online link), but you could easily cut your own out.  After S paints them we cover them in stickers that begin with that letter.  S looks forward to this each week and wants to race through the whole alphabet.  After we finish these, I plan to do these cute alphabet animals, but wanted to wait until S's cutting skills were stronger for these. 

This past week, we were on "I" (Does anybody else get frustrated with the whole uppercase I that looks like a lowercase l thing?) and since we are also learning about ice, snow, igloos, penguins, polar bears, etc, we made this igloo from a styrofoam bowl and "iceblock" Avery labels.  We also used some packing peanuts as snow.  I plan to add penguin and polar bear figurines to our little play scene. 

We've also been reading two bible stories each week.  When we got this bible, I went through the table of contents and marked which months we would read certain stories, using Easter and Christmas as guides which puts us towards the beginning of the Old Testament right now reading "Miracles of Jesus" stories.  I haven't gotten very creative with these yet, but S is enjoying these coloring pages for each story (the second page of each link). 

Letter Matching.  S has enjoyed matching upper case letters with lower case letters.  We use Fridge Phonics letters and an alphabet chart I made awhile back.  We are also enjoying using these alphabet blocks to match letters on an ABC poster from Dollar Tree. 

I'll stop there for now.  We'll call this a trial period...