cutting- pasting -sowing- oh my!

I printed up some "guidlines" of a typical course of study for both prek & kindy to see where Emma & Owen were according to that particular website. I was able to cross off almost all of the prek stuff and over half of the kindy stuff. The only thing that I could not cross off for both kids on the pre k list was cutting with scissors. It is just not something they've done much of. The first pair if scissos I got the were part of the problem, the thumb hole was the same size as the other hole. They just seemed to have a hard time with them. The othe problem is my very busy 19 mo son. No way do I want him around scissors! He wants to do everything big brother & sister do so he'd be fighting for those suckiers! So yesterday I bout some better sicssors- kid ones but better. Today when Evan was down and Olivia happened to fall asleep too- I busted them out and taught the kids how to us them. Owen I would say has great control of them. Only occasionally did I need to remind him that his thumb needed to be on top. Emma had a tougher time with them- I had to remind her almost every time she started a new cut that her thumb had to be on top. Talk about sounding like a broken record. Here finger/hand stregnth needs some work too- so this will be a good regular activity for her. she was definately doing better after a while, but her hand started hurting from the postitioning too. I am definatly going to have her do as much cutting as possible though to both gain mastery of the scissors as well as stregthen her hands and develop better finer moter cordination. While Owen was happily cutting away I had Emma switch gears do some indoor gardening. I had a small pot and a soil pellett that needed to be soaked in water then transfered into the pot. then She planted some parsely seeds and we put it on the window sill. we took the extra seeds from the packet and planted them in the front yard garden. Owen Finished up his cutting and then did his own pot and planted basil. I have a pot with chives. With both babies still sleeping we got out the glue for some more fun. I had small tissue paper squares cut from a past project. They each had a half sheet of construction paper- Owen's was green, Emma's was red. The drizzled glue over the paper then set the small squares all over it. sor of looks like stained glass. Tomorrow I'll have them write a messageon the other side and they'll give them as Christmas cards. I'll let them decide who gets them. I'll have to take some picture of all this tomorrow.

We've also started some simple advent activities- they each got a box with thos little windows with chocolate behind them- they love that. and we made a simple green and red chain to count down to Christmas as well. I'm going to look for some good but simple activities to do here and there as well (any sugeestions welcome).

We are all on our way back to health. I had periodontal surgery on Tusday so it feels like someone socked me in the jaw- but t is getting better- at least I can now drink coffee & tea!!

We're planning to do some baking this weekend- daddy like to bake so it will be a whole family event. I'm also ging to make some pasta do for pierogies. Not ready to tackle making them yet, but we still have time. I also want to get some of our Chiristmas decorations out and up. We won't be getting a tree for another week, maybe next weekend, but no reason we can't get other stuff up.

Ok well- forgive any typos or spelling errors for now-  baby calls and I won't be able to proofread.