Wake Me Up When September Ends

Ok, so maybe you don't appreciate my Green Day reference as a blog post title, but I do feel as though September has been a blur. So much has been happening. Unpacking is still going on. Matilda has settled into her pre-school routine and I almost feel ready for the baby to arrive. Almost.

Mat's GMum is visiting from Australia so Mat has been spending a lot of time with her. They've been able to explore A2 and do fun things like ride paddle boats and go to the hands-on Museum.

As for me, I haven't had that much time with Mat this week. We were able to work on sight words while commuting home from school and worked on puzzles during meals. Unfortunately, Mat can't ride her tricycle yet so I don't expect to meet that September goal, but we will keep working on it until she gets it or the snow flies.

Since Mat has been spending her afternoons with her GMum, I have been able to help Sean work on painting the basement and Mat's play room. It's starting to come together down there.

Well that's all for now. Below are the very few pictures I took this week. Do note the new 2-child chariot jogging stroller/stroller/bike trailer. Mat and J both love it.

Week Two

This has been Mat's second full week in Ann Arbor. She's loving it so far, especially the school part. We're slowly learning the names of her classmates (as well as what their parents constitute as a healthy snack). No, gogurt and fruit cups are not something we stock in Mat's house.

This week we've been working on sight words. She's pretty confident on 'can' and 'a'. Along with sight words we've been trying to learn lower case letters. Ones like c and u are easy for her but q and e... Not so easy. I've just been drawing attention to specific letters, using flash cards, having her trace dry erase outlines, etc. the combination of sight words and lower case letters os a hefty course load. We do them in small time increments; often.

As for me, I've started a 2-week infant care class to help me figure out how to physically take care of a newborn. I also move into my apartment tomorrow. While I'm busy moving this weekend, Mat is going to a football game and a fall harvest festival. I'll try to snag some pics from J and B to put on the blog. Have a great weekend.

Exploring

Here's a few pictures of our exploring thus far.

Take note of the pics of Mat and B in Costco. Totally in their glory.

September Goals

Now that Mat is in school 1/2 day every day, I am going to have to focus twice as hard on my goals after nap.

1) 10 sight words. At age 3, and even prior to this point, Mat has the capability to memorize small, simple words as pictures and therefore read basic sentences based on her sight word memory. Sentences like "I can run" and "you go" are easily read once each of the individual words are memorized.

I will work with the Dolch pre-primer word list and work from there. The entire list has 220 words. My initial goal is 10 words. Once she knows 10, I will build from there. Below is the pre-primer set of words.

a

and

away

big

blue

can

come

down

find

for

funny

go

help

here

I

in

is

it

jump

little

look

make

me

my

not

one

play

red

run

said

see

the

three

to

two

up

we

where

yellow

you

2) Patterns. We are still working on recognizing and repeating patters. She's really good at vocally repeating a musical pattern. I plan to associate clapping or humming with a pattern to emphasize the repetition. She sees an AB pattern but when laid out as ABABA she cannot say that B comes next. She thinks the pattern has ended, that continuation does not exist.

3) Tricycle. At age 3, Mat should be able to ride her tricycle. With our long driveway here in A2, Mat has plently of space to practice. She also received a balance bike for her birthday so we can practice steering with that as well.

Those are my goals for this month. I hope to provide updates throughout the month and then a summary at the end of the month.

Welcome to A2

9/6/2012

Well slowly but surely we are getting settled into Ann Arbor. I've been non-stop busy since I got here. Although there are still over 100 boxes left to unpack,  things are starting to come together. Ok perhaps that's an exaggeration, but there have been a lot of boxes. Mat's room is pretty settled, just waiting on some organizational storage.

We had a birthday party for her on her birthday, August 31st. A lot of kids from the neighborhood came as well as fellow Michigan staff and their small children. Matilda was very surprised by the jumping castle we rented and seemed to have a blast. She may not have been interested in eating pizza, but she did find something good to eat. We aren't exactly sure on the final count, but we know she had at least 3 of her elmo juices from the kids party-favor table. Oh well, you only turn 3 once right?

Yep, pretty much sums us up.

 

 

Sean did face painting

 

 

The infamous juices

 

Candles!

 

The kids table

Sean and I signed a lease on Tuesday. We'll be living .5 miles from J and B. I'm very excited to be able to walk to work. I didn't think a foot commute was going to be possible. Rent and taxes are significantly lower here than Philly, but gas is certainly higher. $4.19 at some gas stations. It's cheaper if you pay with cash.

Matilda started school this week at a Montessori school. She goes M-F from 8:30-11:15. She's already requesting to stay full-day. I haven't noticed any social differences yet, but she's definitely becoming more independent. She's just as content to run around the house with Max as she is to run around with me. Naps have been a bit of a challenge. Today she only fell asleep because I convinced her to lay down and stare out her window looking for birds. I have to admit it was an evil trick, but even some grown adults count sheep to fall asleep.

Mat and her daddy... and moving boxes...

 

She didn't want a picture with her backpack on, but rather just a picture with piglet

 

 

All settled into her first day of preschool

I'm excited to see what this year has in store for us. I hope you follow along on the adventure!