teaching: What do Mr. Potato Head and Writing have in common?

FROM WAKING UP IN KINDERGARTEN

The answer to this would be details, details, details.  For the past couple of weeks we have been talking about adding details to our writing.  We have done many lessons from Katie Wood Rays book In Pictures and In Words.  This lesson was adopted from Toying with Writing by Nancy Herta. She has some awesome ideas for teaching writing. All of her lessons have a toy that help kids remember the skill.

We started with a very plain potato and talked about what details we could add.

They started by wanting to add feet.  I let them choose what pair of feet they wanted to add.

Then they added a hat and eyes.

In the end we added a mouth and some arms.

We made a couple of other Mr./Mrs. Potato Heads.

When we were done we talked about when we draw pictures of people we need to make sure we draw eyes, hands, a mouth, feet and clothing. This lesson really stuck.  So many kiddos were drawing people with tons of details. 

Glad to See Summer End

If you know me you know that I love summer; I am a warm weather kid.  I love the beach and the pool!! This summer has been less than stellar and I am ready for fall and some positive news. The summer started out on a high note with the birth of my twin sons (Garrett and Hunter) but unfortunately from there it hasn't been the best.

In the beginning of July my grandmother passed, this was a blessing but not something you ever want to experience.  She was 87 years old or almost 87 years old. She had dementia really bad, she never could remember who I was and most of the time barely recognized my mom. It was a blessing but she will truly be missed.

A couple of weeks later Jamie's brother passed very unexpected. That week was hard and definitely not something we expected.  He was only 57 years old! Jamie saw him just before the twins were born and he was doing great.  It was very hard for Jamie and something that he still thinks about every day.

In the beginning of August we took our first ever family vacation as a party of SIX. Because the Suburban isn’t towing the camper very well these days we took the truck.  It was very interesting to ride in a car for nine hours with three kids under the age of two but we made it! I hope to blog about our camping trip soon. :-) We had many first on this trip...First time we camped in the camper for a week.  Jamies first time in the outer banks. Boys first time at the beach. Jamie also got to go fishing on a charter boat.  And most importantly our first vacation as #LahockiPartyof6.  We also got got three stamps for our passport book the last one Jamie will tell you that I almost got us shot ,which is not true I just wasn't following directions very well.

Once we got home we had a blessing and also a scary event; my sister gave birth to her son 10 weeks early. It was very exciting and very scary!! I think this is the hardest thing for me to deal with. You hear stories all the time about babies being born early and being in the NICU but it doesn’t hit you until it happens to you or someone who you are very close with. Above all this is what I am having the hardest time with, especially since I am going back to work knowing that I have three very healthy babies and my nephew is not struggling for his life but he is struggling. It will be a very long road for them and I feel horrible and helpless all the same time.

So as you can see we have not had the best of summers. I'm looking forward to going back to work... I'm looking forward to teaching first grade. I know my boys and Henleigh will do amazing things with Natalie and they will grow so much.  Even though I am looking forward to going back I know it is going to be hard, much harder than it was when I went back after Henleigh was born. I can see it coming and I can see myself already tearing up whenever I start to think about it. My hope for the school year is that I learn a lot teaching first grade, my love for teaching grows, my kids thrive at Natalie's. I know that my daily chats with Mechelle will get harder but she will be in my thoughts and prayers everyday. I hope that we as a family can visit Mechelle, Mitchell, and Raylan as much as possible.   I know that everything will be OK and she will make it through this, she is stronger than she knows. One day all of our kids will be running around and playing in the backyard, we will look back on this with very fond memories and can smile about it.