Week in Review

stunning fall leaves on a rainy Friday

Beauty on a rainy October day.

This week was much easier than last week. Mike was back in town, we weren’t adjusting to family leaving (and returning from a trip), and Monday was a holiday for the entire family. I wish every week was four days of work/school and three days off!

Emma is enjoying kindergarten. Her teacher moved the seats around so she has a friend at her table, and she comes home from school feeling more relaxed. I am very grateful to have a teacher who thinks of creative ways to help her students! Emma’s class is learning letter sounds with Lively Letters, and she loves it – even though she has known all the letter sounds since she was 20 months old or so. She commented the other day that bad things often happen to the poor letter “H” in the blended sound stories. Every day she comes home and tells me which letter they learned that day. Emma is also great at remembering what she needs to bring to school every day.

Johnny is doing okay in preschool. He is fine with going, but not thrilled. He misses his friends who were in his class last year (most of them moved up to the pre-kindergarten class, and thanks to his December birthday Johnny was left behind as one of two kids with two remaining years of preschool). He does like that his class is nearly all boys (only one girl!), and hopefully he will be more excited about school as he becomes better friends with the kids in his class.

Lily has decided that being home has its benefits. We usually do something together first (baking or a craft or music time), and then she likes to play with toys that are more difficult to share, like the LeapFrog LeapPad we got courtesy of Mom Select (more on that in an upcoming post). She is actually using it to learn how to write her letters, which is a surprise to me, in part because I didn’t think she had the fine motor skills for tracing letters (she still struggles with letters like S that had long curvy lines) and because Lily is my first child to show essentially no interest in letters in her first two years of life. Lily likes to work on potty training for a day, and then take a day off. She’s still young, and I just follow her lead.

Afterschool with the kids has been pretty mellow this week. We got flu shots and enjoyed a couple play dates. Once Emma gets home, we eat lunch and then the kids play and help clean up the house. Then Mike comes home, we have dinner, stories, and it’s bedtime. They get up early enough to play for at least half an hour before school, and they really enjoy that time. I’ve learned that it’s best to get them completely dressed, including shoes, and then let them play, so that when we do need to leave they can just get up and go!

I spent my spare time this week getting the house unpacked from packing it up for our new floors. It’s nearly done – just a bit of organizing left to do in the garage! That should have been in my October goals, but I forgot to put it in. I haven’t worked on menu planning or getting Lily to the library at all yet, so those are goals for next week!

Afterschool

What have you been up to this week? Join the Afterschool blog hop – hosted this week at What Do We Do All Day?


MaryAnne is a craft loving educator, musician, photographer, and writer who lives in Silicon Valley with her husband Mike and their four children.

10 thoughts on “Week in Review”

  1. Hi! I joined your Afterschool blog hop after finding out about it from The Educators’ Spin On It. Those flu shots are important! Does it feel good to have it done? I was relieved to get them for both my kids a couple of weeks ago.

  2. It looks like you are getting into a routine that works for everyone. I am impressed Lily is already learning her letters! Anna had absolutely no interest in writing at that age.

  3. Elisa | blissfulE

    What beautiful leaves! I’m so glad Emma is more relaxed at school. Friends make such a difference. What a tough thing for Johnny to see his friends go and him stay. It’s great that Lily is enjoying her time having you to herself! I love it too that your kids get some free play time in the morning.

    1. The free play time before school is definitely the main benefit of their habit of waking up VERY early in the morning!

Comments are closed.

Scroll to Top