The Naughty List

I've already talked about how I struggle with telling my girls the myth of Santa Claus. I mostly came to terms with it last year by making sure that the Veggie Tales St. Nicholas* story is watched often to keep the true story and the meaning of Santa at the forefront. My four year old is getting it a little. She told me the other day that Santa's real name is St. Nicholas.

But this is also the first year that she is exposed to peers at school talking about Santa Claus. And, as it turns out, her preschool teacher.

She loves her teacher. I like her teacher. Minus two incidents (one that has nothing to do with my child).

Yesterday she came home from school and told me that you have to 'have (short for behave) for Santa to bring you presents. My daughter does 'have so she expects to get presents. But Miss H--- said that K---- won't get presents if he doesn't 'have. (I'm not going to even get into the public shaming side of things, which I'm not a fan of.)

I really hadn't thought about the naughty/nice list side of Santa until then. It's not something my parents emphasized or held over our heads for good behavior (thank you, Mom and Dad). I cringed a little, and then told my daughter that I feel that Santa Claus is about selflessly giving to others and loving others. Everyone is good sometimes and bad sometimes, but everyone (particularly a four year old kid for Pete's sake) deserves a present from Santa. And this is all I'll say again and again as she brings up the naughty/nice issue.

On further contemplation, I realized there are two main reasons I don't like that side of Santa Claus. First of all, getting presents is not the right motivation for good behavior. (Neither is fear of punishment, I know that even though we use it sometimes, but we're working on that.) I want my children to want to do the right thing because it's the right thing. Not because they want to get more things.

Second, what about the kid whose personality makes it harder to behave, particularly in a classroom? It's honestly easy for my daughter to behave at school. She's quiet, gets along well with most people, likes pleasing adults, and enjoys learning. She's never had a single day when she didn't want to go to school (I've seen almost every one of her classmates reluctantly hanging onto their parent's leg, not wanting to go in, at one point or another). But the kid who has a lot of energy, who would really just prefer to pretend to be a dinosaur all day? Behaving, according to the confines of preschool, is a bit harder. That doesn't make him bad or less deserving of presents.

What do you think of the naughty/nice list side of Santa Claus? Or do you not overthink these things like I do?


* I love something new about this show this year. I hadn't noticed it before. At the end, the Veggies leave their church worship to go out and serve their neighbor in need. Yes, worshipping in church is important. But serving, doing exactly what Christ would have done, is more important.

The First Thanksgiving (As Retold by a Preschooler)

Today as we left preschool, my daughter was jumping up and down with excitement for Thanksgiving. I'm glad their activities at school has got her excited for it, because Christmas anticipation has already taken over. And though I'm excited to be spending Thanksgiving at home, I'm pretty sure my daughter is just going to eat rolls and whipped cream, so it might not be as thrilling of a day for her.

On the drive home she told me the story of the first Thanksgiving. It went something like this:

"There were some people and they were traveling really far and they didn't even have a GPS! And they were on a big boat and they didn't have a frigerator so they just had to eat dry food. And then they got somewhere and they met some people with different colored skin. And those people taught them to catch fish and plant some food. Then they ate dinner together."

Underestimated

I'm always playing catch up to realizing what my children are capable of. I cut up their food long after they can do it themselves. They change so quickly that I don't notice when it happens--suddenly, they're just bigger and can do more.

My oldest was a clingy baby. She wanted no one but Mommy and sometimes Daddy. She was stubborn and would cry for hours if I left her with a babysitter. No giving up and falling asleep for that one. Her dependence and attachment continued long into the toddler years. Gradually I was able to leave her with favorite family members, but I never even considered a traditional sitter. Leaving her in a class for a couple of hours at church was a tremendous undertaking--once that was finally accomplished less than one year ago.

So the idea of preschool worried me. Would she be able to handle it? How long would it take her to adjust? Was it worth it? We signed her up anyway because it's free in Florida. But I told myself that I could always unenroll her if she really wasn't ready. I prepared myself to be cheerful and brief as I dropped her off in case she was uncertain or tearful.

But I completely underestimated her. The night before she claimed not to be nervous about school at all. It never even occurred to her. She marched into her classroom yesterday and sat down to color. I had to ask for a hug goodbye. She barely looked up as I left and was happy as could be the whole time she was there. I shouldn't have worried. And I shouldn't have underestimated her. She's stronger and more capable than I give her credit for.

ABC, Sing with Me!

My three-year-old daughter loves the alphabet. She can sing the ABC song easily, and after going through some flashcards yesterday, I learned that she knows over half of the letters by sight. All without going to preschool or me focusing on teaching her. We talk about letters when we see them. And she occasionally watches Super Why! (Did any parents catch the reference in the title?)

Watching her learn the alphabet and their corresponding sounds is an interesting endeavor. The ABCs can be tricky. Y is just a V with a tail, so they're easy to get mixed up. X and K have similar issues--I never would have thought of getting those two mixed up, but she does all the time. And they do indeed look similar.

But the trickiest part of the learning the alphabet is the sounds and all the helpful kids' alphabet books with illustrations. Sometimes going through an ABC book sounds something like this:

A is for: Plane! (airplane)
D is for: Puppy! (dog)
N is for: Read! (newspaper)
R is for: Bunny! (rabbit)
U is for: Map! (a U.S. map)
V is for: Yacuum! (okay, that one's a pronunciation problem)

If we can't put her in preschool next year, I definitely need to buckle down and learn how to teach her the alphabet. And all those other things they're supposed to know before Kindergarten these days. But since she has picked up so much without ever focusing on it, I'm certain she'll have no problem with it once we do. I'm looking forward to my daughter being able to read to me someday.

Preschool Idea: Places

This week my sister is visiting me with her three-year-old and one-year-old. So our house is full of chaos and fun with four kids cooped up inside most of the day. But my sister is awesome and had a great idea for an activity we could do to help fill the time. Each day we are learning about a different place and eating some food that represents that place.

Today we learned about Florida since my family will be moving there. I looked up some simple facts about the state and told the kids about it while showing them pictures. All I could find on Florida cuisine was all the tropical fruits, key lime pie (which I can't eat because of an egg allergy), and spiny lobster. So it might now have been authentic, but we ate delicious fresh fruit: mango, strawberry, kiwi, and bananas. Then we colored pictures of the state and the state bird and flower.

This week we will also learn about the Midwest and Minnesota (three cousins live there) and we will eat hot dogs (we didn't think the kids would go for brats) with pickles and cheese on the side. And then we will learn about Denmark because Daddy is going there next month. On that day we will eat aebleskivers (not an authentic recipe, but they will be made in an authentic pan) for breakfast and then have open faced sandwiches and chocolate milk for lunch. We'll probably also play with our Legos that day.

I love this premise and will probably repeat it with my daughter. We'll probably take time to learn something about all the states we have family in or have lived in ourselves.

Florida Facts

Nickname: The Sunshine State
Tree: Sabal Palm
Flower: Orange Blossom
Animal: Florida Panther
Marine Mammal: Manatee
Reptile: Alligator
Bird: Mockingbird
Beverage: Orange Juice

Highest Point: 365 Feet
166 Rivers
11,000 Miles of Rivers and Streams
663 Miles of Beaches
7,700 Lakes 10 Acres or Larger

Average Summer Temp: 82
Average Winter Temp: 68

A Thankful Thanksgiving

I'm excited for Christmas. But even while the Christmas music plays, I'm trying to remember Thanksgiving and all the things I'm thankful for. We watch Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and as much as I've tried to talk to my daughter about what Thanksgiving means, all she comes up with when I ask her about it is that we get to eat pumpkin pie. Which is an awesome part about Thanksgiving.

This year we made Thankful Trees. Ivy, Mommy, and Daddy each got a tree to put leaves on of things we are thankful for.

Ivy's first thing she was thankful for was Jesus, then Daddy, then Noelle, then Mommy. She repeated those things every new time I asked her what she wanted to put on her tree. After I pointed out that we had them up there, she started naming grandmas and grandpa and cousins and aunts and uncles and friends. I put cousins on one leaf because we didn't have enough space to name them all individually.

Some of the things I wrote that I was thankful for had to do with what happened that day. Playgroup was playgroup day. Our washer and dryer was on the day when our washer was leaking and I didn't have a washer for a couple of days. Husband and children and family are obvious ones, but they are what I think of first and what I am most grateful for.

Since Daddy works long hours, he had a harder time keeping up with our trees, but he busted out a whole bunch of them one day and Ivy helped him glue them on. Which is the best part of any project for Ivy, the gluing.

What are you thankful for this year? What are you doing to stop and remember all you have to be thankful for?

Preschool: Families

The month of November is about gratitude in our home preschool. Last week's focus was on family. We drew a picture of our little family which my daughter identified as herself, Daddy, her sister, and with some prompting, Mommy too.

I stole the next idea from my sister and we made a stick figure family tree of my side of the family and another one for my husband's side. I did the drawing, but I asked Ivy who each aunt and uncle had married and who their kids were. She did pretty good. And I thought it was great timing for reviewing the members of our extended family because we're going to see them all the week of Thanksgiving.

This week's focus is on friends. And without planning it to coincide with this week, we actually have two playdates at our house. So we'll have lots of friend time and I'll probably talk to her about sharing and being nice and how we treat our friends in preparation for having so many people over.

Kid Kitchen Craft: Soap Clouds

A few months ago I saw a post on one of my favorite blogs about making Soap Clouds. Click on the link for more details, but basically you microwave a bar of Ivory soap and it turns into a big mass of soap. I wanted to do it with my daughter sometime and decided to do it today while her three cousins were visiting.

It was a hit for all the kids from age three to age eleven. They thought it was so cool to watch the soap get bigger and bigger in the microwave. The downside was with how small my microwave is, I stopped it before it got as big as it probably could have. And when I took it out, it deflated right away. I don't know if that was because my soap was old or because I stopped it early. The soap that was still on the waxed paper was hot, so be careful!

We put the soap cloud in a bowl and the girls smashed it into little crumbles. Then we mixed it with a little warm water and they molded their own soaps. The cousins said they couldn't wait to get home and make more. And guess what Grandma? You use the right kind of soap, so watch your stash, it might be raided for some kitchen crafts.

Next time I do it with my three year old, I would probably just let her take the soap cloud into the tub and play with it.

Preschool: Ocean Animals

My three-year-old would love to go to school. But as cool as she thinks backpacks and school buses are, she's definitely not ready emotionally to be in preschool. So we're doing "preschool" at home. I made a schedule and everything. My sister in another state is doing the same with her son and the cousins are going to skype and show each other their projects.

This week we talked about ocean animals. (Last week was zoo animals. We went to the zoo. The end.) I got out our Planet Earth DVDs and we watched some clips of ocean animals. Throughout the day we talked about what lives in the ocean and we made a list. I printed off pictures of whales and dolphins and we figured out what was biggest and what was longest. I printed off a coloring page of a shark and she colored it. That afternoon we watched Finding Nemo to figure out what other animals live in the ocean that we hadn't thought of yet.

And very fittingly (and unplanned) Daddy came home early and took her fishing (so it was a pond, not the ocean, but still, it had fish).

I meant to go over the letter A last week, but never got to it. And I'm still not sure how to teach letters. Any advice?

Our wall of projects.

Which is biggest? Which is longest?

Note the first three on our list. This was all my daughter. She told me: fishes, sharks, and little fishes.

Coloring page (with more than one color!).

Field trip: going fishing.