Preschool Corner Review

I am so excited to report that we managed to do THREE whole days of school in addition to
Monday-Dance/Playdate

That's all five of our kids (Link is still too young to sit at the kids table)...waiting patiently to eat! Shocking!

Tuesday-Mops/Volunteering/Playdate/Grocery
Wednesday-School/Dentist
Thursday- School/Ultrasound
Friday-Breakfast with Dad, Swim Lessons/School

Thankfully, NEXT WEEK IS EMPTY other than Dance and Swim and I can't be more relieved or excited!

Kaelyn learned about Jesus feeding the masses while Anna and I spent the morning at MOPS singing and playing with other children. It was a great chance for me to catch up with friend who was also working my room! Kaelyn is really starting to grasp the concept of a budget, and that REALLY excites me!

We have been playing in our sensory box  A LOT! The girls are still enthralled with the idea of having one and aren't really task oriented yet. But, this sucker buys me an hour to cook/clean/sit/sleep/etc and only costs me five minutes of sweeping! Maybe we'll be able to make it more "educational" as the new wears off!

The girls decided to play the "go fish" game. Which they picked and started as I was getting them ready for "school time". I observed, and not only did Anna work on her fine motor skills (getting the fish cards to sit in the boat), Kaelyn was able to recognize all the numbers and sort the fish cards by color.

See her sorting by color and saying the numbers outloud. This is GREAT because Anna was observing and repeating her sister! She can say pink and orange now!

Anna working on her "worksheet", she demands them when Kaelyn is working on hers.

Speaking of worksheets, I am so glad that we've been working "through" a book because it's shown where Kaelyn is weak and strong. For example, Kaelyn is GREAT at manipulating numbers and counting/adding, puzzles, writing letters, recognizing phonics sounds, and grasping some basic science concepts as well as opposites. She is weak in certain phrasings of position words (understand when you ask what is "in between" two objects, but doesn't understand when you ask her to point out the one between the others), writing her numbers, counting the numbers 13,14,15, but can count past twenty no problem, reading or blending her phonics. The book has really helped point out areas where I have been lacking, or where we have thought she knew more than she did.

A counting page, see how her numbers are not recognizable at all! If I didn't hear her as she started to write them down, I would have assumed she had no clue how to do the sheet. The knowledge is there, the ability to write isn't. (Although she did write a perfect 4 later on.)

Doing her number chart! I recorded her completeing it. She needs prompting as she moves from the new teen placement (thirty, fourty, fifty, etc), but recognizes when her hand gets ahead of her mouth...and corrects herself. The biggest achievement came during our calander time when she said "Today is the 24th, my birthday is on the 26th so it's not today! That's sad."

After our very bumpy trip to the dentist (she was fine after I had to bribe her to open her mouth), the girls shared a popsicle on the back porch and talked...it was quite a sweet little moment!

Kaelyn wrote her E page...check out that Easter Egg she drew! She is really loving her book and "reads" it often...which is great because each page has it's own sight word...and she's remembering them without drills or flashcards! I wish I had taken a picture of the end results, because she also drew a pretty amazing Easter Bunny.

Working on her sight words (after she sat the dinner plates out, it's one of her chores). This is great because she's learning how to spell them, read them, and reinforces the letters!

Anna decided to skip working on her matching magnets (animal fronts to backs) and play us some music while we worked.

This chart...is AMAZING! It's the Job Chart from OrganizeItMom that I won a few weeks back. Kaelyn TOTALLY gets the point concept this chart puts forth! The top half has things that need to be done "Do It" and then spots for you to put them when you "Did It". Each job is worth whatever point you decide to give it, we do 1pt/chore and are using it to help with our adding skills! After showing Kaelyn that it worked much like a board game and that you could "earn" points for prizes (10 pt=Movie and a Snack, 20=Ice Cream, 30=Toy from Dollar Tree) she counted the number of chores available (6) and proclaimed, "Mom,
I can't get ten." I told her that you had to earn them over a period of time, and she quickly got to work doing as much as possible! Then she started coming up with her own chores that she could do for points...and I did allow her to make up her own chores, because what kind of mom says no to that! So, in two days time, she earned 10 points and got her movie...which I now have to go turn off! This was our week in review at Preschool Corner!

$78.59!!!

Can we say underbudget! And not only that I managed to get a large "sub pack" of deli meat for $5 and split it so that we can have deli meat for the next three weeks! But my favorite deal BY FAR was the fact that the Comissary (military grocery store) had packs of 4 cans of  Green Giant veggies for $1.96 AND a coupon for the purchase of twelve you get $2.50 off! I did the math, and I got each can of veggies for LESS than THREE PENNIES!

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this "extra" cash that we are "saving" at the end of the month. Part of me wants to start tucking it away for Baby needs...another part of me thinks I should put it back into our account,  and then there is Easter and Birthdays FAST approaching...decisions!

I'm also VERY EXCITED because my prize package from OrganizeItMom came in the mail...

See- EXCITED! And dorky! I'll post more on these GREAT products and how they are doing after I give them all a good go. What I can tell you though, is that when I went shopping with my new grocery list and menu (which come together), I recieved many comments about how ladies wanted one or would use it!

28 Day Challenge- Laundry room for $2.76

From RAGS To RICHES on $2.76

Don't believe me? 

Just take a look!

 

This is my before. And let me just say, there are LOTS of things I wanted to do in this room from the VERY first moment I knew it was mine. Here is my dreamlist

1. Laundry does itself, from washing to putting away

2. I wanted a lower shelf and a bar installed (those slotted shelves are annoying for hanging!)

3. I would love to have a side shelf at my level on the left.

4. I want to put a piece of wood or something flat across my washer and dryer to make a "folding space"

5. Hooks for storage!

6. Super cute bins for storage

Now for reality...this isn't going to happen...because we don't have the money to throw at my space (my fault, I didn't budget accordingly). So, I decided to utilize what I had available. I shopped my house and this is the END result!

 

 

(The corner to the left of the door, my sock bag and tote bag for downstairs dirty/clean clothing)

 And the hook on the back of the door!

1. What do I want the purpose of my room or area to be?

             I wanted my laundry room to be functional (the prior owner was an WNBA worker and about two feet taller than me, so that shelf is soooo impractical!). I also wanted this place to make me happy. In our older home, we had about two feet of space between machines, you couldn't even open the dryer if the washer was open OR open the garage door or kitchen door if you were trying to do wash and that washroom made me HAPPY, I LOVED THAT PLACE--Why? It was organized, it was simple, it was pretty and it was FUNCTIONAL! I had craft supplies, cleaning supplies, wash supplies and NO ROOM, but it was organized! So, this room needed to be organized, functional, clean and have something bright and pretty!

2. What do I need in or near the room to serve that purpose?

A clear space to hang the girls clothes and our clothes, organize socks, easily reach my detergents and stainfighters, and a place to fold and sort clothes before they are put away. I also needed clearly labeled, but PRETTY and CHEAP containers.

3. What can I remove from the room?

Items that don't belong (the drying rack from the dryer that came with the house, storage bags, baby storage items, etc) or should have been put away a LONG time ago, like all those clothes, socks and linens!

4. What problems do I see with the room?

Shelf is too high, no place to fold clothes, no containers or clearly defined boundaries, no place or method to match socks, no place to hang my bag of socks waiting to be matched (you know, all the white ones that have to be matched when you are sitting down, not the ones that scream, "Hey, I have Dora on me, here is my match".) or my bag that I use to carry clean dishcloths downstairs and dirty ones upstairs at the end of the day.

5. What organizational tools might solve those problems?

A new shelf, a board of some sort to lay across my washer and dryer, a sock line, hooks, containers for bulk or multiple items and storage, a pole for hanging clothes on, basically my dream list

6. What habits need to change to solve the organizational problems?

I need to get better at putting clothes away after they are hung up, match my socks better, appreciate my machines better (I LOVE those machines, they make me happy and sing sweet songs instead of BLARING alarms when the load is finished. It's the little things in life.) use containers to sort my cleaning supplies

7. What kind of a budget do I have to work with right now for storage solutions?

Budget, try Zero dollars, it was a last minute project, and as much as I like the idea of adding paint, a shelf, etc. I really didn't plan well enough in advance. So this is what you can do just by shopping your house!

8. What kind of a timeline is necessary to organize the room? (28 days!)

Okay, I didn't know about this until much later than 28 days...I also got caught up in life...and this room has been the bane of my existence, and only led to me being further and further overwhelmed by life...sooo I spent a week catching up on laundry (yep you read that right, a week...but again I'm admiting that life has REALLY been getting to me). Although, can I just say that this room has provided me a small part of my life that I can attack with a plan, gain control, and keep control. After laundry was caught up, I organized and I'm excited to start keeping laundry under control!

9. What is my plan of action?

Do my laundry

Clean the room (I windex-ed/wiped down the machines, washed the floors, and cleaned out from BEHIND the machines)

Empty it

Find my storage solutions

Sort the items emptied

Put the ones that don't belong in their appropriate homes

Label the boxes in the appropriate containers

Use what I "shopped" for in my home and find my solutions to my problems!

10. Who can I ask to help me with this?  (working with a friend can be fun, productive and encouraging)

Kaelyn- She helped me with the containers

Ryan- Really encouraged me and gave the appropriate/needed response to the room!

Now, the problems I fixed in this space were done for pennies on the dollar. My storage bins started out as these:

 

Yep, those are old diaper boxes and wipes boxes! And there is TONS of room left on that shelf, and wrapping paper (from leftover Christmas Sales...although it doesn't look very festive) to make more of these boxes for future storage!  I have one for bulk items (extra detergent and stainfighters), Stain fighters and Bleach, and Needed baby storage items.

 

Kaelyn helped wrap and label!

I made the sock line using yarn and paper clips (didn't have any clothes pins) to help me match my socks more easily!

I wrapped the shelf that had been sitting under our sink to match, and installed it at my level so that I could easily reach my detergent and frequently used stain fighter.  These hooks cost 2.76 and were my ONLY purchase. The small blue/green bag is used to hold unmatched socks that would require concentration to match (white/black/etc) and the pink polka dotted one is carried downstairs each morning to put clean dish towels away and carry dirty ones upstairs.

 

The third hook is put on the back of the door to hold the drying rack for our dryer...it is RARELY used! And I cleared the tops of the machines off and covered in white shelf liner to provide a space to fold and sort! The girls clothing goes on the left of the sock line (which serves as a boundary) and our clothing goes on the right.

I really enjoyed this project and the feeling of accomplishment I have gained from it! I am so excited to repeat this in other areas of my home. Perhaps, I'll manage to have a beautifully organized home before our newest addition arrives in August!

If you want to see what other spaces have been attacked and organized...go to I'm an Organizing Junkie to view her 28 Day Challenge Participants