SAHM Preschool: Living and Non-Living

I'm not a teacher. In fact, when I first started out on this preschool journey I was trying to make a then three year old Genny write letters. Then I started talking to other moms and found out that Genny needed to learn to draw lines and circles before she started writing letters. So even though I'm posting about the homeschool preschool I do with my four and a half year old daughter, it may not be up to a certified preschool teachers standards. With that being said, let's take a peek at what Genny worked on today.

Thanks to Pinterest, I have lots of ideas and tools for Genny's preschool. Today she learned about living and non-living. Before I started the project, we talked about what is be living and what is not living. I asked her to name something living. She couldn't, so I helped her by asking if she thought that she was living. Then we named lots of things that we saw, and she started getting the idea of what was living and what was not living.

I had cut out a bunch of pictures from catalogs and magazines of living and non-living things. I went through each one with her, asking her whether it was living or non-living. She did pretty well, and we placed each one on the correct side. After we had gone through them all, she got to glue them down.

Dear Husband

I miss you. I try not to, and I pretend that it's not as bad as it is, but I do. I miss you like someone underwater misses breathing. That's me, underwater, looking at the surface where your face is waiting for me. Holding my breath and feeling the ache in my lungs for that cold air I will breathe when you are home.

It doesn't make sense. Logically I should be fine, there are many more worse off than me. Single mothers who never have someone to wait for. Women who sit by starving, just to give their child something to eat. I am more fortunate than they are.

Yet still I miss you.

I tell people that not much has changed since you left, my days are the same, and if I change enough details in my memory, nothing has changed. I just have to hold on to those few nights when you weren't home for dinner or bedtime. I just have to pretend that this is the norm. But I know it's not. I know that while you're gone I'm missing out on all the little things you bring to our family. I'm missing out on you playing with the kids so I can clean up dinner. We are missing out on so much.

I tell others I'm fine.

I tell them that I don't worry about you and that we have so much to do that the days fly by. But in the back of my head there is a box waiting to be checked. Like when a loved one leaves on a plane and you wait for them to text you when they arrive. Once they do you can check off that box.

Last time I cried a lot. I cried at night over silly things, things that had only to do with the fact that you were there and I'm here. I'm sure you're safe this time just like last time. It doesn't make sense that you wouldn't be. But that box is still waiting to be checked. Until it is, I will be here, holding my breath, looking at your image rippled by the water keeping us apart.

Pinterest Diaries: Sugar Body Scrub

Ah Pinterest. You've done it again. You've provided a fantastic craft for me to do and I'm very excited to give it away!

This sugar scrub is a pretty easy thing to make. It's 2 parts sugar to 1 part oil and a few drops of essential oil to make it smell yummy. We painted the lids of some jars and layered brown and white sugar then added the oil at the end. It ended up taking longer than I had imagined it would take, but that's what you get when you wait for oil to absorb into sugar. In the end I'm very happy and I'm sure Genny's ballet teacher will be happy to get her gift at Christmas time too!

The yellow-tinted ones are the ones that we used olive oil. The ones that are in the middle we used veg oil.

I used a winter-themed stamp with a coordinating punch for the tag.

I used stamps from the same set for the lid.