Josiah's First Haircut

This morning I finally relented and decided Josiah could have his first haircut.  He has been called a little girl a little too much lately (although if he were a girl, I already knew the perfect place to put a little bow in his hair!).  Originally, I had said he had to walk before I would cut his hair, but at 15 months he still isn't walking.  Any tips from my readers about how to motivate a child to walk?  He will walk if we hold his hands, but he really just wants to crawl.  Since he is 23 pounds now, I'm really hoping he walks soon. 

We took him to the sweet girl who cuts my hair and Thomas' hair.  He sat on my lap because we knew he would be squirmy.  Turns out he wasn't as squirmy as he was upset.  He cried through most of the haircut!  Thomas has such a laid back personality and when we cut his hair at 13 months, he sat perfectly still without me holding him.  However, Josiah has a completely different personality than his brother and while we knew he wouldn't sit still, we didn't expect him to cry.  Below are some pictures that tell the story. 



This was his move throughout the haircut!

Looking to Daddy and Thomas to save him!

Still not happy, but looking like a big boy *sniff, sniff*



Amy let him touch the "peanut" that she was about to use around his ears.



Josiah's reaction to the "peanut."

All done, but still not happy!





Preschool

For a few months now, I have been looking for ideas to start doing preschool activities with Thomas.  He just turned 3 in August and my plan has been to start a more structured learning time with him at three.  A couple of months ago, I was reading Money Saving Mom and she was giving her top 15 picks for home school aids.  One of her top 5 was the Letter of The Week curriculum by Confessions of a Homeschooler.  I clicked over to see what it was all about and after reading some things and looking through some of the material, I was hooked! 

The Letter of The Week curriculum has activities designed for your preschooler for every letter.  A short list of some of the things I have done with Thomas for letters A - E (we are on letter E this week):

• Puzzles
• Lacing Cards
• Magnet Pages
• Floor Numbers
• Do A Dot
• Color Puzzles
• Color by Number
• Cutting
• Graphing
• Patterns
• Letter Matching

There is a wealth of activities and Thomas never gets bored.  Every morning he says, "Mama, are we are going to do school today?"  And when we have finished for the activities for the day (she also has pre-made lesson plans for each week), he usually says, "Mama, can we do just one more?"  What I love most about it is how much he is learning.  His letter and number recognition has improved dramatically (especially numbers) just by playing fun games using numbers.  He is also learning the sound of each letter to prepare him to read. 

This wonderful program only costs $10!!  You download everything and then print out what you want to use (I have used just about everything for each week).  I did buy a Xyron 9" Creative Station on Amazon (I got it really cheap with some gift cards) to laminate most of the material since I plan to use it again with Josiah.  Of course I have had to replace some ink cartridges, but again I got a great deal on a big pack :-). 

Whether you are homeschooling preschoolers or older children, I really think you would enjoy the Confessions blog.  She has tons of resources and I have found so many other things I want to buy to help Thomas learn. I'll try to get some pictures up sometime soon of Thomas working hard!