These days, coloring is one of Abby's favorite activities, along-side dressing up and role-playing.
So, this cardboard playhouse that she and Kayleigh can color and play in is about the most perfect gift a 3.5 year old can receive. This was a very early birthday gift from our good friends, the Fishers. With the amount of house to color, she still may not come close to having it completely colored and decorated by her birthday in July!






This is the Discovery Kids Color Me Play House. What we love about it is that the graphics are not terribly intricate and complicated, yet they're really, really cute. For the level of coloring and sticker-fying that Abby does, it is perfect. The front and backs are identical, with doors, mailboxes, windows, and lights, so that one side can be Abby's (labeled 'Abby's Cottage') and the other can be Kayleigh's - well thought out for 2 kids.

(Note: Check out the printing! Abby's writing has been improving a lot and we're very impressed with how much she enjoys writing. She has mastered uppercase letters and have recently began to learn the lowercases.)

Kayleigh has been observing Abby, her dad, and me coloring this house and she has been eager to join the fun. For the past couple of days, every time she gets her hands on a marker or pen, she races for the play house and attempts to scribble. We loved how she kept turning the marker around to find the tip!

Kayleigh Colors House

Since Abby's started going to the Preschool II class in November, she has had weekly homework assignments that is due on the day of show-and-tell, where they would share the results of their assignments with the class.

A typical homework assignment is pretty simple - something busy or forgetful parents can easily scramble and help prepare a kid for in the five minutes prior to hustling everyone out the door on the day the assignment is due. For example, bring in a tool or a utensil (toy or real) and explain how the tool is used. Or color a rocket ship and write down child's answer to: "What would you do in space?" (Abby's answer: "Wear a black top-hat, build a snowman named Hissella and one called Ms. Louton and then build a snow dinosaur.")

This past week, the assignment was to memorize and recite your home phone number.

Seriously?!

We got the homework sheet on Monday during pick-up and Abby's show-and-tell day is Wednesday. In 2 - that's T.W.O. - days she needed to memorize 10 digits in the correct order. Right!

She's 3.5 years old, I wanted to remind her teacher! She can barely get her shoes on the right feet most mornings, how can she be expected to get 10 numbers in the right order in 2 days?

But Abby has a teacher who believes very much in her kids, so we had to do the same.

Luckily, Abby is pretty smart and has a quick memory.

After pick-up on Tuesday, we had 45 minutes in the car ride home (usually only 25 minutes, but due to some heavy snow and ice from the day before, the drive was much slower) I decided we needed to work on the assignment.

I'm ashamed to admit I had to resort to threats to get her motivated enough to focus. "How would you feel if everyone got up tomorrow and knew their phone number except you?!" "Sad." "That's right. I would be too! So, stop playing dumb and work with me. I will help you get this." "Ok."

We drilled the area code, then the first 3, then last 4 digits over and over again, then put it all together. And repeated, broken down, then strung together.

As she started getting it on her own, the confidence in her voice became noticeable and I heard her murmuring the phone number to herself in the backseat.

Abby had our phone number memorized before we got to Castle Rock.

She was proud to tell daddy she knew her phone number that night.

We quizzed her this morning and she still got it!

Show-and-tell was a success.

Abby was so proud of herself, as were we.

:)

We recently taught Abby how to make snow angels. Yes, she's 3.5 years old and she had never made a snow angel before. The reason is because she had never owned a pair of snow pants before now, so we had never really encouraged her to lay in snow.

Anyway, she did enjoy the process for awhile.


And made a few good angels. See?


But she quickly became bored with angels and started thinking outside the box. Here, she is showing me a new type of snow creature....


"What is it, Abby?" I asked.
"It's a snow slug!! And you make it like THIS! I'll show you."

She belly-flopped onto the ground. I cringed, thinking she'd hurt herself, but she was very well padded. And she slithered across the snow to create her snow slugs.

I guess snow angels are so passé!