Preschool and Potty Training!

I haven't been posting much the last few weeks. We have been busy with preschool and potty training in our house. Two weeks ago James started preschool at home with me. With my early childhood background, I have been really excited about this for a long time and it's really been good for us to have a little more structure to our days. We are doing most of our preschool time in the mornings. We have a pretty good routine but with enough flexibility to meet friends and participate in other things throughout the week like library time, for example. Our focus is, of course, learning but I am really trying to make everything hands-on, engaging, and fun. James is still so little, but at the same time I know that he would be doing these same things if he attended preschool somewhere. Each week I have planned a different  theme which corresponds with a letter of the alphabet. The first week our theme was "apples" and the second week was "ants." Between pinterest, the library, and some of my early childhood resources from college and teaching it has been pretty easy to pull together. There are so many great ideas and free things out there! We are also  focusing on a different Bible story each week from the Toddler Rhyme Bible and doing corresponding activities. James is having so much fun, and hopefully he is learning a lot too!

Potty training has also been the big thing around here lately. I never intended to take on preschool and potty training at the same time, but it has actually just kind of happened naturally. I started putting him on the potty before his bath and immediately after waking up, and I think the success motivated him to sit on the potty during the day as well. James is now wearing "big boy pants" during the day, but he is still wearing a diaper for sleeping and when we go out. Some days go really well and other days not so much. I have been surprisingly laid back about it and am just taking it all in stride. I don't feel a lot of pressure to have it magically happen over night and don't want him to feel pressure from me either. He can also earn a sticker on his "potty chart" (that we'll use for a little while) for using the potty and that has actually been very motivating as well. I definitely feel very inexperienced in this area, so any suggestions are always appreciated.

Here are quite a few pictures of our first two weeks of preschool. I promise (and I promised James) that I won't be taking these every week, but I was really excited about our first few weeks of this new adventure.

Singing about the sounds that "a" makes

Apple Pie Play Dough with airplane, arrow, and other "a" word cookie cutters

Apple Prints! 

"Ant Hill" Snack!

James' ant friends, A and ANThony! 

Sorting Ants by Size