8 ways to prepare your toddler for preschool at home

  
My daughter just turned three and will be entering pre-school this fall.  I wanted to know ways that we could prepare her for pre-school at home with simple things that we already had at home. I have compiled this list to save you the trouble since I already found them I thought I would be nice and share it with everyone.

8. Drawing and coloring- Expose your toddler to colors and drawing as soon as you can. Talk with them while you do this. you can say things like you are drawing with the purple crayon, would you like to try the redone.

7. Alphabet- work on the children recognizing the big and little versions of each letter. We have her sing the ABC song when she washes her hands to know she is doing it long enough. The other resource we use is the ABC book by Dr. Seuss it is by far their favorite book this past month.

6. Concept of Big and little- Show them things that are big and little throughout the day. You can say that is a big tree and that is a little tree while pointing to them.

5. Concept of Many and one- The one is especially important since a common phrase is, just take one or only use one at a time.  The dinner table and drawing time have been our easiest places to introduce it. We say just take one bite at a time or just use one crayon at a time.

4. Scissors- just introduce them to using them. Draw a straight line on paper and have them try to cut along the line. If they get that down use the shapes that are in the section below.

3. Shapes- Common shapes are important also. We have a shape sorter which made it easy. It had square, rectangle, triangle, pentagon, star, heart, hexagon, circle, and a crescent. If they get those down they are well on their way.

2. Being able to socialize- This may be harder for kids who are staying at home with their moms and do not go to daycare or playgroups. Daycare is a great place to instill this with so many other kids around. If your toddler is not around other toddlers and does not have to share, then get them around other toddlers through some mean. Put them in a summer reading program at the library for free. Network, use Meetup.com to find other moms or dads that are in playgroups.

1.  Vocabulary- Introduce them to all these sections and their vocabulary should be well suited for the preschool classroom. always talk, use as many adjective as you can. Explain everything to your child. They want to know what things are and how the world works around them.  Talk throughout each activity and ask them questions too. Try and get them to respond using their new vocabulary in order to cement it in there.

All of these things can be completed with simple items around the house and just need to be included in the activities you do with your toddler.

20 Million half orphans

Did you know that there are 20 million kids in the US alone that do not have their father in their lives in any way?

This is horrifying to me. Not only is this terrible for the children, but it is terrible for the entire nation. That is 20 million grown adults at some point in the future. With the statistics showing single parents being 6 times more likely to be in poverty it is then no surprise that these same children are much more likely to go to prison or to live in poverty than to go to college and make themselves a contributing member of society.

I want to challenge you males out there. Get involved in your community.  Become a Big Brother, volunteer at an orphanage or community center. Get out there and make a difference.  I have volunteered with Royal Family Kid's Camp and it is a truly rewarding experience.  Fathers can be sometimes undervalued in our society and I think that is a tragedy. Moms you are important, but so is the father. You can not be both and you shouldn't have to.

I grew up without a father, yet the majority of the time I was fortunate enough to have male figures in my life to look up to. I have now lost contact with most of them and one even passed away recently. This and the combination of having children has made me think about what my life might have been like if my father was more involved in my life. If I knew that side of the family, would I be a different person than I am today? Would I act differently? Would I be having holiday traditions to perform every year. Those are the types of things I see in movies and TV, yet they are not seen in my life. We live far away from the one person on my side of the family I have regular contact with, my sister, and that makes it difficult for us to get together. I haven't really talked to anyone else on my side of the family besides my sister in two years, except through cards or short and very spread out e-mails. My wife's family is small and spread out as well. Her father is a ..well I can't say what I want to say he is. Let's just say he is not going to be involved in our life. Her brother lives in Carbondale, but hasn't married or have kids. One of her aunts passed away last year. Her other aunt lives in California now, but doesn't have kids so the network or framework of our family is very small and spread out.

I pray to God every day that our children will grow up with a strong network of family somehow. I want this for my children, but sometimes am so baffled at where to begin. I have been somewhat looking to find my father and to just meet that side of my family before it is too late. Sometimes I wonder if the rest of his family even knows that I exist.

Are you looking for a long lost relative? Are you trying to build a network of individuals you can trust and truly call your friends or family? I would love to hear what you guys have to say in regards to this.

5 ways to save money and keep up with the Jones'

Tonight I felt compelled to share some tips on how to save money without losing face. I would consider myself a pennypincher with the best of them. The key to most of these ideas is the willingness to think outside the box.

5. Take advantage of your local library-  There are many things that the local library can do for you. They have free books, movies, cd's( which you can download to your ipod), classes, workshops and seminars. The staff also know many other free services that are in the community that most people do not know about. My local library offers free tutoring for k-4 students in the area. That alone can save parents 25-60 dollars a session.

4. Cut the cord- In this day and age there is no need for a home phone or even cable for that matter. We use MagicJack and cel-phones. the people that contend you can't use 911 with MagicJack have not had one because that is part of the registration process to set up the home address for the phone. Magicjack is 19.99 a year vs. 40 dollars plus for other packages. Now to digital cable, this is completely unnecessary. ditch the cable, boost your bandwidth package and get Netflix and take advantage of Hulu. Netflix you can instantly watch tons of content and they will send you dvds in the mail that you choose.  This cuts cost in renting movies and cable because now you can have those movies for movie night sent to your door and you can watch the same shows on network tv the next day or so on Hulu.  We have Hulu Plus and Netflix along with the highest internet package. The only thing I sometimes miss is being able to watch sports events,  so I will be looking into NBA pass and MLB.tv to see if those will be worth it over the year. I hope the NFL not only plays this year but comes to the realization more people are cutting the cord and come up with a streaming online package for NFL fans in the US.  With the cutting of the cord it has also ended the mindless surfing of hundreds of channels with nothing on. It saves us time and money, which I may haver heard somewhere before that "Time is money" so maybe just money.

3. Network- This means that you should talk to people. I mean if you are a teacher ,as I am working on becoming, or a plumber then let people know that information. This may lead to you in your kitchen with a leaky dishwasher and being able to call that plumber you know and barter some free tutoring of his kids for him to fix the dishwasher. You can even try to strategize this portion. see if you can't become at least associates with a mechanic, plumber, teacher, lawyer, financial advisor or any other person you might think you could need their service in the future. Bartering has been done for thousands of years, so take advantage of the skills or things you already have and save some money. Craigslist.org is a a great site to trade services.

2. Buy Used- Most things can be purchased used at a humongous price reduction versus new. You can buy clothes used at places like Plato's closet, Goodwill, Once Upon a Child, and Garage sales. You would be surprised at how many clothes still have the tag from the store on them that end up at second hand shops or consignment stores. I buy the majority of my kid's clothes at Once Upon a Child and can buy them ten outfits of the same brand for the amount that places like Carter's or Buy Buy Baby sell one for. Upscale neighborhoods are usually the best for quality of secondhand items since they are usually the original owner of the items. Cars should be a given, they lose on average 6-20 percent when they are driven off the lot. My head tells me I do not want to be underwater on a vehicle the day I buy it.  Craigslist and Ebay are great resources to buy secondhand anything.

1. Think outside the box-  Do not follow the herd of people doing anything. Demand and Supply rules of Economics apply to everything in life. Let's say I have ten pencils but 100 people want one, then I can raise the price and most likely at least ten people will still want one. If I have ten pencils but only one wants to buy one at the current price then I need to drop the price in order to entice more people to want my pencil. This is true with any product. Let me show you an example: TV's , the technology is constantly getting better making tv's somewhat cheaper for the quality, but overall those prices have been rising for each new innovation of the year. This includes plasma, lcd, led, and 3D. TV's are still a major investment and most likely you will have an outdated one in 6-12 months. So, with a big purchase like this on my mind I researched and researched and found on my budget of 350 dollars all I could afford was mid range smaller tv's. Then I thought outside the box and now I have an 85 inch screen to watch movies, write things like this blog,  and any other thing you can do with the computer and an internet connection. How is this possible on a 350 dollar budget, but through an awesome device I stumbled upon call the aaxa m2 mini led projector. I have it connected to my mac mini, wii, and antenna. It has an hdmi connection along with most other inputs and I can just turn it on, point it at my wall and go.

 I know there are many more things we can be doing.I would love to hear some other tips or things people have done to save money for them and their family!

Children are expensive

I just read some where that just 1 child will cost 226000+ dollars to raise for 18 years. That is exhausting to think about. Then the more I thought about it the more I realized that is probably not accurate anyways since most kids are now staying home or being supported entirely throughout college. This means an extra 4 or 5 years in most cases. So that probably brings the total closer to 300,000 dollars per kid if you do not count college tuition. Wow, so this got me thinking that I need to make more money. So, I have scoured the internet for ideas on how to make extra money and the side and I came across one blog that seemed to put most of them together. I am going to put a list here which will have some of the same ideas and some that are not on there but you can look at the link I have for more details on most of the ideas I will be putting here. I will be trying most of these ideas out over the next few weeks and be reporting back how succesful I am at it.

1. Part-time job: pick up an extra low hour commitment job in order to supplement the income
2. Tutor: If you have a knowledge or skill that people want then why not charge them to learn it.(I have begun this one already)
3. Donate Plasma: It comes with the distinction of only being for desperate people, but I think it's a legitimate way to try and earn some extra bread. If you go twice a week it's about 60 dollars a week so it can pay for that date night you and your spouse want every week. ( beginning this one today)
4.Pick up odd-jobs: I would have to say craigslist will probably be the best service for me in this matter
5. E-bay: everybody has things lying around they are not using anymore. If you haven't used it in a year, sell it.
6. Scrap metal and recycling: If you drink pop, buy the cans instead and recycle them to get some money back. If you have a large truck take a drive around town to pick up scrap metal curbside for trash day or do free appliance removal and scrap those. People will be glad to get the old appliance out of there and might even tip you. This can be some decent money if you know how to seperate ferrous and non-ferrous materials. Take a magnet and if it sticks to it put it in the pile different from the metals that do not. This will save you headaches when you get to the recycling center. If your scrap is organized they are more will ing to give you higher prices. I do not know everything about this so I have included a link to a blog that is dedicated to scrapping metal.

Is God trying to guide me...am I really that stubborn

Well I am giving the update for what we found out through our interviews today. The first meeting we had was with an in home daycare provider that Sara and David would be the youngest kids there. This was a small daycare with the majority of her kids being of school age with a set of twin 3 year olds that come a few times a week. We talked with this provider for about an hour, she told us basically that she would implement whatever curriculum we wanted the children to have. This was a nice feature and will allow us to feel more involved in the learning process and know exactly what they should be working on at home and at daycare. We have Baby Can Read , so I feel very comfortable leaving this with her and the kids can work on it. So, there we are talking in the driveway about how she used to live in Orlando like us and only lived there for a short time when I realize that we are going to be late for our next appointment. I rush my wife and the provider to a quick close of the conversation and we rush to the car, and then guess what happened..Well, I bet you won't know unless you drive a 1999 malibu as well. The stupid Anti Theft system came on and disables the motor from being started. So, here we are sitting in our car after we rushed away from a conversation waiting on the system to override itself so we can leave. The only problem is it took five ten minute sessions of the override to happen.  I then begin to think if this was God's way of taking free will away from me by disabling the car, because as our discussion became leaning more towards going with the provider's driveway we were blocking I got an idea to try the little trick that got the car started. That or the relief of stress in my brain thinking of the money we can save cleared my thoughts to process new information. Now, it is 4:30 and we are late to two appointments. So, we call the two of them and ask them if they can just tell us their rates over the phone to see if it is even worth it for us to drive over there and see it.They both agreed to and we found that with the reduced rates dcfs pays out for in home care providers that we would only save around 100 to 150 dollars. This did not sound worth it since we had just come from a provider where all we would be paying is the copay which will save us 560 a month.(Woohoo was the emotion I felt when doing the calculations. So now we have found someone that is licensed, trustworthy, and affordable. The checklist I linked earlier was only used in one place since the fact that we couldn't afford the other ones nullified their entry into our daycare competition. I am super excited since this 560 a month means we can fix the car, have the kids do more activities, and gives us money to save and put away for a rainy day. The thing we should remember is that it is not the quality of the equipment that is important, but the quality of instruction and human interaction that is. My advice to any parents out there in the same or similar situation is to not think twice about seeking out cheaper childcare alternatives. Find a qualified individual that does not have the huge overhead of a large building or the other expenses that come with it. The human being that is taking care of your children is more important than some fancy playground they might or might not have. Do not ever forget the human component whn choosing places for your children to attend, whether it be karate, dance, or schools.

Childcare change

Well today me and Nora are both off of work and have come to the realization that we can not afford the daycare our kids our currently at. I think 2000 a month for daycare is ridiculous. I mean even after assistance we are still paying 800 a month, come on now that should be the total. So now we are going to interview 4 different places starting in an hour. This is the point when I struggle with trying to balance providing the very best for our children overall. If they stay in the daycare they are at we can not afford for them to do things like teeball and dance. I pray we can find trustworthy care that will still teach our children the things they need to know. Just by switching we can save over 400 dollars a month. I thought since a lot of people have kids and people are always looking for daycare that I would include the link to the childcare provider checklist we recieved from Childcare Resource and Referral.  I will update later about what we found out through our interviews.

Here are I am thinking about my two precious children being as cute as they can possibly be before going to bed tonight. You have no idea the emotions this stirs up when me when I think about how much I love these two children and how my father only tried to contact me once in my 24 years on this earth. I thank God every day just for allowing me to be a part of their lives. I pray every father or man that sees this post is a true man and sticks around for their children. You don't have to stay with the woman if you do not love her, but for God's sake be there for the human being or beings that you created. I want to include some helpful tips in the blog in order to not just rant about my own life, but to bring some insight into the things that I have been able to learn through my experiences. The first thing I am going to do is to include a list of things to do with your child or children in order to create a deeper bond with them:

READ- stands for "Read Everything Again Daddy" as my daughter likes to say.This is my favorite thing to do with my children. I sit them on my lap and pull out a dr. Seuss book or any other book with pictures and they will cuddle in close and listen to every word. This is a double bonus, not only are we bonding but they are learning as well. My three year old knew the entire alphabet and could sight read 100 words 4 months ago. It's not because I sit her in front of a boob tube I will tell you that much. (TV can be educational with appropriate programs...we can get into that one later) The interaction between you and your children during this time will give you motivation to get through all the diaper changes and tantrums.

Play- You have children, they like to play, so play with them. It can be as simple as getting on their level on the ground and pushing cars back and forth with them or playwrestling with them. My favorite moment of the past few weeks may sound wierd, but it was when I took the kids outside to play some teeball...wait that's not my favorite part, it was when I said we had to go back inside to eat dinner and my daughter, the food vaccuum, cried because we could not play "baseball games" as she calls it anymore. If there was one thing that got me through my rough life, besides people, would have to be baseball. Sharing an interest with your child could be it's on section, but hey it's my blog and not yours so here it is. The physical activity probably wouldn't do anybody any harm either.

Teach- Life presents many opportunties to teach our children everything we know and those things that we do not know. If your children are anything like mine, then their two favorite words are "What's That." Or "Dat," in David's case. Children want to learn, why not let them and even help them in that journey. If you are taking a walk outside, take the time to point out objects and colors. As tempting as it is to say "Shh", don't, do not extinguish that inner desire to learn in your child before they can speak a full sentence. Your children are human beings, so talk to them, lend them your knowledge and you will be surprised at how much they can pick up. I then use their new knowledge as a game after the being told something a few times. If we see a new animal they just learned or know already I point and say, "What's that?" Two words and I can assess my children's knowledge and comprehension. This I know will change as they grow older, but so will I and the way that I will lend my knowledge to them. The thing I want to teach them most is that learning is never finished, you do not just get some diploma and say, "Ok, I know everything now." I want them to be so intelligent that they know how little they know.

So, take the time to do one or all of these things today and see if you don't feel closer to your children.

I would like to get this blog going, so if any ideas please leave a comment or message me.

Back to writing

I have recently felt the need to begin writing again. It has now been over two years since my last blog post and it saddens me. It has been a very busy two years though. We moved to Illinois...again to have our second child, David Gabriel Trammell. He is now 18 months old. Our daughter Sara is 3 years old as of 6/20/2011. I started going back to school after we moved up here. I am currently working at a hospital in the food and nutrition department part time. Man, it seems like I can never get fully away from food service. I have been working with food in some capacity for 7 of my working years since I was 14. I really think I want to take this blog in a little bit different direction. I am different than I was two years ago. My life plan two years ago was to help my aunt and uncle with their camp and conference center for the rest of my days on this place called Earth. Things did not work out that way and here I am sitting 10 hours away from them and having barely spoken to them in two years. That is sad isn't it? With all the modern technology we have that somehow I have been able to not have communication with somebody, let alone family. I want to write about family in this blog and how it should be. I have grown up the majority of my life without it and recognize the importance of it. I do not see family being simply defined as blood or legal relationships, but a network of people that you can rely on and have trust in to know they will be there for you through the thick and the thin. By the way I have not found that complete network, but am searching ever for it. I will continue to post as I work my way through this ever tangling world of people and relationships with those people. I will write about my family and the things we are doing. If not interested then don't waste my time by leaving me a message or comment. I have also begun to research my family history and seek out my father whom I have only met once and have no for sure idea where to begin. I am on a journey called life, and I will be bringing whomever wants to come along with me through this blog.