Finally on the radar!

Well, Miss DCFS finally contacted me last week! Wahoo!!  She said that they reassigned all the reps and the previous rep that was assigned to me seemed to just leave my file sitting and didn't even bother putting it into their system. So she was going to make sure that got done immediately. She still needs some things from me though: well water test completed (got the kit and plan to send it off this week), notes from our doctor stating the kids don't need TB or lead tests (already received those), I have to take a couple of online classes and send copies of the completion certificates (wouldn't you know our printer just crapped out on us so I have a new one ordered that will hopefully arrive this week), and she couldn't find on my high school transcripts what date I actually graduated (I called the high school and they said it's right at the top of the paper so I explained that to her and got that taken care of). It's all easy stuff, but just a matter of waiting for things to arrive so that I can photocopy and mail off to her. Of course she said she can't do her visit until these things are taken care of. Plus, she's waiting on the background checks for Travis, Lexi, my mom & I to come back so that the four of us can then go down to Bloomington for fingerprinting. It's really quite a process to become licensed!  But I'm glad to know that I finally seem to be on their radar. She did ask me what my timeline was for opening. I told her that my original plan was January 2nd (which obviously didn't happen) so I was shooting for February - she said not to hold my breath. :o( Sooooooo, that pretty much tells me that I won't be opening until summer. I could probably open from March to May, but three months just isn't enough for little ones (and parents) to see any improvements. Now my big decision is whether or not to do a daily summer program or just have some one-week "camps"? I have a big book all about summer camp themes so I think I'll look through that and see if I could make the camp idea work. I was also approached by a lady at church who works with the Fugate Woods Nature Preserve. She would like to have some preschool-aged sessions there in the woods all about taking care of nature, earth, ourselves, etc. I thought that was an excellent idea!! So lots of things to still think about, but it's all coming together finally (thank goodness b/c the checkbook is going to be in bad, bad shape by the time summer gets here).  In the meantime, I'm still spending most of my days in the preschool room getting things together. I absolutely love it though!  So much progress has been made....some of the pictures have an orange hue to them. Not sure why?

A lot of my ideas I get from www.teachpreschool.org - she teaches a small preschool class out of her home as well. She is brilliant!

I used the items in this pictures (hair gel from the Dollar Store, ziploc bags and gel food coloring) to make....

These sensory bags! Maddie LOVES her "colors" as she calls them. We've even had to take them out to eat with us before. She makes for a great tester of my ideas....this one was a big thumbs up!

Today, I used these items (tempera paint in different colors, empty small water bottles, makeup sponges and rubber bands) to make.....

These paint dabbers (similar to bingo dobbers)! This is MUCH cheaper than buying them in the store. I just mix paint with water to thin it out, take the lid off, use rubber bands to hold the makeup sponge onto the bottle opening, squeeze it a big to get the paint started and the kids just start dabbing away! Maddie also tested these for me and I'm glad she did b/c some of the colors needed some extra paint added to them to make them brighter, but she loved them!

Here is my home-made Circle Time chart! This chart saved me about $180 - there were 3 or 4 different ones at a school supply store that I loved, but I couldn't afford to buy them all. Instead, I picked from each of them what I loved best, bought a big square of flannel material and marked out the sections I wanted and used a permanent marker to draw/write it all out. I then printed off and laminated (with my new laminating machine which I LOVE) all the chart pieces I would need. So now we can talk about what "today" is (month, day, year), come yesterday vs. today vs. tomorrow (i.e. - Yesterday was Monday, Today is Tuesday, Tomorrow will be Wednesday), the weather and what clothing items we should wear based on the weather that day, the color/shape of the month and what letter of the alphabet we're focusing on that week (i.e. - All About Bb!), an area for practicing writing that letter and an open space to put up pictures of items that begin with that letter. This will be an important part of our every day!

A quick picture of all the laminated pieces we'll be using on our Circle Time chart. I plan to stick velcro hook "coins" on the back of each one so that they'll stick right to the flannel.

This is an awesome chart my mom gave me for Christmas! I'll take a picture of each child on the first day of school and put them at the bottom in the "At Home" area and every day as the children arrive for school they will find their name/picture and put it up in the "At School" area. This will help with name recognition as their name will be printed underneath their pictures! Fun!!

Our Math Bags! Every week the kiddo's will take home a little math bag and with their parent's help they will find five of any item around their home (i.e. - coins, rocks, lids, etc.) and bring them back on their next class day. We will then sort them into the blue baskets, count them and graph them!

Here is one side of our easle - I just put the magnetic paint on it today and plan to put the chalkboard paint on top of it tomorrow to make it a magnetic chalkboard!

Here is my supermodel showing the other side of the easel that will have dry-erase paint on it to make it a dry-erase board.  :)

A little welcome poster by the front door and then an attendance chart below. The children will put a little stick by there name at the end of every day and on the last day of class for the week, they can pick a little "prize" from our Treasure Chest!

Well, who is this cute little girl (with her goofy brother behind her)?

A picture of our Circle Time area! I had Travis cut all of my rug pieces in half so that they're not so big for their little fanny's and we can all fit in this area better.

Our cozy reading corner! I have so many great books and I plan to have books that pertain to our topic that week on the racks available for the children to read/look through.

Journals! The 3-day/week class will keep a daily journal so that we can see as the school year progresses how they are improving with the drawing/writing skills. I'm sure it'll be awesome to compare the first few days of school entries to those they do at the end of the school year!

My home-made graph! I bought one of those window shades that rolls up/down and drew some lines on it to make a re-usable graph. This way when we graph our weekly math bag items (or anything else), I don't have to make a new graph each time! I think I'm going to use some of the dry-erase paint on a bunch of notecards so that I can stick them on the graph and use them over and over again.

A box! YAY! Actually, this box has a coffee table in it (a cheap one of course) that Travis is going to put together and then cut (hopefully) two holes in the top of so that I can set a couple of white wash tubs into to use as my sensory table. Sensory tables are SUPER fun so I know this will be a popular spot!

So much fun stuff planned! I'll be sure to post more pictures or videos as the progress continues.  :)

It took me forever to get these pictures loaded so I think I'll head to bed now. The appraiser is coming tomorrow to appraise the house now that the addition is pretty much complete. Oh and tomorrow is Patrick's 10th birthday so an early Happy Birthday to him!!