Trains Preschool

I think trains are awesome! Who says trains are only for boys? When Gwen turned 3 she wanted a Thomas the Train birthday cake and carried around her toy trains all the time. They even got 'blinged' with her jewelry. I was pretty excited to have a week of trains for Caroline to enjoy in Pre-K!

Freight Train by Donald Crews is such a cool book! I love the illustrations and we had a great time saying "whoosh" every time the train roared past something. I got this free printable train from Kizclub.com which is an amazing resource for free printables! It comes in color or b/w pdf. To save ink, I did b/w and just colored it in to match the book illustrations. 

After laminating and attaching felt, this train was perfect for learning through play! After reading the book we did memory recall and tried to put the trains in the correct order. Then we did color matching and threw in a couple fun train songs to round it all out. Both girls have asked to play with the felt trains repeatedly this week (which makes me feel great!)

Caroline got to make her own name train. This fine motor activity included cutting and gluing AND picking up all those little pieces to carry as cargo. Since she worked so hard, she needed to fuel her body with cheese and dark choco chips box cars carrying raisins down a carrot track! She loved it and such a simple snack makes the gratification even sweeter!

While I did this activity with Caroline, she only did a handful of letters before losing interest. When Gwen got home for Kindergarten, however, she was all over this activity like white on rice!

The printable ABC train was from Selma Dawani's Transportation Pack (a free download) that I can't seem to find online again. But she has a blog with other free things, so maybe it will pop up again in the future. 

Gwen correctly matched all the capital letters with their lowercase counterparts! We also enjoyed reading:

How to Train Your Train

Trains Go

Little Red Caboose

Hope you enjoy some fun train activities at your home!

I Have a 3-year old

Today is Gwen's 3rd birthday. I can't believe it. Well, sometimes I can because she seems so much more grown up these days.

Today was the second installment of birthday festivities. We actually celebrated the cake portion of her birthday a couple of days ago before her cousins left. We wanted to do that part with friends and it was a big hit! Well, actually, it was pretty funny because Gwen asked Edward repeatedly the day before if he wanted to come to her birthday party... and each time without any hesitation he said "no". I think she was starting to get pretty sad about that. I guess his parents had to train him a lil bit, because when she asked him again on the day of, he said yes. and she was finally happy and said "yay!"

Gwen was excited today to see her Thomas cake come out. I spent about 6 hours making the cake. Made possible by so many helping hands tending lil kiddos. Gwen helped 'roll' one homemade marshmallow fondant rock, but after that she only wanted to eat them. I loved how the cake turned out: both delicious and beautiful! Definitely there are errors, but they aren't big deals and it was really perfect for the girl. She loved her Thomas and her Island of Sodor. And I was proud. :)

She knew what birthday cakes were all about this time and when she saw me put on the candles, she said, "but mom, it needs the yellow stuff on there so I can blow!" Yes, you're right Gwen. Blow out those candles!

She looks almost meditative here, don't you think? Planning a candle-blowing strategy, perhaps?

When I told her she could have first dibs on a part off the cake, she didn't hesitate. "I wanna eat Thomas" she told me. So that's what she did. :)

lol, her teeth were blue from the food coloring in the fondant!

Edward and Frederick enjoyed some Thomas cake.

and Caroline was happy too!

Then today, on her birthday birthday, she opened presents.

she was surprisingly timid about unwrapping. It was a very 'delicate' process.

She loved the pink fluffy purse with the frog that holds blocks spelling her name. He has his own lil blanket, which she thought was pretty cool!

Eric and I gave her some cheapo jewelry... and we probably should have saved it for later, because she didn't want to open any other presents. She told us "no thank you. I just play with my jewelries". Lol.

so we compromised by putting the jewelries in her new lil (used) back pack so she'd open this beautiful book about Jesus Christ from her G-gma. I love Simon Dewey paintings!

My MIL went all out and made this gorgeous quilt for Gwen. These fabric 'dolls' have clothes so she can dress them.

Gwen was in love as soon as it finally dawned on her what she could do with all this...in this picture, I think she was still at the 'overwhelmed' stage. :)

She is such a lil girl now, not so much a toddler. She is smart, independent and generous. She loves to take care of people, especially Caroline. Drama is definitely her friend. She actually enjoys being sad, I think, and will put herself into solitary saying "I just need to go be sad" on the stairs or in the corner...or at the very least, she'll bury her face in her hands and say, "I'm so sad" with big alligator tears.

I love our beautiful daughter, her enthusiasm for life, her tenderness, and her desire to learn. Happy Birthday, Gwen. We are so blessed you have you in our family, in our lives, in our hearts.

Old post: Christmas Trains

I know, I know. Christmas was last month. This is 2011. But I wanted to share these pics of Gwen and her best pal, Shane, at the library train exhibit.

She LOVED it! Notice how she is clutching her lil blue train (I think it is a cheapo happy meal toy that some friends gave us) which she calls "Thomas". Since we are unprepared to purchase a real Thomas, we don't correct her. :)

The exhibit had a Thomas and a Percy, as well as regular ole trains, bridges, village, and even a castle. Very cool. She was thrilled! :)