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Monte’s First Day & DIY Chalkboard

Today was Monte’s first day of “preschool”!

 

Yeah, it’s not really preschool, but he is attending the Parent’s Morning Out Program through West Des Moines Methodist Church. I have been VERY excited about this since I signed him up! He will be going every Friday for a 2 1/2 hours in the morning. It will be a fantastic opportunity for him to meet others his own age, make friends, and do some learning!

West Des Moines Methodist Church offers different schedules and classes you can sign up for. The program Monte is in, is specifically for 18 month to young 2’s. They also have a 2-year old program and 3-old program. For the younger ones you can choose once, twice, or three days a week. For the older children you can choose two, three or four days a week.

Today was the first day, but everything has been so organized thus far. They provided an orientation, schedules of parties and certain activities, schedules of “spirit days” (they are the Preschool Pandas!), and the staff has been so helpful and friendly! I definitely recommend!

Click here for more information and costs!

DIY Chalkboard

To prepare for the first day of school, I have been in search of a chalkboard! I am sure you have all seen on Etsy and Pinterest the new “thing” to do is have your child next to a chalkboard labeled with the event that is going on. I think it’s adorable, so I jumped on the bandwagon! Except, even though this is so popular, I could NOT find a small, individual chalkboard anywhere! So, I made my own 🙂

I got the idea from friend on Facebook! Her idea was to actually spray a white canvas with chalkboard paint. I did a little variation of her idea.

I went to Michaels (my second time there this week!). I purchased a 12×12 wood board, chalkboard spray paint, and Crayola chalk (bright, fun colors). I had a 40% off one item coupon, so my total was about $20.00 for everything.

I went home and took the board outside and spray painted it. I let it dry for about 30 minutes and sprayed it again. I let it dry for another 30 minutes, flipped it over, and sprayed the other side!

The instructions on the spray paint can, instruct you to take a piece of chalk and rub across the whole board, then wipe off before using. After doing this, it wasn’t so black it had that chalkboard effect on it.

Its pretty cool how well this turned out! I love it! The only difference, you cannot use a classic chalk eraser to erase the chalk. I used a damp towel to wipe it after I used it and i came off great!

Do you do anything special for your kiddos first day of school?

Tax Free Holiday & Back to School

This weekend is the infamous “Tax Free Holiday” in Iowa. It is Friday and Saturday. It always falls perfectly with back to school shopping.

This is a great opportunity to save money on purchasing clothes, shoes, and some various school supplies.

It’s a bummer that not all school supplies are covered, BUT most stores have some awesome sales that make it worth getting ALL of your shopping done in one shot.

For a complete list of Tax Free Holiday items check it out here.

 

Monte is starting a 2-year old program this Fall and I am SUPER excited for him! It is every Friday for a few hours. It will be great for him to meet and interact with other kids. It will also be a great opprtunity for him to hear the word “no” from another authority figure besides myself and Travis.

Anyways, since that is starting in less then a month we were given a very short supply list which include things such as: watercolor paints, glue, kleenex, 3-ring binder, etc. Nothing too fancy.

I thought it was a good idea to take advantage of today’s Tax Free Holiday so I headed to Super Target to get these items and some other neccesities for the house.

I headed straight for the school supply section and man was it chaotic! I could barely get in and out of the aisles and most of the displays and aisles looked something like this …

I felt bad for the poor Target employee who was in charge of straightening and putting things back into their proper spots. You could tell he was getting easily annoyed when he would place something back, then turn around to find it all out of place again 🙁

When I was in school, I loved the beginning of the new year. I loved picking out new folders, pens, binders, crayons, etc. It was always so much fun to get new things and also to organize and sort things to get ready or the new year. (Remember I love to sort and organize!)

One cool thing I came across must evidentally be a new “trend” this year.

These tin boxes, that had Crayola displayed across them …

Displayed right above the tins were about 20 different boxes of titled crayons

They had Mermaid Shimmer which had a small amount of glitter in the color, Pink Princess which were pastel, girly colors and Dinosaur Roar. I even saw a pirate themed pack. They were all a pack of 8 crayons, so you could choose several packs of  different varieties and keep them in your Crayola tin. I’m a bit jealous we didn’t have anything like that when I went to school!

Did you take advantage of the Tax Free Holiday?