March and April were such fun months! I couldn't wait to post the things we've been up to. We completed the unit "Following Animal Tracks" where we learned about quite a variety of animals. We spent one week on dinosaurs. Not exactly my specialty! I learned as much as the kids! Adeline and I tuned in to Dinosaur Train on PBS a couple days and ended the week with a trip to our local dinosaur museum with friends. We talked about dinosaurs in general and specifically learned about the Stegosaurus, Oviraptors, Pteranadons, and the T-Rex. Thanks to some friends who gave Braxton dinosaur toys for his birthday last year, we were able to use dinos as math manipulatives. Fun! Nothing like learning to add and subtract with dinosaurs.
The following week covered farm animals. It wasn't as exciting as dinosaurs, as the kids have quite a bit of contact with the assigned pigs, cows, sheep, chickens, and goats anyway. But the week after that was zoo animals and they were a bigger hit. We learned about elephants, monkeys, gorillas, giraffes, zebras, kangaroos, koalas, lions and tigers. We found some fabulous books at the library that week, too. I definitely recommend Good Night, Gorilla by Peggy Rathmann and "Stand Back," Said the Elephant, "I'm Going to Sneeze!" by Patricia Thomas. The kids and I both loved those two! In addition to the animal study, Adeline learned to tell time to the hour. She thinks that's a pretty neat skill. To top off the week, we took a trip to the zoo. I braved the big city and massive zoo with three small children by myself. We not only survived, but we all had an excellent time!
We had a week of studying the season Spring. God helped out our lessons by providing us with plenty of rain and wind that week. It Looked Like Spilt Milk by Charles G. Shaw and Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey were our two library books that week. Both are excellent. After reading It Looked Like Spilt Milk, we spent some time checking out the clouds and finding pictures in them. We put a rain gauge outside our window that week. God filled it with two inches! Such a timely lesson! Until I started "teaching preschool," I never realized how much can be learned from a spring shower and a rain gauge. Math, science, and Bible lessons galore!
The next two weeks were spent talking about gardens. The first week was about plants, vegetables in particular. We read The Tale of Peter Rabbit on Monday and then spent the rest of the week talking about the things Mr. McGregor might have planted in his garden. We learned the life cycle and parts of a plant and sampled a variety of raw vegetables. We planted grass seeds in a dish and made a paper sun to hang in the window over the plants. One day we soaked a lima bean seed in water overnight, then opened it up to see the tiny plant beginning to form on the inside. Amazing! The books of the week were The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle, Curious George Plants a Seed by H.A. and Margret Rey and Growing Vegetable Soup by Lois Ehlert. At the end of the week, we took a trip to the grocery store and learned how vegetables get from the farmer's field to the grocery store shelves. The store also provided an opportunity to learn about weight and measuring produce in pounds.
The second week covered "Garden Friends" aka bugs. We talked about earthworms, praying mantises, ladybugs, caterpillars, butterflies, and bees. Adeline made a fingerprint book of those creepy crawlies. It turned out really cute! She also painted some rocks to look like ladybugs, then gave them a home on our windowsill next to the grass. We read several fun "bug" books, including Manuelo the Playing Mantis by Don Freeman, The Grouchy Ladybug by Eric Carle (Adeline's favorite of the week), and Waiting for Wings by Lois Ehlert. The Very Hungry Caterpillar was suppose to be included, but it was checked out when we went to the library. The kids had a special "dirt cup" snack at the end of the week. They thought it was hilarious to find gummy worms hidden in their chocolate pudding/crunched Oreo mixture. We had a couple special activities this week, too. We colored pictures and wrote a letter to a child who has been sick and hospitalized for a long time. As this was the week before Easter, we also spent time each day opening Resurrection eggs and listening to the events surrounding Jesus' death and resurrection. As her final AWANA project, Adeline made a banner with the words "He is not here! He has risen as He said! Matthew 28:6" She learned that verse as a song thanks to a cd sent home by her Sunday school teacher a month ago. God works in such awesome, mysterious ways.
We've continued to work on learning to read. Word families __ap, __in, __ot, __up, and __ug have been added. We will start __ax and __et this week. We've also included service words "a", "is", and "the." It seems like Adeline has started to catch on to blending sounds and is always so proud of herself when she completes a reader. We're working hard on identifying numbers 1-20. One to ten are easy, the other ten are a challenge. We also practice counting by 5's to 100. Adeline almost has that one down. She can rattle off counting by 10's to 100 easily.
This week begins our final unit "Dusty Barefoot Paths." We focus on camping this week. Nathan and I set up a tent, sleeping bag and camping cookware in our basement tonight. The kids will find it in the morning. I can only imagine their excitement. Weather pending, they will get a real camping experience in the near future. Daddy is super excited about that!
Maybe I will get pictures up one of these days. Maybe not. :)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment