The Final Stretch

We started our final week of curriculum on Monday.  On one hand, I'm excited to take a break from structured lessons.  On the other, I'm a little sad to see the year coming to a close.  Adeline has done such a great job this year and learned so much.  I was amazed at her progress as I reviewed the year.  Adeline started preschool able to recognize only a handful of letters, and is ending the year capable of reading simple words and writing her full name without assistance.  Wow!  I can only imagine what next year will bring!  Speaking of next year, our Kindergarten materials should be arriving tomorrow!!!  Yay!!!  I'm so excited to start planning!!! :)

We're ending our year with lots of fun trips and projects.  The "Camping" week was a hit.  The kids loved the tent setup in the basement.  We read books in it during our school time and Braxton and Adeline spent hours playing in the tent.  They were sad to see it go.  Unfortunately, the weather didn't cooperate that week to camp outside, but we plan to get away a few times this summer.

Some of the books we enjoyed during "Camping" week were Arthur's Camp-Out by Lillian Hoban, Curious George Goes Camping by H.A. and Margret Rey, Just Me and My Dad by Mercer Mayer, and Piggy and Dad Go Fishing by David Martin.  I love our library! 

Of course, we couldn't have lessons on camping without making s'mores.  We cheated and made them in the microwave.  They are almost as yummy that way as over the fire.  Almost.  We had some fun with math using miniature tent manipulatives (ok, they were just triangles, but use your imagination!).  We also finished up letter sounds, started learning about vowels, and worked with _ax and _et word families.

Last week was "Beach" week.  Unfortunately, I didn't make it to the library to get theme books, so we read some favorites that we have at home.  Adeline was hooked on Green Eggs and Ham that week.  I usually love Dr. Seuss, but that is one book I'd rather not read.  Daddy taught her to read some of the words herself, particularly "Sam I Am."  To go along with "Beach" week, we learned about starfish, waves, dolphins, sea turtles, seagulls, sharks and crabs.  We experimented with saltwater vs. freshwater and hard boiled eggs.  Then of course the kids wanted to eat the eggs when we were done.  It's amazing how often science and snack time go hand in hand.  But come to think of it, I clearly remember my high school chemistry teacher emphasizing that we NOT eat in the lab... so maybe I'm teaching them a bad habit!

We learned to clap syllables this week in Pre-Reading.  Adeline understood that concept better than I anticipated.  We also started our review of the alphabet and letter sounds.  We are reviewing 3 letters each day until we are done.  On Friday, Adeline made it through her seventh reader.  This one was about a dog named Max that plays in the sprinkler.  "Max is a wet pet."  :)

To top off the week, we took a trip to a lake.  We had a picnic lunch and played on the beach.  The kids LOVED playing in the water and building sandcastles.  Even Sadie had a good time!  We will definitely make that a regular event this summer.

This week, our final curriculum week, is themed "Backyard," but it doesn't fit together as nicely as past weeks.  Each day seems to have its own theme that I suppose could be under the "Backyard" heading.  Monday was all about strawberries.  We used strawberries to practice addition and subtraction, then (like the eggs) had them for a snack.  Adeline painted a pretty strawberry for our bulletin board, too.  We have one reader for each day this week, beginning with "Tug", a story about a dog playing tug-of-war.  "It is fun to tug." is how the reader ends.  I love how pleased Adeline is when she reads the sentences.

Tuesday's theme was "Treasure Hunts."  We went on a hunt for picture clues that eventually said, "I love you."  Adeline wanted to do that over and over, even though she knew where things were hidden and what they meant.  Silly girl.  We used more clues to search for numbers 1-20.  For example, I would say, "This number is called a dozen." (12) or "This number has a 1 and a 5." (15) or "This is how many legs a turtle has." (4).  We explored an I Spy book together and worked through the reader "The Pup."

Wednesday was our Bubbles day.  That was a lot of fun!  We learned a poem called "Bubbles Everywhere," read the book Pop! A Book About Bubbles by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley, made glittering bubbles with a glue/water mixture, glitter and construction paper and made the giant bubble wands and soap solution from this month's FamilyFun magazine.  Whew!  To add to that, we reviewed solid shapes (cylinder, cone, sphere, rectangular solid, and cube), 3 more letters in the alphabet and completed the reader "Hen" which had more to do with big vs. little objects than chickens.

Tomorrow we will be making cookies and lemonade, getting lots of practice with measuring, pouring, stirring and scooping.  We will use our cookies as math manipulatives (do you see a tendency here?) and read The Doorbell Rang by Pat Hutchins.  We will sneak in a few more letters as review and the reader "Ed and Ted."

Friday will be the final day of our preschool curriculum.  We will be taking our cookies and lemonade to a picnic with friends, which should be a lot of fun!  Our book of the day will be We're Going on a Picnic! by Pat Hutchins.  We will wrap up the letter/sound review, review numbers 1-20 and complete one more reader "The Box."  We have a special weekend planned to celebrate the end of the year, but you'll have to stay tuned for those details.  :)

And for real this time, pictures are coming...