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...
 

Dinosaurs, Zoo Critters, Gardens and More!

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.  :)

2/3 done!

Today we begin our third and final book in our preschool curriculum.  Crazy!  It's hard to believe how much Adeline has learned this year.  We made it completely through the alphabet and started in on phonics.     I'm teaching Adeline to read.  That sounds a little weird to me.  For starters, how is she even that old?!  We've been working on the __ad word family and blending sounds.  We will soon start in on __an words.  She is very proud of herself.  I'm pretty proud of her, too!  :)

We've been talking about money in Math and patriotic symbols for social studies.  We had a fun unit about the mail system a couple weeks ago.  We visited the post office and mailed a package one day.  At the end of the week, we wrote letters to grandparents and learned about addressing an envelope. Adeline learned her own address at that time, too.  That was a little confusing because we have a PO Box, but I also want her to know her physical address.

Adeline has been really interested in learning Spanish, so I have started helping her learn basic words and phrases.  Unfortunately, beyond the "basics," I'm going to have my work cut out for me in learning the language myself!

I'm looking forward to some fun field trips this spring (maybe I'll manage to blog about them!).  Right now we're on target to finish the preschool curriculum May 13th.  I plan to spend a month or two going through some review workbooks and taking a break, then we will start in on Kindergarten!  Yay!

Units 1-3

We made it!  The first 3 units are under our belt and I have to say that so far this year is a success.  Challenging, yes, but overall successful.  I've learned that I have to be 100% organized before the day even begins or things fall apart.  I've also learned that Adeline does best in the morning, but early afternoon is do-able, too.  If preschool occurs much after 3:00, I've lost her and might as well save the lessons for the next day.  Braxton comes and goes during preschool time.  He'll visit our preschool room (a spare room) and participate for a little bit, then wander into the living room to play.  It works out pretty well that way.  I know that he's absorbing a little bit, as I heard him counting 1, 2, 3 and 7, 8, 9, 10 the other day.  A month ago he would only count 1, 1, 3.  :)  Sadie enjoys listening to school from the bed or Mama's arms.  I think she'll become a bigger challenge when she's mobile.

So what have we been doing?  Our day begins with calendar time and recitation of the days of the week and months of the year.  We also keep a weather tracking chart.  We say the pledges for the American flag and the Christian flag.  I want Adeline to learn those b/c she will eventually be in a school.  Afterwards we recite the AWANA verse of the week.  We then turn over a number on our 100-day counting line.  We count all the numbers by 1's and then by 10's.  We are also using popsicle sticks to count to 100 one day at a time.  We bundle the sticks in groups of ten and Adeline counts them into a cup.  We're up to 44.

The rest of the schedule varies a little each day.  There are always Pre-reading and Math lessons, with Science, Social Studies, Art, Music and Bible lessons worked in throughout the week.  We've recently added Phonics and Handwriting to the daily lessons, as well.  

Unit 1 was called "The Sidewalk to My House."  It included an introduction to preschool, all about me lessons, the five senses, and my family and pets.  We covered letters A-L, numbers 1-3, three shapes, position words, and nonstandard measurement.  It was a pretty easy unit for Adeline, but I liked that it gave her confidence.

Unit 2 was "Neighborhood Streets."  It discussed people in our community and various modes of transportation.  We spent a lot of time on the "firefighter" section, talking about fire safety and how to call 911.  I also started teaching Adeline her phone number, address, and Mommy and Daddy's full names.  I rented Elmo Visits the Firehouse to watch with her.  It's an excellent video that I highly recommend!  One of the neatest things about that lesson was watching Adeline play "fire safety" with Braxton.  I overheard her telling him, "Stay low and go!" as they crawled through the equipment at the playground.  I couldn't help but grin ear to ear.  She understood the message.   

The transportation section of unit 2 gave me the "great" idea to take the kids on a bus ride.  Oh my!  I won't go into the details, but this mama caught the wrong bus and ended up spending 2 1/2 hours on a city bus with 3 children ages 4, 2, and 3 months.  Had I gotten the right bus, it would have been just a 30 minute ride.  We all learned a thing or two that day!  But I must say, the kids behaved remarkably well and even asked to ride again when our feet finally hit pavement.

Unit 2 covered letters M-S, number 4, sorting by category, left and right and several colors.

Unit 3 was "Going Places in Books."  So far this has been my favorite unit, although it has taken up the most time in terms of preparation.  The first section was Fables, Tales, and Rhymes.  For the life of me, I could not get Adeline to understand the concept of rhyme.  Then finally today (2 weeks later), she got it!  It was so neat to see that lightbulb click.  The second section was Favorite Books.  We got to read The Very Hungry Caterpillar, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie (and the other books by that author), several Dr. Seuss books, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, and a classic Winnie the Pooh book.  It was so much fun!  The last section was At the Library.  We looked a several different kinds of books - history, science, cookbooks, informational books, etc.  The science and cookbook days were the most fun.  On the science day we did some experiments with dissolving things and mixing vinegar and baking soda to blow up a balloon.  On the cooking day, we made chocolate pudding with bananas and graham cracker crumbs.  Unit 3 also covered the rest of the alphabet and introduced phonics for /a/ and /b/, as well as handwriting.  Numbers through 10, ordinals, one-to-one correspondence, and patterns were included.

This has definitely been an adventure, but I'm so glad we chose this route.  I look forward to preschool time as much as Adeline does!  :)

            

Day 2

What a great day!!  Maybe it was the beautiful weather or maybe it was me getting more sleep and not being cranky, but the day just got off to a good start and continued that way.  Well, I didn't manage a shower - sorry to anyone I came into contact with! - but otherwise, it was a great day.  :)  Adeline shocked me this morning by rattling off the days of the week in the correct order.  I had no idea she knew that!  Makes me wonder what else she knows but isn't telling... We did some activities for "front" and "back", listened to a story to recall the details, created a school with hand-drawn pictures of the students (Adeline, Braxton, and Sadie - I helped Sadie out and drew hers), read some books, sang some songs, and started learning the Pledge of Allegiance for the American flag and the Christian flag.  Confession:  I'm having to learn the pledge for the Christian flag myself!  It's an educational experience for all!!  For a craft, Adeline helped decorate butterfly invitations for her upcoming birthday party.  I think that was her favorite part of the day.  :)

Even though we've packed more into today than we have in a long time (we also made a trip to the chiropractor for this mama and did a ridiculous amount of laundry b/c I've been slacking in that area), we've had much better behaviors and attitudes from everyone - me included!! - than I've seen in a long time.  Adeline and Braxton have even been playing together nicer today than in the past couple months.  I think they both needed/wanted/loved all my attention this morning.

This just might be doable...      

We're Off!

After deciding to go on an almost week-long family vacation in September, I realized that we could either have school on Saturday for the next 5 weeks or we could just start a week early and not worry about being behind.  So, even though the official start date was suppose to be Aug 30, it got moved to Aug 23.  Ahh, already I'm enjoying the flexibility of homeschool!

Here is our "classroom"

Bulletin board for art work - Thanks, Jessica, for the first craft!

Birthday Train and 100 Day Counting Line

Flags and Teaching Tree - Letters, colors and numbers get "hidden" in the tree.  We also put the day's weather in the sky.  Today we hung up a big sun.

We had a fun first day, although we didn't do a whole lot.  I showed Adeline around the "classroom," which is actually our spare room.  I've kept it locked so that the room would be a surprise on the first day.  We talked about the calendar - a new concept for her - and did some exercises with "up" and "down."  We also played a ball rolling game.  On your turn, you say "My name is _____ and I'm going to bounce/roll/throw/etc the ball to _______."  Adeline kept calling herself Mr. Adeline.  It was pretty funny.  I wasn't sure if she'd like the game or think it was boring, but we played and played.  Braxton got in on it, too.

We have a field trip to an orchard on Thursday.  We'll be going with friends.  Very excited!  For now, this mama is very tired, so it's off to bed.  I'm excited to really get going tomorrow.  I have lots of fun activities planned!  Stay tuned... :)

And we'll begin again

Take 2  :)

We decided to use curriculum from the Bob Jones University Press.  It arrived today and I LOVE IT!!  I'm so excited for this coming year.  Official start date is August 30th.  Until then, I have my work cut out for me getting prepared!

Suggestions for teaching preschool with a 4 year old, 2 year old, and 2 month old (their ages at start date) would be appreciated!  Or just prayers.  That would be great, too.