Day 3

Today didn't feel quite as exciting as yesterday.  Maybe it was simply that the activities weren't as "fun" as yesterday or maybe it was that my level of enthusiasm matched my level of energy, which I'm pretty sure was/is in the negative range.  It wasn't a bad day, just more of a ho-hum day.

I decorated our bulletin board last night with our kissing hands.  

Braxton worked on a file folder game and did really well!  I made it a couple years ago for Adeline.  This one is nice for colors, shapes, matching and counting to 2.

More practice at the marker board.  Braxton told me that he wants a marker board activity tomorrow.

Farmer Brown lost his sheep!  Adeline helped count them and put them in their fence.

Another day of reading The Kissing Hand.  Afterward, we traced our hands, then estimated how many "kisses" would fit on the drawings.  Adeline thought 2 kisses would fit on her hand.  Of course, Braxton said the same thing.  Turns out, Braxton fit 16 and Adeline got 18.  They were both allowed to eat 3.  :)

Tuesday

Another day down!  Even though I was happy with yesterday, today went a LOT smoother.  Sadie was content more often than not, I made a few adjustments after re-examining yesterday and I think everyone was more relaxed in general.  I don't know - it was just a good day!  We had some fun activities today.  

In science, we experimented with mixing colors.  You can't go wrong with finger paint!  

 Sadie thought this was GREAT!

After the experiment, Adeline decided that her favorite color to make is purple and that she really likes purple butterflies.  However, she couldn't find her purple crayon, so she chose to draw a blue butterfly in her journal.  The purple crayon was located at the end of the project, so the butterfly got a couple purple dots.  For now, I'm doing most of the writing for her, but she did write "Adeline" and "purple" by herself.

Braxton had fun with Unifix cubes during his one-on-one time.  We worked on counting to ten and stacking the cubes - a nice fine motor skill activity!  We did a little bit of pattern copying, too.

Adeline practiced writing letters and drawing shapes with sidewalk chalk.

Then we decided to play alphabet hopscotch!  I got in trouble because my "big feet" were erasing the lines.  So I sat in the shade and watched instead.  :)

Hopscotch... or Twister... whatever!

"Hopscotch" is actually the name of our curriculum's mascot.  Last night he was busy making bunny trails on our marker board for Adeline to trace.  Sadie thought it was hilarious to watch him bounce across the board.

"Look, Mom!  Choking hazards!"

Adeline had a turn with the Unifix cubes, too.  She made stacks of cubes from 1-10.  The biggest challenge here is keeping your baby sister from knocking over the towers!

We read The Kissing Hand again today, then made handprints with heart shaped "kisses" on them.  I placed a small heart cookie cutter in the wet paint and let the kids pour glitter into it.  I think they turned out cute!  Sadie wasn't a huge fan of getting her hand stamped.  Can you tell?  :)

We were done again today right at lunch time.  8:30 to 11:45ish seems to be our schedule.  We are all looking forward to tomorrow!

And we're off!

We did it!  Day one was a success!  I am utterly exhausted, but pleased with the day.  So here's how it went.  After a yummy egg, toast and smoothie breakfast, school began at 8:30.  Here's the crew:

 I don't know how to get them to give me natural smiles.  This is what happens every time a camera is pointed their way.

Sadie enjoyed lounging in the doorway during lessons.  Check out her cute toenails!  Daddy painted them last night.

During Braxton's one-on-one time, he stamped the letter Aa.  It's suppose to be a do-a-dot sheet, but the one place that sells do-a-dot markers was out of them when I was there.  This worked just as well.  The sheet came from the Confessions of a Homeschooler blog.

About halfway through the morning, we headed outside to burn off some energy.  We made a "grocery store obstacle course" because earlier in the morning we read about a new family moving to town and the community helping them out by bringing over groceries.

The kids weaved in and out of the canned goods on the scooters Daddy made.  We (yes, even me!) went on our backsides, tummies, and knees.  Then we took turns pushing each other.  Super fun!

Back to business.  Adeline reviewed the alphabet by naming the letters.  I'm glad she remembered so much from Pre-K!

Math this week is a review of basic shapes.  Today it was circle.  This week will be pretty easy for Adeline, but I'd rather start off too easy than too hard.  I'm pretty sure she's giving her brother the "preschoolers are soooo immature" look.

"Mom!  Take my picture!  CHEESE!!"

They were actually really excited about this activity.  Can you tell?  :)  Even though it might seem odd since the kids don't leave me during the day, I wanted to start the year with the book "The Kissing Hand."  Love it, such a sweet story.  We have activities based on that book all week.  Today we made heart shaped sugar cookies (like the heart kiss on the raccoon's hand).  Yes, we did it in the basement living room because Miss Sadie was asleep.  :)

We finished the day with a puzzle - one that I bought on a garage sale and consequently is missing a piece.

Well, there are the highlights!  We made it through our entire schedule just in time for lunch - which was followed up by sampling the tasty cookies!

Now this mama needs to get some sleep!  Tomorrow promises to be just as busy!

Ready, Set, Go!

I'm ready!  I'm ready?  I think I'm ready.  As ready as possible, anyway.  With the exception of a couple non-critical things on my "To Do" list, I'm all set to begin the 2011-2012 school year.  Wow!  On one hand, I feel super prepared and excited for the coming year.  On the other, I'm totally overwhelmed!  I'm at the point where we need to jump in feet first (or cannonball, haha Jessica!) and figure out how this will all come together.  Because it will come together, one way or another. So I thought I'd start the year with a tour of our classroom.

I'm really excited about our new art supplies!  I got some good deals through Discount School Supply.

We will be using Five in a Row for part of our curriculum.  Each week includes a geography lesson.  I hate to admit that I'll probably be learning as much as the kids when it comes to world geography!

We had to take down our Teaching Tree from last year in order to make room for the maps, so this year we will put the daily weather picture above our marker board.

Yay for a pocket chart!  I was so excited to get this.  Right now we have our daily schedule in it with Dottie the Ladybug serving as a marker.

Did I mention that our classroom is also a spare bedroom?  :)

This poor plant!  He's been a bit neglected over the summer - I forget about him when we aren't in the room everyday!  It will be the kids' job to water Mr. Plant.  Maybe he will fare better that way!  Adeline wants to add a fish to our room, too.

Kathi, if you're reading this, see we still don't have closet doors!  Some things never change.

We're using the K5 curriculum from Bob Jones University.  It's the same publisher we used last year for preschool.  A friend of mine is teaching music for me.  She will teach Adeline a pre-piano course with the glockenspiel.  Braxton is getting my revised version of Letter of the Week.  Thanks to Confessions of a Homeschooler for some great ideas and free materials!  Love that site!    

So there you have it!  See you Monday!

2 weeks left...

of summer!  And then we officially begin Kindergarten with Adeline and Year 1 Preschool with Braxton!! I can't believe how quickly the summer flew by!  We spent the days doing whatever sounded like fun - which meant lots of time at the park, zoo, and pool.  Definitely lots of time at the pool these past couple of weeks.  It has been hot!  But now the weather is starting to act more like pre-fall and we are again thinking of making a trip to the zoo.

So here's where I'm at.  Wow, do I appreciate first year teachers!  I can't begin to add up all the time I have spent planning and prepping the coming year.  And our K material is mostly planned out for me!  I've added and tweaked it to fit our needs and interests, and then threw in some weekly themes to cover topics I want to cover and to have material that's flexible enough to be used with a 3 year old and 5 year old (and in some instances, a 1 year old, too!).  I have the whole year sketched out and the first 4 weeks planned in detail.  I hope to get another 4-8 weeks in detail before the year begins.  We'll see what happens!

Our daily schedule looks like this:

Calendar Time & AWANA Review

Bible Truths & Memory Work

Beginnings: Part 1 (Adeline's Language Arts/Science/Social Studies)

Adeline Break/Braxton one-on-one time

Beginnings: Part 2

Snack

P.E. or something like it :)

Beginnings: Part 3

Math

Theme Activities

Lunch

D.E.A.R. (Drop Everything And Read)

Quiet Time for Braxton and Sadie/"Big Kid" activity with Adeline - We will be doing a VeggieTales curriculum, music practice (more about that in a later post!), Spanish intro, board games and AWANA homework on different days of the week

Quiet Time for Adeline

I have no idea how long this will take and I imagine each day will be slightly different.  I'm allotting half a day or about 3-4 hours.  Sadie plays really well by herself in the morning, so I'm counting on her being content to play around us and with Braxton.  That will probably be one of my bigger challenges.  Braxton doesn't have a "curriculum" per-say, but will participate throughout the morning.  He will join Adeline for Calendar Time, Bible Truths, P.E., Theme Activities, and D.E.A.R.  His one-on-one time will be spent working on his AWANA homework and getting an introduction to letters, numbers, colors and shapes.  Both kids are super excited to start!  I am, too!

So let the countdown begin!  I'll be back in a couple weeks to tell you how it's going.

And no more promises of pictures.  It just doesn't ever seem to happen.  Sorry!
  

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.  :)