Peace - Weekly Wrap-up

If I had to come up with one word to sum up our schooling this week, it would have to be peace.  With our new schedule and methods, we are enjoying a much more relaxed pace to our days, yet incredibly covering so much more.

Bible:  Currently we are doing a study of the life of Jesus leading up to Easter, and doing a hymn study on Crown Him with Many Crowns.  We don't do a whole lot with "studying" the hymn as my kids are so little, but we sing it daily and I told them who wrote it and a little bit about him, and we read through a couple of the verses to explain what they mean.  It is amazing how quickly the kids pick up new music, and I love to hear them singing along to great hymns...storing up some great truth there!  We also try to do an act of service, whether in the home or out, every day.  This week we put together a care package for a little boy we know who has cancer and read his updates, as well as kept him in our prayers.  We also made cookies for a neighbor and for my husband's coworkers.

Math:  Little Bear fills in his calendar daily with the current date and pattern work.  He also reads the full date from the calendar and writes the date.  He now can readily write the date in MM-DD-YYYY format!  I can't believe that just this past August he didn't even know his months.  It still blows my mind how fast they learn.  We are also working through a basic kindergarten math workbook.  Once he is finished with that, I will be starting some "living math" lessons that I have collected.

Penmanship/Copy Work:  Little Bear is currently working on mastering writing all the letters and numbers 1-10.  I pick two letters or numbers for him to work on a day, and he spends 10-15 minutes writing.

Phonics:  We are just starting out with the phonics program Candy4WAY and are working through the 1st set of BOB books.

Literature:  We read aloud usually multiple times daily.  My kids love chapter books, and I thoroughly enjoy reading wonderful classics that interest me, as well as them.  Reading aloud is probably my most favorite part of our days.  This week we started and have almost finished Homer Price by Robert McCloskey (I didn't even know he wrote anything other than wonderful picture books).  It is a charming and humorous tale of a young boy set in the 1940s.  Little Bear absolutely loves it and has grown quite fond of the boy, often requesting "can we please find out what Homer is going to do next?"  We also just started The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling.

Outdoors:  I let the kids spend as much time as they want outdoors and they do spend a lot of their day out of doors depending on the weather.  Weather around here is so sporadic that there are some days they are out for 4 hours and other days they are whining to come in after only 30 minutes.  We also got together with some friends for a play date this week at a local park on an unseasonably warm Wednesday.

Science and Nature Study:  This week we started some tomato and lettuce seeds (and tried desperately to remember to plant them).  Little Bear also learned about the parts of a plant and the purpose of roots.

Poetry:  On Thursday we had some tea and fresh baked cookies and read from The World of Christopher Robin.

Music:  Throughout the week we listened to Bach.

Art:  Our artist this week was Jacob van Ruisdael and his View of Haarlem with Bleaching Grounds.  I wasn't sure if the kids would be too excited about looking at a piece of art, but they really surprised me.  Both Little Bear and Shy Bear did a wonderful job narrating about the painting.  Little Bear talked a lot about the houses and wondered about the large building in the background, so we even took the time to look up what that area looks like today. It is the Church of St. Bavo, and Little Bear was so surprised to see how different everything looks today, but he was able to pick out the church right away.  It was so nice to sit together and look at and talk about a beautiful piece of art work.    We also did Sketch Tuesday which was to draw something Mexican.  Little Bear and I decided to sketch a sombrero.  Little Bear is very shy about his drawing and gets easily frustrated (I have unfortunately passed on my perfectionism to him), so he doesn't usually like to draw, but once he saw me sketching, he decided he would like to do it after all.  I was very impressed that he immediately picked out the shapes of the hat and drew them.

We had such a full week but it didn't feel rushed.  I think this approach just works into the natural flow of our days and our home.  I am reminded of why I want to home school and I love it.

Love In Christ,
Lizzie

A Charlotte Mason Home School

I have been researching the Charlotte Mason approach to schooling for a couple of years now, on and off.  I go through the process of being excited about it and overwhelmed by it.  Part of me just wants a full curriculum that just tells me exactly what to hand my child to ensure he succeeds.  The other part of me wants my children to have a full, rich, deep, and stimulating education.  Next year Little Bear will be of the age to begin  Ambleside Online Year 1.  Ambleside Online is a wonderful free Charlotte Mason based curriculum with book schedules for each year.  Since I am planning on beginning him in this next year, I figured I had better start getting myself ready.  Right now, we are doing some light schooling and we are going to incorporate some of the CM aspects starting now for an easier transition come August (or earlier depending on when we finish up what we have been doing).  I am so excited to start more fully incorporating living books, wonderful literature, and nature study into our current schooling.  I'm trying to pace myself so that I don't become overwhelmed again as there is so much wonderful information and ideas out there.

Our schedule for remainder of the year will look something like this:

Daily:

• Bible:  Bible reading, hymn study, and prayer
• Math:  Calendar Math; kindergarten math workbook; various living math
• Penmanship:  Letters and numbers
• Phonics:  Candy4WAY (check out this AWESOME complete phonics program less than $10)
• Writing/Narration:  Summary of reading we have done for the day
• Literature:  Books chosen from various CM reading lists

Weekly: Daily Themes (I got this idea from a wonderful blog with lots of CM homeschooling ideas)

• Monday:  Main Core (research/lapbook/project)
• Tuesday:  Science
• Wednesday:  Nature study/geography/map work (we will focus on nature study at this time)
• Thursday:  Tea and poetry
• Friday:  Fine art Friday (famous composer and famous artist of the month and Sketch Tuesday)

I envision calm, peaceful days filled with reading and play outdoors, but I know that I tend to get carried away in my expectations.  We'll see what the week ahead brings us.

Love In Christ,

Lizzie

Determined

Okay, so I have done a horrible job at keeping up with this blog.  Thankfully preschool has not been going as poorly as the blog :)  It has been extremely busy and trying past couple of months so I am not going to let myself get down about letting a blog go a little.  But I am determined to keep a record of Lil' Bear's and Shy Bear's early school years.  My main issue is the time is takes to load all the pics.  We don't have a lightening speed internet connection so the process is slow and agravating, so limiting pics is going to have to happen, but I'm going to try to post more often.  Well, we will see how it goes.  I am going to continue schooling through the summer with the goal of Lil' Bear learning his alphabet.  I stopped trying to plan out my own curriculum because it was just plain toooooo time consuming.  So we are doing Hooked on Phonics letter recognition with some phonics work and Starfall thrown in.  We also work on numbers with various counting games.  And of course, Lil' Bear still loves to do Montessori work, so I make that available as well.  Nothing too formal, and it is working out really smoothly.  Our schedule has become something that Lil' Bear works amazingly well with and he loves knowing exactly what he gets to do next.  Here's our schedule for most days of the week:

6am:  Quiet time

630: Wake up, get dressed

7:  Breakfast

8:  Bible story/character trait/memory verse/song/poem

830:  Play time/Mommy cleaning

9:  Shi's naptime/Trucks or blocks/Exercise

920:  Numbers and/or Letters

945:  Montessori pick

10:  Color/Basic math/Name activity

1015:  Playdough/Paint/Color/Worksheet

1045: Cleanup

11:  Outside play

1130:  Playtime/Mommy makes lunch

12:  Lunch

1230:  Playtime/Mommy cleaning

1:  Games/Computer

115:  Reading

145:  Quiet time - Reading/Drawing/Lacing; Mommy cleaning

215:  Movie

245:  Snack

3:  Outside/Inside play; Mommy cleaning/Meal prep; walk

6:  Dinner

8:  Bed

We have been following this schedule for the last 2 weeks and it has been going so smoothly.  Starting in the Fall, I am planning on using the ABC Jesus Loves Me curriculum (which is FREE!!!!).  I am also contemplating starting him in a homeschool group preschool program that meets once a week.  This would be mostly for me, as we are planning to homeshool and I would like to start meeting other homeschoolers and learning how they do things.  So these are my plans, I guess I'll see we'll see where God takes us with this.  "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding."  Proverbs 3:5

Spring Cleaning Preschool Style

After Shy Bear came down with what appears to have been Roseola, I decided that this week would be spring cleaning week (a fever of 105 in a 10 month old can be REALLY scary).  Time to get rid of all those nasty winter germs that have been plaguing our family with sickness or at least do my best.  My time is very limited, so I knew that it was either forego preschool this week to focus on a deep, thorough cleaning of the entire home or make it educational for Lil' Bear.  Not only did it turn out educational but fun too.   This was the most fun I ever had cleaning. 

We did sweeping into shapes:

I had planned on doing squares, triangles, and circles, but I ran out of painter's tape in the middle of the square.  Lil' Bear did a good job trying to sweep into the shapes.
We did dusting dots:

I placed green dots on all of the furniture (which all ended up being wood, so Lil' Bear learned what wood was this week, and he ended up comparing and contrasting wood and other materials throughout the week).   Lil' Bear went around looking for the green dots and wiping down what he could reach with a damp rag.  Of course I had to go behind him and do a thorough job, but all I wanted was for him to learn and do alongside me.
And by far the most favorite activity was painting with colored soap:

I placed a few drops of food coloring into some clear dish soap, added some water and let Lil' Bear "paint" away in the kitchen and the entry way.  He "painted" in the kitchen for 3 hours with only a break for lunch, no kidding!  He was soaking wet but all I had to do was clean up all the soapy water with an old towel, and Lil' Bear certainly had a lot of fun with it.  

We also started our St. Patrick's Day countdown.  We got a little bit of a late start, so we started at Day 14.

Day 14:  Sensory Bin

In the bin we have split peas, green plastic ice cube thingies, flowers from a lei I cut apart, gold beads from a Mardi Gras necklace, a scoop, and a bowl .  This was the first sensory bin I attempted, and it is a hit with Lil' Bear.


Day 13:  St. Patrick's Day computer games
I had a pretty hard time finding any computer games for St. Patty's Day that were any good.  I finally did find one that Lil' Bear wanted to play over and over again searching for the pot of gold. 
Next week we will be back to our alphabet theme weeks, and we will be doing D is for Dump Truck.
For more preschool ideas please check out:

C is for Cars

This week our theme was C is for Cars.  Lil' Bear is so in love with cars right now, and we had tons of fun with everything cars.  I wasn't sure if Lil' Bear would get into it, but I have tried to have a new finger play rhyme for him to learn each week that goes with our theme, and I have been pleasantly surprised to hear him saying the rhymes we have learned while playing.  He really loves them, especially because they have been all about airplanes, bikes, and this week, cars:

(use your thumbs to act out the rhyme):

Car, Car may I have a ride?  (one thumb to the other)

Yes sir, Yes sir.  Step right inside. (other thumb "answering" the first)

Get in the car. (Put thumbs next to each other)

Step on the gas.  (Push thumbs forward)

Chug away, Chug away.  (Pretend to hold a steering wheel)

But don't go too fast!  (Shake your finger as if scolding or saying "no")

SENSORY:

 This week we tried making car tracks in play dough.  They didn't turn out too well, and Lil' Bear started getting really frustrated with it until he figured out how to make car imprints in the play dough.  He enjoyed comparing the different undercarriages of different cars.  This kept him busy for way longer than I expected. 

We also brought out flour to make car tracks in "snow," but we only did this one day as the cleanup was quite extensive.  I am sure we will do this again, but it may be a once a week activity, as Lil' Bear really takes great joy out of "making it snow."  J

PRACTICAL LIFE:

Lil' Bear had fun opening and closing containers to find erasers inside.  We especially worked on moving from left to right, top to bottom and keeping everything nice and orderly.  I was surprised to see how quickly he caught onto this, and he was quickly able to complete the work without any help from me.  He did it over and over again and pretty much mastered unscrewing lids.  We also talked about not opening any containers that mommy or daddy has not told him he could open, especially if it is medicine.  It was neat to hear him repeating directions to himself while working…"Unscrew slowly but don't open med'cin.  Only open what mommy says." J  (Don't worry we still take special care to keep anything that might be dangerous up and out of reach).

We also continue to work on pouring as this is one of Lil' Bears favorite activities.  I think for March I might dye the water green.

MATH:

We tried something new from 2 Teaching Mommies.  It sounded like Lil' Bear might enjoy it, but it ended up being quite a bit over his head.  I made a ruler for him and helped him measure some different cars to see which was biggest, smallest, etc.  He ended up just driving the cars around.  He did order them in size from biggest to smallest, but associating a number with size is a little beyond him right now. 

We also continued playing our number game and played Hi Ho Cherry-O as well.

LANGUAGE:

Another idea I got from 2 Teaching Mommies was highway letters and it was a hit.  We only did letters A, B, and C both capitals and lower case, and Lil' Bear had a blast racing his cars on the letters.  We also used the time to review these letters, their sounds, and matching the capitals with the lowercase.

We tried doing a find the C activity, but Lil' Bear got really frustrated with this as well.  I think he is just not quite ready for writing, so I am going to continue to keep that really informal.  He really likes it when I make him a dashed line and he pretends that his pencil/crayon/pen/marker is a train and he has to keep it on the "track."  I think we will be sticking to that for the moment as anything more formal, like a tracing page or circling letters, gets him very frustrated and upset with himself. 

We also enjoyed Starfall as usual. 

ART/SCIENCE:

I truly cannot remember where I got the idea from, but another activity Lil' Bear enjoyed a ton was making painter's tape roads.  We had a blast creating a city and running our cars through the city.  We also talked about shapes and colors this time using all the different blocks we used to build our skyscrapers.

And of course, Lil' Bears favorite activity was brought out every day, the "art box."  We used cars to make car tracks in paint. 

We did our first planting of the season as well.  I can't wait for Lil' Bear to see the first sprouts!

We had an awesome, awesome adventure at the NC Transportation Museum.  It is a FREE museum in Spencer, NC and is so packed full of neat fun things for the kids to do that I think I will have to devote a separate post to that trip alone. 

We had so much fun this week with everything cars and I look forward to the start of March and beginning the countdown to St. Patrick's Day that I developed for the kids.  Should be fun!

For more great preschool ideas check out:

For the Love of Cars

Homemade Valentines - An Exercise in Patience and Creativity

Nearly two weeks ago, I set out these crafty materials to see what Lil' Bear would do with it, and after he painted for a bit, I had the idea of making homemade Valentines, but I wanted them to truly be a work made by Lil' Bear.

So nearly everyday, he would bring out the "art box" and color, draw, or paint to his hearts content.

After he had finally done about all he could do with the papers I had supplied. We worked on assembling them into something that would represent a Valentine. We brought out the glue and cut and pasted, and had a lot of fun putting these together with Lil' Bear's art work.

I think they turned out really cute, and other than help with cutting and applying glue, Lil' Bear did them all himself. This one is my favorite:

They took nearly two weeks to complete, but it was totally worth seeing them come together and knowing that Lil' Bear made them himself. He was quite proud and pleased with how they came out, but too shy to let me take a picture of him with his finished product.

Back: Front:

This post has been linked at Preschool Corner.

For more Valentines Day ideas check out: