Glimpses of School Days

Playing and creating with pumpkin pie playdough

Our Circle Family

Homemade Goat Cheese

Sprouting Beans

For whatever reason I am unable to log into my blogger account on most days. Amazingly tonight it worked and I remembered my password so I'm updating what I can stay awake for:)
Some days we do more than others and I'm still trying to find a good rhythm to work with since morning sickness has hit but we are still learning and enjoying our times together.
Wouldn't you know that of all the thoughts and ideas that I've been dying to post here now I'm too tired to think of a single one! Oh well.

Preschool Hour

School has started and we have completed our first week! All in all the week went better than I expected with a few bumps along the road, but so far the schedule and curriculum are working very well.
I thought I'd share a bit of what we are doing for Preschool Time. Emily is in Preschool although she is able to do most Kindergarten work and Wesley is pre-Preschool.

My goal is to have a time of book reading, hands-on activity and physical game everyday and while we didn't quite meet all those goals everyday we did have fun.
I'm gleaning most of my ideas from "Early Education at Home" and "Teaching your own preschool children". Both are packed with great activities and ideas and real life examples.

On Monday we read several books from the library focusing on family and family relationships and then sat down at the kitchen table with a white board and marker. Emily knows how to spell her name, all of the alphabet and most of the letter sounds so we concentrated on Wesley's name and then wrote and talked about their full names and spelled them out. Then we clapped out the syllables for each of their names-first, middle and last. They found this to be very fun and William even came in to help out with the clapping. Next is snacktime and I try to pick out snacks that they can help me make unfortunately right now I can't remember what we did on Monday:)
Tuesday we were running on schedule pretty well but I got a bit distracted and so we simply made some marching band instruments out of kitchen stuff and then took turns leading the "band" around the front yard.
Since our focus color this week has been red we sat down on Wednesday and cut out flower pics from some magazines and they made a "red" collage. Next we made some Kindness Cookies for our snack and then I read a couple books to them while they ate.
On Thursday we read books again and then made a batch of Letter Pretzels up for our snack. I'll have to remember to double this recipe next time because they all really liked them.
Today we read books and then had our watercolor lesson with Alissa and Thomas joining in.

I will say that Wesley at 3.5 yo doesn't always stick around for all of these activities but I do require that he sit on the couch for the book reading and he does participate in our Table Time. I will be working on including more hands on activities for him this next week and my goal is to play a game (duck, duck, goose-hide and seek-ring around the rosy etc) everyday as well. I also would like to work with Emily on becoming an independent bike rider sometime in this next month.

LETTER PRETZELS

Dissolve: 1T. yeast in 1/2 c. warm water
Add: 1tsp. honey and 1tsp. salt
Add: 1 1/3 c. flour
Knead
Roll pieces into snakes and form letters
(Form letters on wax paper over a letter guide)
Brush with beaten egg.
Sprinkle with salt (use coarse salt if available)
Bake 10 min. at 425.


KINDNESS COOKIES

Mix: 1/3 c. honey
1 T. oil
2 eggs

Add: 1 T. grated orange rind
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 c. oatmeal

Drop spoonfuls on oiled cookie sheet.
Bake at 400 for 8-10 minutes.

Be Kind! Share your cookies.


Both recipes were taken from "Kinder-Krunchies" by Karen S. Jenkins

Children's Book Monday

Tumble Bumble
by: Felicia Bond

This is such a fun and adorable book about the adventure of ten hapless animals. I remember reading this book to my twins when they were itty-bitty but had forgotten about it until our last library trip when I happened to "tumble" upon it again.
Felicia Bond is the illustrator of "If you give a mouse a cookie" and "If you give a moose a muffin" so you will find her adorable illustrations familiar.
This book is especially nice for the 3 and under crowd. The text is short and sweet and the characters full of tumbles and bumbles.
So on your next library trip be sure to check this delightful book out and see for yourselves what happens when "A tiny bug goes for a walk".

For more book reviews go to Elise's blog.

Summer schedule ideas

We are closing in on the school year very fast and although the twins haven't finished their math book I'm not really all that worried about it. I'm planning on stopping daily lessons in the next couple of weeks here so that we can spend the majority of our time in the great outdoors learning everything we can about birds, trees, plants and gardening:)
Since I was dragging tired today (stayed up late talking to my mom) we had a relaxed day and tried out my "school" plan for the summer break. Instead of spending the 1-2 hours inside doing school we took our picnic blanket out back and spread it under the tree and spent our time there.
We have a fairly large backyard and the birds are getting enough used to us that they will come to the bird feeders even while we are out there. The kids snacked on grapes while I read to them about the Blue Jay which we had just seen at the feeder this morning. Later we read a few poems about birds and discussed which ones were our favorites. Emily spent her time digging in the sand box looking for worms (her favorite pastime of late), we also spent some time prepping the garden for planting and then Alissa noticed a Starling flying out from the cover on our propane tank and after some careful investigating we found a nest built in there.
I plan on continuing some relaxed math lessons as well as full phonics lessons throughout our summer break (May, June & July) and hopefully I'll get art lessons pulled together too. I'm also thinking through what I will do with my preschoolers this next year, I've used "Little Hands to heaven" which I like but it moves a tad slow and seems to have a bit too much twaddle in it so I'm trying to put together a loose Charlotee Mason preschool "curriculum" to use with Emily and Wesley. They want so badly to do "school" with their older siblings so I better have a plan or we'll all go crazy.

Seeking,
Jessica