My homeschooling Secret Weapon

Audio books are my secret homeschooling weapon! The girls LOVE them, they buy me about 15 mins while also counting as "educational". Matter of fact, this post WOULD NOT be happening if it wasn't for an audio book rented from the library!

I like to say it works on Anna, my 2 year olds, listening skills....she is now very good at knowing when to turn the page, while Kaelyn has excellent listening skills, it teaches her how to use inflection with her book as well as reading comprehension. I've picked up a few really cheap audio books from the Dollar Tree (Jonah and the Whale, Jack and the Beanstalk, Noah's Ark and Cinderella). While the biblical ones have songs following the story, the classics have questions. Kaelyn has started answering the questions outloud.

In addition to audio books, my lovely Mama Dot (aka my Grandma) bought the girls a subscription to Highlights and it has an audio book option on it's website! LOVE IT! The girls will sit and flip through their stack of three highlights while I cook dinner.

I know my posts have been scarce these past few weeks, and there is a LOT going on in my life (I'd really enjoy a slow down) and to better serve my family, my job, my volunteer position, I've had to let things slide. Once I get the handle I'll be back in full force, but for now I am going to squeeze in a shower while Snow White finishes on audio!

What are your homeschool secret weapons/tricks? I would love to diversify!

More Preschool corner visit here!

Preschool Corner- Getting back to basics

I know, long time no see! I now have a computer and although I don't really have any pictures of the kids in action, I do have some shots of their work!

In order to actually get homsechooling done, I've had to eliminate some of the fun themed aspects because they take time, planning and often require us to be at home. The basics, and adapted fun activities have become our staple since we spend a lot of time in the car and at doctors appointments.

KAELYN: 

MATH: We are counting past 20 without mistakes, and if she could remember the tens changes past 40 she would be well on her way to counting over 100. We are doing great at manipulating items to solve word problems for both addition and subtraction using "key words" like gave, added, earned, etc to determine what type of problem she is doing and to manipulate her manipulative's to find the answer.

WRITING: I have had her practice her penmanship and spelling by using Progressive Phonics handwriting pages. She has started coloring her drawings and illustrating scenes from books...and her artwork is impressive!

Both the flash card and hearts are from the dollar spot at Target. We use those hearts as manipulative for Kaelyn and for Fine Motor Skills work for Anna. Anna uses a spoon and moves them from one container to the other. She seems to really enjoy this!

READING: We are READING PEOPLE! It's so exciting. She is using phonics and sight words to sound out and read!!!! Below are some of the books that she is picking up and bringing to read to me regularly. What I love, is if she can't figure out a word, she spells it out, tries to sound it out and THEN brings it to me for help! Her confidence is there, and she is tackling reading with excitement and pride.

See the colored picture in the middle??? Kaelyn colored it!

SCIENCE: We are reading aloud Magic School Bus Whales chapter book as a family at nap and at bedtime. The girls are really enjoying it and we are discussing the difference between Baleen Whales and Toothed Whales. Due to the snow, we have been reviewing states of matter (what does snow become when it melts, etc) and talking about the seasons and why some trees still have "leaves" and others do not.

ANNA!!! 3 in August
I just started really working with Anna on learning some of the basics that she refuses to learn "naturally". It was around this time that I started actively working on Kaelyn's attention span and teaching her to sit and learn for longer periods of time. Anna struggles with colors so we have been doing a lot of sorting, coloring and labeling in our everyday environments. Shapes are coming along easily, and we have a fun game that we play. In addition to I spy (numbers for Kaelyn Colors for Anna), I give Anna a hand drawn list of shapes and ask her to "call out a shape" to Kaelyn. She points and says the name of a shape and Kaelyn is suppose to try and find it. Obviously I might have to help find the less common shapes (heart shaped lettuce anyone?). Anna has taken to signing her alphabet with me which makes me very happy!

NOLEN:
We have been working on rolling over and Nolen is a rollin'! We are also working on opening and closing his hands by using puffs to encourage him to open, grasp, release. He can't get the puffs in his hand but it does encourage him to move his hands  with purpose towards a small item, which is difficult. Anna loves "helping aka eating" Nolen's snacks during this exercise, but at least she is sharing!

Here are some great weekly recaps at Preschool Corner!

More Life Learning

See that Giant Black Tub??? I have loaded up the most frequently used arts and crafts items into it and started leaving it out on the table for the girls to find in the morning!

I also tucked in some Halloween stickers, ghost cut outs and stamps. The girls have REALLY enjoyed this laid back, cut/color/cleanup into one giant tub approach! So much so that I even snuck a few worksheets under it in hopes of encouraging Kaelyn to do some "work" without her noticing it. Low and behold this is what she did!

Instead of tracing the animals, she cut them out! She did a REALLY good job as well!!

This free-range craft/worksheet approach keeps the girls entertained and allows them to learn and develop things at their own pace. I LOVE this more relaxed "unschooling"-esque approach!

Speaking of Life learning, one of the last things the girls did with Daddy before he left was examine this guy!

 

Who says Halloween isn't educational. They spent a good 15 minutes discussing bones and joints only to end up pointing out how inaccurate my $1 Halloween skeleton is...everyone is a critic!


Then we made cookies! Hello Counting, Direction following, Science and life skills!



Then Kaelyn worked on her 8 sight words (we added See/Sees, This, is, and Me). She actually started sounding out words today which is a HUGE Step for us!

Then she played illustrator and colored in the books as well as added her own special touches....like a Musketeer and Plaid fabric for the tent on the cover page!

Anna and I have been working really hard on labeling her shapes (like with colors, she does a great job pointing to the one you request but lacks the ability to label most). She knows (labels and recognizes on her own) heart, start and circle.

And this lovely little hand-me-down from my mom has been an AWESOME game for Kaelyn to play independantly (she picks a word tile adn then spells out the word underneath it). Anna has enjoyed playing it like a puzzle.

Here is the link for more homeschooling fun over at Preschool Corner!

Preschool Corner- Review week, Ants continued

This week has been an absolutely ideal homeschooling week. We had Soccer and doctors appointments the last two days, but otherwise we've had school as part of our daily routine!!!!

 We managed to have circle time (with both girls in attendance). Our circle time consists of  looking at the weather and hypothesizing what tomorrow's weather will be, singing the days of the week and establishing what today is, yesterday was, and what tomorrow will be, the day of the month and a countdown to Halloween, review our alphabet, say the pledge and count to 100.

I spent the week reviewing what we had learned last year since this is our "official first week".

Kaelyn being "tested" on number recognition and the ability to put them in the correct order. We call this Number Jumble

MATH: I was surprised to see how well Kaelyn is counting to 100, and how well she is doing with 13,14,15,16. Those were things she struggled with before we stopped for the summer. If made to look at the numbers rather than just saying them, Kaelyn can get 13,14,15,16 correct 100% of the time and she's begining to understand the teens placement in determining what number comes after 39,49,59, etc. Kaelyn also has taught Anna how to count past 10!!! I have a feeling that my girls are going to be number people....which is so like their father and so unlike me! I wanted to insure that Kaelyn recognized her numbers and could place them in the proper order from and unordered list.  She does great with 1-8, but struggles with 9-12.  We will work on 7-12 until she grasps that last four with ease. Then we will continue on into the teens followed shortly by the 20s.

READING: I've been quizzing her during circle time on showing Anna certain letters or find the letters by sound and she's done a remarkable well job considering I never drilled the alphabet with her, just shower her the letters as we went along with writing. Then, I "tested" her using the Kindergarten printout from the public school she will be attending where Capital and Lower case are jumbled together and the children are expected to recognize all the letters without mistake and within three seconds. So using that as my standard, we flew through the list and only missed 18. Sounds like a lot, but I didn't cut her any slack. A lot of her errors were due to the style/font used (the a had a hook at the top, their J didn't have a top, etc) or are common mistakes/confusions (ie d/b, p/q, wW/mM, u/v) l with 1or that their I doesn't have a  top and bottom it's just a line). So now we know which letters to continue to review.




Playdough letters and sight words as well!

We read the first Bob book and worked on the At family. Anna is slowly picking up phonics by being around us during school.

ANNA's school:
Anna can match her colors very well, but getting her to SAY the colors is a completely different matter. The same with the alphabet or counting....I have heard her count objects 1:1 up to 5, but to get her to count with you or for you...not going to happen. Her alphabet, well, she likes to sing herself to sleep at night and she will sing the ENTIRE alphabet without error...but if you ask...it's No. So, right now I just keep playing games with her to try and get her to feel comfortable showing me what I've seen/overheard her doing already!

Pink was our Color this week!

In other news, Anna has been doing an AMAZING job with her potty training and has decided that various toys should be potty trained as well....Enjoy!

I would have had pictures of Kaelyn's first soccer game, but my Camera is doing something odd....

For more preschool corner go here!

I'm so excited and I just can't hide it!

*I realize some of you are reading just to check up on Nolen, so I will seperate my blog by headings so that you can skip to Nolen's updates if you like!*
 
The girls are going to be here, at my house around 3pm tomorrow! As crazy as it sounds, I am just so pumped to have all of my family, once again under the same roof! I feel like we've spent far to much time spread across the globe/map for my liking.

I am a bit nervous about the added work load of two little people who will be needing my attention. Not to mention that we will be kick starting our Home school year.

Homeschool
I've decided to go with Horizon's Math and I think we are going to try our hand at Explode the Code for phonics/early reading. It's cheap enough that if I don't see Kaelyn liking or responding well to the system that I won't sweat the investment and can try a different program. I had originally hoped to do Calvert School, but after talking it over with Ryan I don't really NEED all the assistance (but I really WANTED to be lazy and let someone else do all the work for me) that Calvert offers but just needed help in planning Math and teaching Reading. Also, Calvert school is a larger financial investment when I'm still not sure how Kaelyn would respond to it.

Our plans for the first week are to work out our daily schedule (I have a rough idea of what it should look like, but now that I'm adding in Nolen's extra care, therapy, and doctors appointments I'm going to have to adjust accordingly) and to establish a Morning routine of Calander time.

Our Calander Time:
-Say the Pledge


-Work on the Weather/Season: (weather for Anna, Season's for Kaelyn)
-Sing the Days of the Week song (for Anna, but also to help Kaelyn be able to tell me what today is, tomorrow will be, and yesterday was)
-Sing the Month's of the Year song (complete with a dance :) because that's just how you should start your day, by dancing!)
-Work on our monthly binder where Kaelyn traces the number of the day and colors the pattern.
For example, Today is September the 25. Kaelyn would trace the number 25, and color the square on her calander pink because our pattern is White-Pink-White-Pink. I'm also considering having her count up to the date (so 1-25) to help reinforce her concept of numbers.

Normally, at breakfast I tell the girls what we have planned for the day as well as read a poem/story from our children's Bible. I am considering making a weekly calander so that Kaelyn can SEE what we have to do that day and the rest of the week. In addition to that, I would also like to make a daily schedule with times (Breakfast, School, Lunch, Nap, Dinner, Bedtime), so that she can start telling me what's next by using the clock and the schedule together.

Nolen

We had our first meeting with Early Intervention    on Thursday of this week and Nolen qualifies. That's both a praise and a bit alarming. To qualify your child must be delayed by 25% in two or more areas or 33% in one. Nolen was evaluated at Newborn or less in most areas. I think we expected it to some extent, but it was still hard to hear from someone else's mouth that your once "on track/slightly advanced 6 weeker" has regressed to being "severely delayed". I also think it was a little bit harder for me because our Pediatrician had commented how it was very difficult for babies so young to get into the program unless it was extremely severe due to the variation in what is "normal" for this age. She had cautioned me that she thought Nolen needed some therapy but NOT to expect the state to let him in until he was older. It's a praise because we have heard amazing things about this program and the therapist in it! I'm very excited to start therapy and learn new techniques to help Nolen get back his strength quickly.

   We meet with our team to start setting goals for Nolen on the 5th of October and then we will start having therapy sessions regularly after that initial meeting. In the mean time, they have given us a few tips of things to do with Nolen. The first is to encourage as much movement as possible by playing music/talking to him/moving his arms and legs/bathtime/etc. In addition to that, they also suggested using one of the gel packs (yes, like the kind you put in your lunch) underneath his head to help him be able to keep looking forward while laid on his back. That will help his head go back to a normal shape as well as encourage those muscles to strengthen. They are concerned about his hearing since he doesn't react to noises well, but there isn't much we can do for that other than wait.

 Our pediatrician has also advised us to keep both the therapist through the state Early intervention program as well as the therapist through our insurance. (I won't lie, I was secretly hoping she would say, "Oh, you qualified for the state program that will come into your house and make your life much easier than having to drive all over NJ for therapy appointments with three small children, don't worry about the insurance approved therapy!". But she didn't.) So, this next week is going to be a busy one for Nolen, he has his first appointment with Speech Therapy through CHOPS and we start the process of getting him into physical therapy through CHOPS. CHOPS aka Children's Hospital of Philadelphia generally has a 2 year waiting list, but because we went through their hospital Nolen has somehow magically bypassed that waiting list and gotten in for Speech. I'm not sure yet if he will be able to get in with physical therapy, but the referral is already written and should I encounter a long wait list, I will happily find another suitable physical therapy company to work with! He will also be meeting with his feeding team, a GI Doctor and a couple of other additional individuals on Thursday.

Preschool Corner: Mermaids/Water Cycle

Mermaids and the water cycle....completely not related, but Kaelyn went nuts in the library about finding mermaid books (We walked away with one that discussed the history of Mermaids, one about the legend of Atlantis because Posidean looked like a mermaid, and of course...Ariel). Kaelyn has also been bugging me about who makes it rain. So to answer her questions this was what our week consisted of.

Science:
To tag along on our Mermaid/Ocean theme, we bought a lobster and talked about the different parts, that it has an Exoskeleton and how it ate. She was really excited about it! Then a night later we ate it...yummy!

Then we did some work on introducing the water cycle....and an experiement using a cotton ball and water to show how a "cloud" gets "heavy" with water vapor (by sitting in the water), and then rains the water droplets out. We are still working on the water cycle, but here are some great resources I have used!

http://www.kidzone.ws/water/index.html 


http://www.first-school.ws/activities/science/drippy.htm

I also am reading the Magic School Bus Wet All Over book, which I LOVE! We reviewed the concept of Buoyancy last week by reading Magic School Bus Floats...and did the experiment at the end!

Math/History: We are still working on coins here. Kaelyn can easily recognize Abraham Lincoln from our Penny work, as well as recognize pennies. We just started Quaters and George Washington! We did quarter rubs, where you place a quarter under a piece of paper and rub over the top to see the engravings better.

Reading: WE ARE FINALLY READING PEOPLE!! I have started using Hubbard's Cupboard site word curriculum and her four year old curriculum...talk about a break through! While I was absent, Kaelyn has picked up various site words like-
the    on    we    will  I  see  at   a
As well as started sounding out more words on her own! The breakthrough came when Anna my youngest tried to start going potty and every time she went she got a treat. Kaelyn wanted a treat too, so I made her read. Who knew food was going to be the key to her reading?



For more Preschool Corner!

Preschool Corner: States of Matter

At a loss for what to do this next week, I visited the Kindergarten website of the local school where Kaelyn will be attending in 2011. I know I've been lacking in Science, so I decided to look at their science requirements and use it as a jumping off point for my lesson planning...

This week Kaelyn covered
States of Matter *we are doing Gas next week because Solid and Liquid were enough of a concept for this week)
started officially working on her sight words as part of our daily routine (a, at, be, can, do, each, for, go)
introduced the concept of vocabulary words (water, ice, liquid, solid,l)

This week Anna covered
Hot and Cold
Colors-reviewed Pink, introduced Blue
Shapes-Circle
ABC's
Counting 1-10


 I hoping to establish the following as our "daily routine" of Counting 1-100 using our chart, Calander Time, and Observing the Weather with Kaelyn. Anna and I sing our ABC's using her chart, Days of the Week with Kaelyn's help, point out the shape of the week and the color. I notice that if we start the day off the same way each day it's very beneficial to us being productive and in the right mindset. Waking up at 6 also helps seeing as I can start the day AHEAD of the kids/house instead of behind.

Science: States of Matter
For the following experiement I used this website. I loved the step by step process as well as the follow up questions to discuss with your child. I also love how, if Kaelyn gets it I can increase her grasp on the concept by proceeding to the next level with the experiment.

We talked about how water is a liquid, and how liquids take the shape of their container. We poured water into our heart shape containers and then froze them. While it froze we went to the park!

Then we played with the ice and set up our "melting" experiments.And talked about how temperature changes the matter state of being.

We tested with hot water, room temperture water and Room temperature without water to see which would melt faster.

In an attempt to introduce the concept of Gas, I had heated up the water...but it didn't really click for her.

Kaelyn's Light Bulb moment for States of Matter came when I asked her to find a solid (a princess doll naturally) and bring it to me. Then I took a cup of water, and made a huge mess by pouring some of it out on the floor. I asked her if the water changed shape, she said "yes". I told her that  a Liquid takes the shape of it's container...so when I poured it into a square glass it would be square, or we pour it into the heart pan it's heart shaped. Then we took the princess and dropped her on the ground...I asked if her shape changed? She said, "No", and I told her that the fact that it kept it's own shape meant that it was a Solid. *Please note that these are very BASIC definitions of solid and liquid, but she gets it now, she knows that OJ, Water, Milk, Etc are all liquids and that other things are solids*

Math: Counting (we are only missing 14 and 15 sporadically with her counting!!!), Patterns with Pom Poms and our Calander, and Telling time!

Writing:  F, G, and H page, Copying our vocab words and sight words.
Although, we haven't copied the sight words yet...we are doing that this afternoon.
Reading: We went to the library and got a bunch of GREAT free books! We are starting Junie B. Jones series during my reading time with Kaelyn, and reading Poetry at breakfast from the Robert Louis Stevenson book we found...for free, at the library! I've never seen so many great books just given away! I really felt like a criminal.






Anna:  18 months
Collage work with pre-cut circles and glue

Blue Foam Stickers for her "Blue" work

Shapes Puzzles, labeling them during play

Drawing with Kaelyn and talking about circles

(We've been playing A LOT of SuperHero and Super Fairy)

Collage work with Blue paper, shades of blue, painting with blue, eating blueberries for snack.

Her Blue Materials included blue foam stickers, chalk, fat markers, "circle" markers which are like the Bingo Dotters except smaller and found at dollar tree, skinny markers and crayons!

Other Fun Things included:

Fire Pit with Daddy (for his early birthday present!)...we talked about how the smoke was a gas!

Baby three is cooking! Me at 23/24 weeks

Video Game time!

Which leads me to my GREAT DEAL OF THE WEEK! Free Apps for you iPhone/iPod...Kindergarten is making their apps free for the ENTIRE month in honor of Autism Awareness. These apps are great, some are simple flashcard style (for Anna's age) and others ask questions like "What Rhymes with ____" and shows four options for your child to pick. Other Question games that we have found are What doesn't belong and a Healthy Habits Game!

Another GREAT DEAL is to go to Resturant.com and use the promo code FEAST to get a $25 Gift Card for dining out for $3!!! Please read the fine print as you aren't allowed to use the cards in the same resturant more than once a week...but still a great deal!

For other Preschool Corner Go here and for Tot-School go here!

Preschool Corner Review

I am so excited to report that we managed to do THREE whole days of school in addition to
Monday-Dance/Playdate

That's all five of our kids (Link is still too young to sit at the kids table)...waiting patiently to eat! Shocking!

Tuesday-Mops/Volunteering/Playdate/Grocery
Wednesday-School/Dentist
Thursday- School/Ultrasound
Friday-Breakfast with Dad, Swim Lessons/School

Thankfully, NEXT WEEK IS EMPTY other than Dance and Swim and I can't be more relieved or excited!

Kaelyn learned about Jesus feeding the masses while Anna and I spent the morning at MOPS singing and playing with other children. It was a great chance for me to catch up with friend who was also working my room! Kaelyn is really starting to grasp the concept of a budget, and that REALLY excites me!

We have been playing in our sensory box  A LOT! The girls are still enthralled with the idea of having one and aren't really task oriented yet. But, this sucker buys me an hour to cook/clean/sit/sleep/etc and only costs me five minutes of sweeping! Maybe we'll be able to make it more "educational" as the new wears off!

The girls decided to play the "go fish" game. Which they picked and started as I was getting them ready for "school time". I observed, and not only did Anna work on her fine motor skills (getting the fish cards to sit in the boat), Kaelyn was able to recognize all the numbers and sort the fish cards by color.

See her sorting by color and saying the numbers outloud. This is GREAT because Anna was observing and repeating her sister! She can say pink and orange now!

Anna working on her "worksheet", she demands them when Kaelyn is working on hers.

Speaking of worksheets, I am so glad that we've been working "through" a book because it's shown where Kaelyn is weak and strong. For example, Kaelyn is GREAT at manipulating numbers and counting/adding, puzzles, writing letters, recognizing phonics sounds, and grasping some basic science concepts as well as opposites. She is weak in certain phrasings of position words (understand when you ask what is "in between" two objects, but doesn't understand when you ask her to point out the one between the others), writing her numbers, counting the numbers 13,14,15, but can count past twenty no problem, reading or blending her phonics. The book has really helped point out areas where I have been lacking, or where we have thought she knew more than she did.

A counting page, see how her numbers are not recognizable at all! If I didn't hear her as she started to write them down, I would have assumed she had no clue how to do the sheet. The knowledge is there, the ability to write isn't. (Although she did write a perfect 4 later on.)

Doing her number chart! I recorded her completeing it. She needs prompting as she moves from the new teen placement (thirty, fourty, fifty, etc), but recognizes when her hand gets ahead of her mouth...and corrects herself. The biggest achievement came during our calander time when she said "Today is the 24th, my birthday is on the 26th so it's not today! That's sad."

After our very bumpy trip to the dentist (she was fine after I had to bribe her to open her mouth), the girls shared a popsicle on the back porch and talked...it was quite a sweet little moment!

Kaelyn wrote her E page...check out that Easter Egg she drew! She is really loving her book and "reads" it often...which is great because each page has it's own sight word...and she's remembering them without drills or flashcards! I wish I had taken a picture of the end results, because she also drew a pretty amazing Easter Bunny.

Working on her sight words (after she sat the dinner plates out, it's one of her chores). This is great because she's learning how to spell them, read them, and reinforces the letters!

Anna decided to skip working on her matching magnets (animal fronts to backs) and play us some music while we worked.

This chart...is AMAZING! It's the Job Chart from OrganizeItMom that I won a few weeks back. Kaelyn TOTALLY gets the point concept this chart puts forth! The top half has things that need to be done "Do It" and then spots for you to put them when you "Did It". Each job is worth whatever point you decide to give it, we do 1pt/chore and are using it to help with our adding skills! After showing Kaelyn that it worked much like a board game and that you could "earn" points for prizes (10 pt=Movie and a Snack, 20=Ice Cream, 30=Toy from Dollar Tree) she counted the number of chores available (6) and proclaimed, "Mom,
I can't get ten." I told her that you had to earn them over a period of time, and she quickly got to work doing as much as possible! Then she started coming up with her own chores that she could do for points...and I did allow her to make up her own chores, because what kind of mom says no to that! So, in two days time, she earned 10 points and got her movie...which I now have to go turn off! This was our week in review at Preschool Corner!

Need an hour?

Seriously, who doesn't need an hour? Want to find a way to entertian your kids for an hour while you shower, clean, watch a show, or *gasp* go to the bathroom without company?

Try this...
a box of cheerios
old plastic spoons/forks/servings spoons
measuring cups
brightly colored clean toys
a large contianer

Mix it all together and you have a sensory box for younger kids and a game for older ones. Have the older ones use tongs or spoons to dig the toys out and put them into a different container (we used a recycled egg carton). They can sort the toys by color, shape, or into numbered groups.

Or they could be like my kids...eat the cherrios and dig around the toys....all while playing quietly together, eating a healthy snack (these are the non flavored whole wheat cheerios a friend passed along), and I get to shower, eat, read, watch TV, make phone calls and DO FINANCES!!!

Warning though, this can cause a bit of a mess, but it's totally worth the 3 minute sweep that it costs for your free hours (use what you have in the house, don't have cheerios, try beans, no beans, try those crafty pom pom things)

My floor after five minutes of play!

Preschool Corner--Lots of Real Life Learning

First, we are a very Irish family, with a very Irish last name...and I didn't manage the FIRST St. Patty's Day craft. BUT, we did manage to go visit a friend, wear very irish-green garb, eat lots of green foods and spend time playing!

Second, not much schooling has happened around here...atleast not in the way I would like for it to happen. This week, and the rest of this month and April will be crazy! Between doctors, meetings, Ryan's crazy work, and errands....I'm not sure how much we'll manage but to help make our days more productive...I'm giving up my 7 am rule (which I swear by, my girls aren't allowed out of their rooms until 7) and moving to a 6 am wake up for me. Hopefully, I'll be able to clear away normal morning routines in lieu for school. How do you guys manage it all?

So here was our week!
Monday- Dance, Playdate, Groceries on a budget (which Kaelyn is now learning ALL about, I'm thinking about going garage sale-ing with friends and allowing Kaelyn to have two dollars to spend the entire day)

Tuesday-Toyota Maintenece at 8 am! And I can't praise those guys enough! They combined my appointments (which freed up our afternoon for outdoors play with friends), and had the maintence, car washed, and recall issues addressed in LESS THAN 2 hours! While there... we sorted all their toys, and then started to play.

Anna stacked blocks, watched me sort them and help name some colors. She also learned how to put the blocks through the hole. Kaelyn helped build and play with a magnet table.

Kaelyn and I played tea party, mommy and baby bear, and then she started using these TINY spoons to carry cereal from the plate to her mouth....fine motor skills!

Wednesday-St Patty's Day...the girls got to wear their home-made goodies, Anna went to daycare where she did FABULOUS, Kaelyn went to work with Daddy and helped count things, and sort things, and work on check lists, while I went to a meeting with the Commander. Afterwards, we had lunch and played outdoors with friends...and then had a great St patty's day dinner with Angie!

Thurday- FINALLY some schoolwork in the more traditional sense!

The girls asked to play playdough while I finished cleaning...they worked together to get the dough out, divy it up and seperate toys.

We read the fable "How the Turtle got it's Shell"...which is about a turtle who has a shell, but it's shell isn't cracked (I really think the title needs to be edited, because I found this to be confusing and I'm an adult!) and how the turtle wanted to migrate (we discussed this word) south with the birds. The birds told the turtle that he could come if he held onto a stick with his mouth and they would fly him down, but not to let go. The turtle became impatient and started to talk which made him fall and crack his shell. He was ashamed and wanted to run away from the sky and hid all winter under the pond water.

After discussing migration, we discussed the seasons. Kaelyn surprisingly knew which season I had "forgot"...which amazed me since I've never formally addressed seasons. I had her decorate the trees according to the season

And I had Anna color hers as well

Whlie the girls colored, I cut out the shapes for a turtle, two large half circles, two small circles, eight rectangles and two triangles. The girls each assembled their turtles!

(yes, that's Anna trying to sneak some glue in her mouth)

Then they decorated them accordingly. Kaelyn noticed her shell needed cracks,

 

and then she insisted that we recreate the story, so I pulled out some more paper, and hurriedly came up with this!

I used a hole punch and made the turtle bite the "stick" between the two blue birds.

The girls then went outside to play and Anna came inside to stack blocks (something she is getting REALLY good at, and has helped her recognize colors...but not say them. She's also very intentional in the placement of her blocks...she'll remove one, only to try another and make a more stable tower)

When Dad got home, Kaelyn insisted that she show him the deer poop as well as how good she could throw a frisby! Thankfully, our neighbor and his daughter played outside with the girls while I finished dinner...he also taught Kaelyn to throw the frisbee!

Wanna see what the other ladies are up too? Check out Preschool Corner (which now includes K5....which means I'll be able to stick around next semester when I plan on focusing on more preK-K work with an actual curriculm with Kaelyn.)