Week 5: Monday

I've got drafts that I need to finish up for last week, but I want to try and get back on track with posting as well so I'm starting with today. Elsie woke up this morning acting like a kangaroo so I impulsively decided to make them our theme for the week. Since our printer has gone from printing blotchy to light to not at all, we're still improvising. Jason has been kind enough to print me out a few pages at work ahead of time but since the kangaroo thing is spur of the moment, we're getting creative.

I made her a kangaroo pouch out of a receiving blanket, and she dubbed her baby doll Riley Roo. She's been hopping around for a couple of hours now, and I've had to readjust her kangaroo pouch countless times, but she's having a ton of fun. Here's Elsie the Kangaroo.



I made our vocabulary word joey, a baby kangaroo. I also found some coloring pages I'll ask Jason to print out and bring home so we'll have to share those another day.

Our scripture for the week is 1John 1:5-God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.

Valuables

I know I NEED to update, and I'm determined to get that done today, but I wanted to take a few moments to post some links here that I'm finding value in.

First, I've posted this before, but Brightly Beaming Resources is the current plan we're using in homeschooling our 3 year old. So far, it's going great. When I pictured myself beginning to teach our daughter, the things in this plan are what I pictured...simple ideas, shapes, colors, letters, and numbers. This curriculum has simply given me ideas and ways to achieve what I'd already figured I'd be doing.

Here's a site, A Magical Childhood, that I bookmarked awhile ago and recently stumbled across again. It's full of fun crafts to do with children. I'm sure we'll be exploring some of these soon.

When I first started researching curriculums, I came across this list of grades and what the standards are for each of them. It's something I read over from time to time just to refresh myself on what things to stress when talking with Elsie. We don't necessarily focus on many of these things in our lessons, but we're learning and discovering them together while we play.

Another great learning resource is Starfall. The focus is on learning to read, but there are other activities there as well that you could easily incorporate into whatever you're studying. I'll probably be looking into this site more as I start thinking more about teaching Elsie to read. Am I brave or what?

In my neverending search for coloring book pages, I use the site, Enchanted Learning, often so I thought I'd share it with you. I've also used Preschool Express and the blog, No Time For Flashcards, to glean ideas from.

Two other sites I've spent some time on are homeschooling advocate sites, the HSLDA as well as NHEN. Both sites have a wealth of information and can probably answer a lot of questions for anyone.

Week 3: Wednesday

Today, our letter for the day is the letter C. We colored a letter, and then we practiced drawing some. The C is a lot easier to draw than A or B so Elsie did a great job, and we've got a whole wipe-off board full of the letter C to show Daddy when he gets home. In the last couple of weeks, she's really taken an interest in writing letters...practicing on her Doodle Pro during playtime...she's drawn the letters B, C, D, J, L, O, P, T, U, and V all on her own.




After that, we walked around the house and found things that start with the letter C like her Cat picture from Monday, Claira, a Care Bear, a Cup, and a Candle. Now, Elsie's having Cookies for a snack while she watches the Letter Factory.

Week 3: Tuesday

Our shape of the day--Diamond!



We colored and drew diamonds and made some out of playdough...we did not find anything in our house that is shaped like a diamond...if you can think of something we might have, post it here and we'll find it for our Friday review!

Week 3: Monday

Our theme for the week: CATS!



We had a lot of fun pretending to be kittens...meowing, purring, and snuggling together.

We also introduced our new Bible scripture today, which I had meant to be doing on Friday's, but since I wanted one to practice the first week, I introduced it on Monday, and it seems to be stuck there. Oh well. Do what works for you, I say. Anyway, Elsie did not do nearly as well with her second scripture as she did the first. She still knows the first very well, but everytime I've wanted to practice Colossians 4:2, she reverts back to Genesis 1:1...which is okay with me for right now. Part of starting this so early is wanting to get a good grip on everything and figuring out what our strengths and weaknesses are without any pressure to just get it done and do it right (now).

On the other side of things, I had picked the scripture in Colossians specifically because I wanted to focus more on thankfulness. Elsie can often be found throwing a fit over having to leave...Chuck E. Cheese or some other fun outing we've done. I realize that those are times that she's probably tired so I don't want to place too much weight on them, but I'd like for it to be a short-lived phase anyway. I want our children to be thankful for what they've been given. When they've been blessed with a fun afternoon, I want to hear, "Thank you! I had so much fun" rather than their screams and the sound of their shoes hitting the pavement as we drag them to the car. Hopefully, someone out their can relate. Anyway, we talked a lot about thankfulness this week, and I was able to make Elsie aware of how blessed she is by explaining that not all children live in a home like we do. We were watching Sesame Street earlier this week, and there was a little segment with a little boy from another country...his house had dirt floors. Elsie told me that it was gross so we talked more about how blessed we are to live in a country where it's normal for us and all of our friends to have nice, soft, clean carpet on the floor. Last night, as we talked about getting ready for bathtime, she said, "Not all kids have towels? right Mommy." She was shocked when I told her that not all kids have bathtubs and some of them have to bathe outside in a lake or river. This is turning into a longer post than I intended, but my point is that she may not have memorized a scripture this week but she did seem to gain a bit of an understanding about thankfulness, which I'm grateful for.

Week 2: Thursday

Today, we took our lesson on the number 2 on the road. We joined Mya and Lydia at Blackberry Farm for some afternoon fun. On the way, we counted how many people were in the backseat, how many sippy cups, and how many pony tails were in the car. Once we arrived, we found lots of things to count: how many big sisters were in our group, how many little sisters, how many strollers, how many ponies, etc. We had a really fun day.

Two Big Sisters:


Two Ponies:

Week 2: Wednesday

I got this really great wipe off board at WalMart. It was only about $3, but it has lines printed on it like the kindergarten writing notebooks. I got it so we could practice writing letters on it, and today we got our first chance to try it out. Elsie protested the letter B while I drew some to show her how...she wanted to do A's instead. I did manage to get one B out of her...hers is on the second line...it's quite possibly the cutest letter B I've ever seen.

Week 2: Tuesday

Can you guess which color we learned about?



I promise the girl has shorts on as well!

Week 2: Monday

My printer is dead...or, at least it's dying...perhaps it has a deadly disease? Anyway, it won't print! It has selective printing capabilities. I've tried changing the ink cartridge, but it still prints if/when/what it wants to. So, we're not printing coloring pages. Actually, I need to have Jason print some off at work and bring them home. THAT'S a good idea.

Anyway, yesterday we started our second weekly theme: the JUNGLE! Fun, right? Sure! Since the printer was being fun, instead of coloring a picture of the jungle, we looked at the coloring page online, and I let Elsie do some freestyle coloring. While she colored, we talked about the vocabulary word of the week: vines. We also talked about animals you can find in the jungle, and decided to take a cue from last week's lesson. In true jungle fashion, we acted like parrots. We flew through the house squawking and flapping our arms. We perched on the couch, the chair, and the edge of the bathtub. Then, we ate lunch.

Our afternoon was much more calm. We snuggled up in the recliner and read Elsie's Bible. We attempted to practice her new scripture, but everytime I initiate practicing it, Elsie reverts to "Genesis 1:1..." so, we'll keep trying.

Week 1: Friday

Yes, I realize this is actually Monday. I'm just making up for lost time!

Anyway, when I was gearing up for the weekly themes, I peeked ahead at the daily lessons and discovered that Friday's lesson is on nursery rhymes. I haven't even heard all of the nursery rhymes that they include so I decided that we'd read the nursery rhyme as part of Friday's lesson, but we won't be spending time out of our week to memorize them. Instead, we're going to work on memorizing scriptures. Elsie did a great job with her first weekly scripture, and we introduced her second one, which is Colossians 4:2 "Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful."

I don't have all of the scriptures picked out ahead of time, but it seems like I've spent a lot of time talking to Elsie about thankfulness lately so I chose a scripture that included that. Now, she can spend the week reminding herself!

We also did our daily Bible reading and workbook pages. Then, we made a cow out of squares, which doesn't really look all that much like a cow, if you ask me. But, Elsie is quite proud of it. She even named it...so, here she is making her very first online appearance-Bessie the Cow!



For review, we took time to draw and trace squares, the letter A, and the number 1.