Preschool week 8: letter E, number 4, Moses and the Red Sea

For week 8 we covered the letters Ee, number 4, and Moses and the Red Sea. I created E and e out of felt for Oliver to work on. This kind of thinking (using your hands for letters) is challenging for him and I don't push him too hard with it. I know he'll get it eventually, I just want to give him a variety of mediums to work on forming letters.

This week we also headed down to our communities story time. We actually ended up getting there a wee bit too late. They had read the story and were starting on the craft when we got there–woops! But Oliver didn't mind as they had a snack (a huge pile of raisins for him!) and his focus was on that snack for sure. Nevermind the craft :)!

We also made pear/apple sauce this week! Oliver loves to sit on the counter and help me make anything, so because I had a lot of pears that were soft and we all love sauce around here (pear, apple, whatever!) I thought it would be great to make it this week.

For our Bible story about Moses and the Red Sea, I found a craft idea like this one online, and made it similar to that. You trim out two pieces of blue for the water and fold up the inside of them to look like water parting. I had Oliver glue down the pieces and all the little men (red were the Egyptians and purple and black were the Israelites). He did great with this and kept all them men in neat little rows. Something that is very much an Oliver thing! :)

I used another section from the print out pack I talked about here. This one was a matching one–of course Oliver loved it. My favorite part of it all, was when he was "sharing" his raisins with the little picture of the people. Sweet boy! And we also played another game from the print out where you roll a big cube with an animal on each side, and when it lands on one you mark it on a corresponding sheet. It's a graph but Oliver liked rolling the big cube and finding out which animal would reach the last number first!

We finished our week heading to visit family. We celebrated Jonah's and Aleksandr's (again) birthday with some cake, much to Oliver's delight! And we enjoyed visiting with family for a couple days.

Preschool Week 6: letter C, number 3, Joseph and his coat of colors

All right. I am a bit late posting our progress, since we are actually in week 8 as I write, but I've decided to just post some things we worked on that were particularly interesting that I'd like to remember for later use. Considering we do a lot of things consistently (like our routine things, and working on drawing lines, tracing numbers/letters etc.) it will help me overall not spend too much time here, when I need to spend my time in other places.
So with that being said, and the fact that I may be boring all those faithful readers (hee, hee, all two of you? ;) I will post weekly, or maybe biweekly, but let's not get too hopeful of that!
For our 6th week we were working on the letter C, number 3 and our Bible story was Joseph and the coat of many colors. These along with our weekly Bible verse kept us busy.
Here are some things we worked on {also, I'm warning you now it's going to be a picture heavy post}:

For the letter C, I had Oliver glue down puff balls (pom, poms maybe?) in C and c. He did a great job squeezing out his glue bottle and tapping down all the puff balls. He loves to make lines, so this was right up his alley!
I also introduced him to a new art: q-tip painting. You paint with a q-tip onto a letter that has little circles for you to fill in. I think this was a little too detail oriented for him at this point. He started out trying to fill in the dots and it turned into a great big mass of one blob of color. Which is okay too. He had fun using something new to paint with (q-tip)! I found the templates online for free. We'll keep them handy for more practice.

I created a "C" filled basket for him. To help him with the sound of C (what sound does C make?) I found a lot of items starting with C, and added in some things that didn't start with C. We pulled them out one at a time and talked about what their names were. I asked him each time if that item started with c and he got about half right. Sound is a hard thing to learn, and we'll get there. It was a fun visual way to work on letter sound.

I also drew some items starting with the letter C for Oliver to circle. We'd look at each picture and say what it is, then I'd ask if it started with "C". He circled the things that started with C. Also, I love old fashioned chalk boards. They are not used in schools as much, so I love being able to use one at home. I well remember working on chalk boards in my own schooling days. Is there anything better than a fresh clean slate? (I'm the nerdy one that loved washing the board down, so satisfying)

Oliver practiced cutting with his safety scissors (picked them up at the dollar store), and we had fun counting with a firefly game I printed free online. You put fireflies in the sky then count and find the matching number. He did great on this! He loves math, so far :)

Worked on a matching game (free online) where you match heads and tails.
Another easy game for Oliver. He actually started matching these months ago, and he loves matching games! He also glued down some circles I had cut out of different colored sheets of construction paper, into a caterpillar pattern of his choice. The head may have been in the middle of the body, but that's okay! ;) C is for caterpillar! 

A new thing we tried this week was drawing what I draw. I would draw something and have him copy me. We started with a circle then added to that to make a snowman. Oliver was frustrated at not being able to duplicate it, so we tried again with a simpler picture. A wavy line for water, a curve and line for a boat, a straight line and a triangle added for the sail. He did a lot better with this than the snowman. I'd like to keep doing this with him as it teaches him how to make shapes and lines and also follow direction. He'll be on his way to drawing his own pictures one day! 

And our Bible story craft this week was for the story of Joseph and the coat of many colors. A craft suggestion of ABCJLM was to paint colors on a brown grocery bag that you cut into a coat for your kiddo to wear. The first day we painted Oliver had no interest after about two strokes of paint. So I put it away for the next day. The next day I put paint on a plate for him and he liked this better than using a watercolor set. He painted with his brush, then turned to use his hands. 

Funny thing is, I loved the way the look of the dried paint was all mixed up on the paper plate he used. So we later cut out a coat shape from the paper plate and glued this to a piece of paper. I like that craft better than the original idea! Look at that bright colored coat! 

And that was the end of our week. 

Also, congratulations for making it through this long post. 

Week 5, days 3 and 4

Why hello!
I have been having a crazy week with two sick kids. SOOO that means I am behind on updating LAST weeks school days. I am lumping them together for the sake of my own sanity.
Here we go.
Day 3:
After routine things, we worked on some counting. Oliver can count very well, even into the 20's but he doesn't yet recognize what the 20's look like. And he gets some of the teens mixed up. I thought it would help him see the numbers both in order and out so that he can remember what they look like. Here is my attempt at capturing me in the frame with him. It's a sad attempt. I set the timer on the camera and took a few shots but Oliver was so fascinated at the blinking light on the camera that I didn't really get him counting. But it's a very real moment! ha!

We moved onto some letter sorting. I made the whole alphabet (lower and upper case) in wheels, and made a car for him to put the wheels on. Cute concept but once it was all done, I realized it was WAY too much for him to sort through. A wee bit overwhelming. Thanks for that idea Pinterest.
Well, it's not a Pinterest fault.
I think the thing about some pins is that they don't specify age. And you have to take into account where your child is and what they know at their age. I switched it out (when I realized it was even overwhelming me) and only pulled the letters in his name. We made it into a memory game at that point and I had him flip over the letters to find their matches (lower with upper), then we put them into his name. A better plan!

Day 4:
Our final day for the week.
It was a low key day for sure. Oliver started the day with some play at the table (see the friends he brought along? I do believe these are Aleksandr's toys). We did our verse together, and read a book about words, and I had Oliver tell me what words started with the letter B. He then did some painting with the letter B. Meanwhile Aleksandr was enjoying his new found skill of balancing on the the choo choo train. Silly boy! This one is a wild one for sure!
And that ended our week!

Preschool Week 5, Day 2

Today Oliver was busy putting things in very long straight lines. A habit he developed when he was in his 2's. Not sure what month this started! But all this time later and he still thrives on making things orderly, in a row, organized. I marvel at his organizational thought process. I know it does not come from my side, but rather from his daddy!

After our routine things we focused on our Bible story, Noah's Ark. I think having Oliver be involved hands on in the story helps him learn it all that much better.

We reviewed our verse. Here's my meager drawing of it.

And the rest of our day–Oliver worked on drawing the number 3, his name and finally some felt. I created the letters Bb for him to put together. Kind of tough since the B has two curve pieces that manipulate easily because they are well, felt. I ended up putting our printout of Bb for him to use as a template, this was a great way to help him learn the shapes of the pieces. But he did a great job going through so many things today!

A shared school day (preschool week 5, day one)

Week 5! Done!

I am a little late in posting this but I will try to remember what we did last week. 

Starting with day 1.

It was a special school day for us because Oliver's little buddy Elijah came to share school time with us. He is very close in age to Oliver and they enjoy playing together whenever we do get together. His mom is thinking about starting a school time with him as well, so to encourage her and to do something different in our routine we started the week together :). 

It's quite a bit different preparing for 2 kids as opposed to only Oliver. I really didn't fret about how it would go, I just made sure I was ready with activities for the both of them. Because Oliver has been doing school for a little while now he knew what to expect. Elijah was new to it but I think he enjoyed participating in the activities and seeing how we did our routine things. I know his mama was encouraged to be able to start something on her own (she told me as much) after our day was over. I am so glad for this. I think it's a wonderful blessing to be able to sit and teach your little ones. I know we already do day in and day out just by being mom's. But investing the time into schooling is so fulfilling. I know that she will reap so many rewards just by watching her little guy learn, and get excited about new things that they cover in their schooling. It's a special time (even if it is only 30-60 minutes) each day that is set apart for just the two of you. There may be interruptions from other children, but the focus is still there and I know that Oliver knows this too. When he learns something or figures out how to do a new skill I am quick to heap lots of praise on him and he just beams. I love seeing his little face light up in understanding over something. Praise, praise, praise! I don't think you can over-praise your children. I am learning this in my daily walk just as a mom. I think this can go along in life too. Praising others when you see something that merits it. Praising my husband, praising my God, praising friends. Encouragement goes so much farther than we think it does.

Okay, so to our schooling. 

We started the day going through our routine together. Prayer, weather, calendar time, song about days of week, and pledge of allegiance. Elijah enjoyed it all, and participated quite well, even doing the weather card. We moved onto our Bible story, Noah's Ark. I read through the story in Oliver's children's Bible. To help keep them focused, I pulled out our toy ark we have and let them participate in putting all the animals into the boat with Noah and his wife. They thoroughly enjoyed this part. It was hard to wind it down back to the story!

After our story and ark time, we went ahead and started our craft to go with the story. I had drawn out rainbow templates for them to fill in with paint dots. It was a little slow going as Oliver was not very excited about sharing the paint dots. But we finally had them equally fill in their rainbows (and once they got going they did a fabulous job) and then moved onto glueing down clouds. 

After the rainbow, they moved to Oliver's little table to work on their names. I had drawn their names with boxes under each letter and taped the papers down to metal cookie pans. I had some scrabble letters with magnets on them that were stuck down on top and they sorted through and placed the letters  on corresponding letters in their names. They both did a great job at this. I kept this activity for Oliver to keep practicing on all week. 

After names, we moved onto an activity of choice. Since I had one set of each thing, I pulled out counting lady bugs and color finding. Elijah chose color finding, and Oliver chose counting. 

I have to say that they did not sit quietly and do these activities independently. They are 3 years old. This photo was the moment of stillness before they both gave up on counting/color finding and decided to run around and play. And that was the end of school time! 

It was a great experience and I know Oliver loved having his buddy there. We hope to do this again often. I'm excited about it and may even branch into inviting a few more buddies. We'll see how it goes!

Preschool Week 4, day 5

Day 5.
{A small recap over our last month, and where we are now.}
Well it took me about a month to get to this point, but I decided we'll take off Fridays. Given the fact that we haven't really been entirely consistent in a 5 day week anyways, I was encouraged to do this because of a couple reasons. One, it's preschool, it's not high pressure in any way and doesn't need to be 5 days a week, two a chance to have days for free time and field trips is great! I can use the day to do something special like picnics at parks, lunch visits to daddy at work, or special trips to museums, zoo's or visiting a fire station (we are planning that in an upcoming week, although it isn't on a Friday).
I know a few homeschool mom's that do a regular 4 day week with Friday's off. They are reserved for family days. I love this and feel it will be great for us too.
I love how each week I learn things that work and don't work for our schooling methods.
I love watching Oliver teach me new things about himself, about how he learns, what he gets excited about, how he follows direction, listens in story times, and comprehends what we are talking about. I have been able to ask him in depth questions about what we are reading/learning and his responses are blowing me away. His memory is also amazing. I believe he takes after Jonah in this area, I'm not sure. I've never had a 3 year old, so I'm not sure what they are capable of memorizing, but really, I'm so impressed with his memory! I feel that I should encourage this as he gets older and I'm praying for wisdom with what I should do in this area.
I pray over our boys to be able to encourage them in areas they are gifted in, and strengthen and help them in areas they are weak in. I love seeing glimpses of who this wee man is becoming. What an incredible blessing it is to be a mom, but to be able to teach daily is also a new experience that is SO rewarding. I know it's also a responsibility as God instructs us in the Bible, but He leads and provides what you need if you keep relying on Him.
It's been a good month, and I'm excited to look ahead at our calendar and think about all the things we can learn together, things we can make together, holidays and seasons we can prepare for, ways we can grow in character as we look to serve others. There are just so many things to learn. Not even for our little 3 year old. For me too.
Homeschooling. Is it really for the kids after all?
Ah makes me think.
Well, back to our Friday. I took the boys to a park and museum, and we ended our outing having lunch with their daddy at work. Such a great day, with beautiful fall weather! A very good end to our week!
(Also we picked up a flag for Oliver, and he was thrilled. He held it so high and watched it wave in the car the entire drive to see his daddy.)

Preschool Week 4, day 4

Day four.
Oliver had a snack on this morning, which was unusual. We don't do snacks early in the day, but for some reason (maybe an early breakfast) I let him have some raisins. I let him play with his food later, by putting them on the number 2. He really enjoyed that :).
To start the day though, after our routine things, Oliver worked on the letters Aa with felt.
Today he did excellent! He could tell he got it right took, and when I praised him he just beamed! A little confidence went a long way with him. I could tell his confidence carried through everything that morning.

We moved onto counting afterwards, and like I mentioned earlier, his confidence was high today! After counting 0-5 with the ladybugs (and matching leaves) he wanted to try to keep going and made it ALL the way to 12. This is a tough thing to do, with all the matching and I was so proud of him! He initiated it and did great!

That wrapped up our school time for the morning. Later in the day (at my favorite time of day, the cranky hour) I made this play sand. I had seen a pin with this recipe on it before and I forgot about it. The actual pin calls for baby oil, which I didn't have, and 8 cups of flour, which I was pretty sure I didn't have. I was also afraid of failure (um, has anyone else experienced failed pins before?) so I thought I'd make a small mix using what I did have. 

I used regular canola oil mixed into flour. And for the exact ratio, I just started small, maybe a couple cups of flour to oh, 1/4 cup oil? I mixed in oil as I went until I felt like it was a good "sand" consistency. Basically when it was still coming apart but could hold when I squeezed it together. I then added more flour and oil, since as it turns out I had more flour than I thought. I try not to bake with all purpose flour in general because it's just not good for you (we use whole wheat) but every once in a while I do use it for sweets. And it's very handy to have on hand for crafty projects. 

Did Oliver like it?

It was such a hit! He loved it! He did want me to sit and play with him which was in between cooking for me, but it was highly successful and highly messy. But it wiped/vacuumed right up. Aleksandr really, really wanted to participate. Looking up at both me and Oliver sitting at the table he couldn't handle being alone on the ground. Poor guy. So I held him while he dug his hands in. And surprisingly he didn't eat it. I think he remembered the sand at Charleston. He LOVED it and sat and played contentedly for quite a while on the beach. After a few mouthfuls of it, he gave up eating it and really just played. I think he may have thought this was similar. So successful pin for both boys! Now this is something worth doing again!

Play Sand

5 cups all purpose flour

1 cup canola oil (or less, just slowly add in)

Mix up, slowly adding in oil until the texture is "sandy" (falls apart, but will still be moldable when you squeeze it). Dump in a big pan and watch your three year old explore, dig, pour and generally make a big, fun mess!