Plans for 2011

First hopefully I can keep up with this blog but I need to spend time with my kids so if my choice is blogging or my darling children...well my children win.  So I have high hopes but we shall see lol.

So on to the school year starting in Sept 2011.
Angel Girl (age 4) will be attending a SpEd. pre-k program in the mornings so I will be afterschooling her.
So we will be using:
Before Five In a Row and Homeschoolshare for reading aloud, basically we will read a book for 5 days and do 1 activity a day.
Montessori at Home I will be introducing 1 activity a week from Montessori at Home which she can then have on her shelf to work on when she wants.
Cuisainare Workbook we will be alternating free play with activities from this little workbook.
The Complete Daily Curriculum for Preschool we will do 1 theme a week from this book as we did last year.
More Mudpies to Magnets I will be introducing these fun science activities 1 a week.
Slow and Steady Get Me Ready we will do the activity that is planned for her age at that time.

Sweet Boy (age 2)
Hands on Homeschool I got this for Angel Girl when she was 2 and am going to adapt some of the activities for Sweet Boy this year doing 2 a week instead of the whole program.
Slow and Steady Get Me Ready we will do an activity each week for his age.
Montessori at Home I want to start getting Sweet Boy ready for doing Montessori officially at 3 so I will be working on some Practical Life activities adding ideas from Montessori Mom.
Story Stretchers for Infants and Toddlers we will be doing 1 activity a week so  most books will take about 3 weeks to get through.

As a family we are working through the Read Alouds listed in the Great Books Academy, right now we are doing the Nursery books.

What We Read This Week and The Week Before

Yellow Ball by Molly Bang - doing more activities from Before Five in a Row

You Touch With Your Fingers by Melvin and Gilda Berger
Touch! Touch! by Riki Levinson
Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb by Al Perkins - we used these books to learn about the sense of touch.  We talked a lot about touching and then touched a lot different types of textures and tried to describe them.

Tumble Bumble by Felicia Bond - With this book we named the animal on each page, then I had Angel Girl finish the rhyme when it was an animal. 

Anno's Counting Book by Anno - LOVE this book it has so much potential for math activities.  For this reading we just counted the houses on each page and some of the other fun things.  Angel Girl started to show a bit of an understanding of 1 to 1 matching, not consistent but she was starting.  I would have her hop on my finger to practice 1 to 1 and then she would do it independently on the same page.

Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown - lead in to the letter G activities
The Foot Book by Dr. Seuss - lead in to letter F activities

For fun we have a stack of Halloween books that Angel Girl will pick a book from to read.  Here are the ones we have read so far.
Boo by Robert Munsch
Clifford's First Halloween by Norman Bridwell
The Hallo-wiener by Dav Pilkey
One Spooky Night by Laura Leuck
The Best Halloween Hunt Ever by John Speirs
Skeleton Hiccups by Margery Cuyler

Weekly Book List

So my biggest focus for Angel Girl has been reading. Lots and lots of stories being read. Here are the books we have read this week:
Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear by Nancy White Carlstrom
Goldilocks and the Three Bears by James Marshall
Yummy by Lucy Cousins
Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Jan Brett
The Apple Pie Tree by Zoe Hall
Along with many board books.

For Goldilocks and the Three Bears we made a puppet that we used to tell the story. By the end of the week Angel Girl was asking to "read" the story and would tell me what was happening on each page. This is a valuable early literacy skill that I love see emerging. She is starting to understand story structure and remember what she heard.

For Sweet Boy we were reading:
The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams
We read about 10 pages at every nap and bedtime and repeated the book for a week.

3 Yr Old Learning Goals

Goals for my Angel Girl in her 3 yr old year.

Colors
Shapes
Nursery Rhymes
Lots of read alouds
Beginning retelling and sequencing
Letter Names
Lots of playing outside
Counting to 20 (she already goes to 13)
Identify numbers to 5
Lots of sensory activities
Lots of crafts
Lots of cooking
Lots of pretending

Nursery Rhyme Stuff

Great Nursery Rhyme stuff especially sequencing cards. Check it out here.

Ready at Five

Ready at Five has some fun activity cards that are relatively easy to do and mostly use things around the house already. They cover language, physical, math, science, social studies, and art.

Ways We Learned This Week

or having too much fun with family to do formal mommy school.

The best part of mommy schooling is that there are no rules, no hard fast times, or lessons that have to be done. Rather it is about exposing through lessons that are like play, at least for the little. Angel Girl spent almost everyday outside experimenting with sand and water. She learned that water and sand makes mud...that adding water to a full bucket of sand makes the water come out (I think that would be a lesson in volume :))

We studied gravity and physics when she experimented with dumping sand out from the highest height she could reach or when she tossed the sand out and had it land in Sweet Boy's hair.

We learned about cause and effect. That when you push a cousin and take their toy they usually push you back and take the toy back.

We learned about music when she got her new "flute" to play all day long! And practicing the lyrics to "Defying Gravity" in the car.

We did some practical life activities of cleaning the windows with bubble solution, washing Barbie's hair, and thoroughly cleaning her trike with the pool water.

We did some biology at the zoo, and the aquarium. Paleontology at the Dinosaur Musuem and just had fun riding the "Dinosaur" train (pretty much any train we could find).

In the mean time we have started reading Charlottes' Web right before nap time with Angel Girl...and she depends on hearing it to fall asleep easily. Sweet Boy has been listening to the Little House.

Mommy has gotten some new fun books for teaching through nursery rhymes, extending stories with the baby, and some great new math games.

We have also been working on upping Angel Girl's sensory input through foam, moon sand, playdough, and water. It seems to be working she really seems to do better with a high sensory diet.

The best part of learning is the part that happens when we are living life and having fun!

Circle Time Day 5

Memory Work: Had Angel Girl sing the first 2 vs of Twinkle Twinkle. We will need to continue to practice this song at other times but I am impressed with how quickly she has picked it up.
Story: Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear
Activity: From Before Five In A Row
Letter Work: Starfall!

Circle Time Day 4

Memory Work: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star vs. 1 and 2
Story: Goldilocks and the Three Bears
Activity: Make paper bag puppets and retell the story.
Letter Work: Trace the letter in a salt tray.

Circle Time Day 3

Memory Work: Continued with Twinkle Twinkle Little Star vs 1 and 2 with the pictures.
Story: Yellow (a board book I got in a set about colors)
Activity: Yellow Hunt, finding items around the house that were yellow.
Letter Work: Coloring sheet.

Circle Time Day 2

Memory Work: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star I made little puppets of parts of the song for Angel Girl to hold as she sang. I also introduced the 2nd verse using the puppets. HERE is a copy of all the verses of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.
Story: Goldilocks and The Three Bears by Jan Brett
Activity: We retold the story using finger puppets. I mostly did the retell and had her hold up the different parts.
Letter Work: We did letter A in her letter book (which she was able to do immediately she loves that it is her name).

Circle Time Day 1

Yesterday was my first day of doing circle time with my Angel Girl. This is what we did.

Memory Work: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (this is a known song but I would like to do more with this this week...did you know there was more than 1 verse.)
Story: The Apple Pie Tree by Zoe Hall (this book is for introducing the letter A)
Letter Work: Using sandpaper letter introduced (ok so A is known but this will be how I introduce the other letters) letter A and had her attempt tracing...she does not have to be able to trace it correctly merely adding a tactile component to the learning of letters.
Religious: Sing I Am a Child of God

Week of June 21st - 25th

There are some changes in our life so for this summer I am planning on doing activities for Sweet Boy based on the week. Then for Angel Girl I plan to just focus on developing a "circle time" which I will post about daily (I hope). So for this week:

Sweet Boy
Story: The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
Game: Peek-a-boo (yes the game where you cover your eyes and say peek-a-boo, I like to do it with blankets)
Nursery Rhyme: There was a Crooked Man

Angel Girl
Letter Aa
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
Goldilocks and the 3 Bears
Color Yellow

Week of May 31 - June 4

Angel Girl (toddler)

Monday

Read "Spring is Here" (theme, pre-reading)

Have Angel Girl glue green leaves onto a brown tree (theme, art)

Tuesday

Read a yellow book. Sort out yellow items from a bag of toys. (color)

Sing "Spring is Here" (theme, music)

Wednesday

Kumon tracing book (pre-writing)

Talk about Spring, baby animals, flowers, bugs, trees (theme)

Thursday

Glue alumninum foil over star outline to make a shiny star (shape)

Use tissue paper to make a tulip (theme, art)

Friday

Matching game using bird outline, variation 1 with dots, variation 2 with shapes, variation 3 with colors, variation 4 with letters (theme, math, color, pre-reading, shapes)

Shaving Cream Art (J4F)

Sweet Boy (baby)

Book: Good night moon (read before naps and bed)

Game: Different Textures - touch and feel different textures of material

Nursery Rhyme: Baa, Baa, Black Sheep

May Week 3

Angel Girl (Toddler)

(So I kinda skipped week 2...daddy was away on a business trip and it was enough just to be together).

Monday

Thumprint Ants (activity from week 1 left over) (theme, art)

Letter A trace and letter book (theme, prereading)

Tuesday

Isty Bitsy Spider (music, movement)

Sort out blue items from a basket (color)

Wednesday

Sing the Ants Go Marching with different movements like jumping, skipping, hopping (theme, movement)

Talk about ants. Write down one of the sentences that Angel Girl says, add this to a nature journal. (theme, prewriting, science)

Thursday

Counting raisins for ants on a log up to 5 (theme, math)

Use body to make different types of circles (shape, movement)

Friday

Moving like and ant to music (theme, movement, music)

Make magnetic maze for "ant" to get to a cookie. (theme, just 4 fun)

Sweet Boy (Baby)

Reading I Love You Forever by Robert Musch

Playing Pop Goes the Weasel.

Hearing I Had a Little Nut.

May Week 1

Monday

Read book about ants (I read The Life and Times of an Ant, but there are many many good fiction and nonfiction books). (reading, theme)

Sing song about Ant/insect parts. Here are some cute ones. (music, theme)

Tuesday

We went to a local museum that has a collection of leaf cutter ants and just observed and talked about it. If you don't have a local museum like this you can always just go outside and find an ant hill and sit and watch it for a while. (science, theme)

Read a blue book, then hand over some different types of blue paper and tissue squares and let Angel Girl cut and glue them on a paper to make a blue collage. (color of the month, art, reading)

Wednesday

Crawl like an ant around the room, so extentensions of this are to have a piece of food (real or play) that they can pick up and move like an ant. (movement, theme)

Kumon tracing book. (pre-writing)

Thursday

Thumbprint Ants. (theme, art)

Read a circle book. Tape a circle on the floor and do different movements around it like running, tip toeing, marching, jumping, hopping. (shape of the month, movement, reading)

Friday

Counting to 5 on finger. (math)

Mothers Day - we read a book about moms (What Mom's Can't Do), and then she got to color a card for me. (Just 4 Fun, holiday)

Month of May

I have decided to start doing themed units so this month we are working on:

Ants!

Many of my activities are ant based.

We are also working on:

Color: Blue

Shape: Circle

Letter: A

Nursery Rhyme/Song: Itsy Bitsy Spider

Math: Counting to 5

Tuesday: Squares

We started this activity by reading about squares in one of our shape books. Then we had an exemplar and sang a square song
This is a square, this is a square.
How can you tell? How can you tell?
It has four sides, All the same size.
It’s a square, It’s a square.
(found HERE).
Then we went on a square hunt using the exemplar.

Weekly Plan

Monday
Ee name sound
Clapping to music

Tuesday
Squares
Practice hopping (this is her new trick so we might as well practice)

Wednesday
Throwing 10 “snowballs”
Ee letter book

Thursday
Animal sounds
Make pink playdough

Friday
Bus driver
Ride the bus

Week with Shapes/Setting up Potty Training

Monday:
- Read Shapes Book
- File Folder Games
- Ant Shape Matching (found through Confessions of a Homeschooler)
- Shape Matching (found through Home Grown Hearts)

Tuesday:
- Shape Viewers shape search (found through Home Grown Hearts)
- Highway Cars driving cars around the shapes (found through Making Learning Fun)

Wednesday:
- Play dough shapes (possibly using highways as our template)
- Potty Movie ("GO POTTY GO!")

Thursday:
- Library Story Time

Friday:
- Shape Cookies (using cookie cutters to make different shape sugar cookies)
- Potty Movie ("I can go Potty")

EDIT: We didn't do any activities on Wednesday because we had friends over for the day so I was in charge of 6 kids, instead of just my 3. It was quite the adventure. Here is my revised plan for the end of the week.
Wed: Play Date

Thurs: Shape Play dough, square lacing, shapes games

Fri: Library Story Time (read shapes books at the library)