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

What We Read This Week

The Berenstain's B Book - which was used to introduce the letter b. We traced sandpaper letters, added it to our letter book, colored a b and found it with magnetic letters.

Tickle Monster by Josi Bissett - read and tickled as we went. Its a fun book with body parts...the only problem is it uses cutsie names for body parts
Look, Baby! Listen, Baby! Do, Baby! by True Kelley - great book that shows different babies their body parts, sounds and things they do with their bodies. It was perfect for our learning about body parts.

Red Truck by Kersten Hamilton - Fun book that features a red truck.
Black Dog Red House by Lizi Boyd - Fun book about colors. Used the cover to match items around the house that are red.

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.

Nursery Rhyme Stuff

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

Awesome Lapbook Site!

This an awesome sight for literature based lapbooks. It fits really well with the Before Five in A Row curriculum I have for Angel Girl but it also has great stuff for non B4FIAR.

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 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 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)

Mommy Schooling Success!

I have been introducing the letters (check here for how I have been doing it). I have NO expectation of her "knowing" the letters but rather just introducing them for the first time. One letter we have focused on more than other is A because it is in her name, basically we just write her name and point out the A at the beginning. So today dh traced it in some dew on the car and Angel Girl said A!!!! Then he wrote it on a piece of paper for me to see and she KNEW it! This is huge. Letter knowledge is important but not really until a child is in Kindergarten does it become a necessary piece of knowledge. But I do think that introducing a child's first name and the letters in their name is important just because a name is knowledge a child own's and can be used in reading and writing as a valuable starting place, (many children start writing stories with just the letters in their name). So to have Angel Girl identify A the first letter in her name is Awesome! Now if she can learn how to write her name before Kindergarten then it will be a major mommy school success.

Wednesday: Letter Book

The letter book is a creation of an ABC book. The important part is to use picture of things that Angel Girl knows. This includes pictures of toys she plays with and other items from around her environment. The letter will be written in big letters on the left page and 1 picture on the right. Each week we will add a letter and a picture. Again this is not mastery. This is the creation of a resource that Angel Girl can use through out our Mommy Schooling years.

Monday: Intro A letter and sound

Picking the first letter to introduce was easy. A because that is the first letter in Angel Girl's name. To introduce the letter I cute it out of sandpaper and glued it to an index card. I plan to use these index cards over the next couple of years. Remember this is an introduction there is no expectation of mastery or even really acknowledgement. This is merely to start the process of recognition. So I helped her trace the letter and said the letter name. I also linked it to her name. This is going to be the process for all of the letter introductions.
1) Letter will be cut out of sandpaper and mounted on an index card.
2) Help trace the letter and say letter name.
3) Link to a known word or object (object is always better they can see and touch it)
Remember at 2-3 years of age there is no expectation of mastery. This is merely and introduction.

Friday: House Tour

This was an idea I got from a reading conference I recently went to. The teacher (who was trained in montessori education) used a traveling set of words that they used to actively label things around their school. I thought this would be a fun idea to use around the house. I figured it would aid in vocabulary development along with the beginning of text recognition. So I typed up a list of things in our home and cut them out. Then I handed one to Angel Girl and had her put it on the item. It was super cute to watch her try to figure out how to get the word to stick to things like the playpen or fridge. We only did about 7 to 10 of the words but they are going on her "learning" shelf and I plan to pull them out when we have a few minutes.

Monday/Wednesday: Sequencing

Monday and Wednesday we started learning about sequencing. I started with first and last. Then on Wednesday we did first, middle, and last. I used the cards from this activity. They seemed to be the most realistic. Angel Girl did not completely understand but I figure this is a great activity to put on her activity shelf to practice throughout the month.
Learning sequence is important both in story comprehension and also in word learning. Children need to learn how to look from the 1st letter through to the last and so the concept of first middle and last is very important.

Monday Jan. 4th CAP

So Monday's activity is CAP looking L to R. For the reasoning check out this post. The actually activity we will be doing on Monday is merely tracing lines. I bought the Kumon Tracing book that I plan to work on with Angel Girl to help her get use to tracing. This will also help her develop the idea of looking. I will also be using my finger to trace the words in at least one of the books that we read each day. I figure repeating these two activities in a variety of ways over many weeks, months, and years will do the best for helping my daughter learn about looking l to r. A bonus activity (something we will do if there is down time and she is bored one day) is a line of toys that she just quickly points to from left to right. This would be a quick activity that can be done that focuses on left to right processing.

Jan. Lang. Theme CAP Looking L to R

January's Language Theme is Concepts about Print, Looking left to right. This is introducing children to print and our conventions of print. Until a child is asked to read they can look at the world in any way or order. Then we introduce this concept of reading that includes looking at print from left to right. Many children pick up the conventions of reading just by being read to and some very simple quick activities. This month we will be focusing on introducing looking. This does NOT mean that I expect Angel Girl to understand this concept and I am sure that these activities will be repeated many different times and combined with lots of story reading in our home. The activities shared this month are great ways to introduce looking at print although many of them do not even ask the child to look at words but rather to get use to organized looking.

Word Families Idea

Found this website here and loved this word families idea. Thought you would too.

Writing Practice

I want Angel Girl to understand how to appropriately use pencils, pens, crayons and markers. Kumon has great workbooks that focus on these basic skills. The one we are working through right now is the tracing book. Angel Girl will grudgingly do the page as long as I let her "color" the rest of the page when she is done. I do try to remind her how to correctly hold the pencil and she seems to do a good job. We do not do this every day, or even every week, just whenever we have a few minutes and Angel Girl wants to.