"D" is for Dinosaurs, Doctor, Diamonds, and Ducks!

We read this book...

Made this dinosaur... (find instructions for this craft at No Time For Flashcards)

Creative play time with dinosaurs...

More creative play! Dr. Elijah is examining Patient Froggy...

...the good Doctor said that Froggy absolutely did not have a fever...

...but for some unknown reason he really needed a shot.

Froggy is recovering nicely :) Mommy also received several shots from Dr. Elijah, one in each knee.

Diamonds! Tracing and coloring.

A fun duck craft. This idea also came from No Time For Flashcards

The Letter C, Ovals, and Watercolors

Elijah is practicing tracing and coloring the ovals

Here he is painting freely with the watercolors (it was his first time to ever use them!), and below he painted a capital "C"

I didn't take many pictures during our Letter C week, sorry! We had lots of fun, I promise! ha!

Letter 'B' and sorting, and suckers of course

Putting these 'B' word cards together...

Sorting frogs and caterpillars...

And getting a sucker because...

...his "I Can" chart is full!

Afternoon fun

Sometimes, by the afternoon, I am out of good ideas for what to do with the kiddos. This past Thursday Elijah took a really short nap, so I dug into my stash of "emergency" items for something fun to do. I purchased this marble-maze activity at Lakeshore Learning while we were in the States this summer. You put the pieces together and build your own marble maze, and then let the marbles go and watch them make it to the bottom. He LOVED it, and we played with it for over an hour. He loved taking it apart and putting back together in different ways, although he still needs a lot of help with that. It was a really fun thing for us to do together while little brother was still napping.

Music

I am finding that everything I want to do for Elijah's preschool can't be done in 1 hour every other day! I've been wondering and trying to figure out how in the world to fit music in there somewhere. But, I wasn't in to big of a hurry because we didn't have any instruments, until this weekend! I found a musical instrument set at Toys-R-Us here in our city. It includes a drum, maracas, tamborine, trumpet, cymbals, and something else that I don't know what it is called.

So, today, during time that me and the boy's are normally outside playing or just playing inside, we had music time! It was so fun. First, we learned a song from Songs for Saplings, a CD of very very simple Bible Verses put to very simple and fun music. One thing I love about this CD is that it has a song for every letter of the alphabet, so it is very easy to incorporate into a school lesson plan. So, since we are studying the letter "B" this week, we learned the song for "B", which is called "Bread", and is John 6:48 which says "Jesus says 'I am the bread of life." (The link for the CD is Amazon, but it is also available on iTunes for $9.99)

After we sang the song a few times (well, I sang), then I let Elijah hold an instrument and "play" it while we sang. Then I let them just freely play with the instruments (can you say headache??) while the song played in the background. I think we will probably have a music time 2 times a week for now (thats probably all my poor ears can take! ha!), but I think it will be fun to sing our Bible verse song throughout the week at random times during the day, to help them memorize it.

The boys sure had fun!

9-9-2011

We started out by checking the weather...
Then we reviewed the letter A and decorated the lowercase 'a' with jewels

I really love the Montessori educational philosophy. I had the opportunity a few years ago to work at a Montessori preschool in California, so I was able to observe day-to-day how the philosophy works in a classroom. I fell in love with this style of educating (at least for children through the age of 5). So, when setting up our homeschool preschool, I wanted to include a daily "work time", which is where there are activities out, at the child's level, and he chooses which activity he wants to do. Once finished with that activity, they are taught to put it away and choose another activity. It is basically independent learning time, and the kids LOVE it. They love anything that involves independence.

I don't have most of the resources that the Montessori preschool had, of course, but each day I set out at least 5 appropriate activities, each targeting a different skill, and let Elijah "work". Today was only our 3rd day of school, but he walked into his room when we were starting and asked "is it my work time yet?!" He was just so excited about "work time". And, of course, its the last thing that we do, so he asked that about 10 times before it was actually time! ha!

So here he is playing with play food and dishes. This is the creative play center for today.

Blowing out birthday candles

Having a yummy snack!

Here is another creative play center, but it also goes along with our Farm Animal study this week. (this set was out each day this week, and it was always the first activity he chose)

This is his "reading nook". I would like to get a comfy pillow or something to put there to make it more inviting. He did not choose to go to the reading nook at all this week! I will have to think about how I can make it more appealing. But, he rarely ever looks at books on his own. He loves for us to read to him, but he's not in to looking at them by himself.

Farm animal puzzles

Here is our "I Can!" chart at the end of the day today!! He did great this week, so...

...he gets a special treat! Can you tell he is a little bit excited??

Its sucker time!!

I'm aMAZEd!

Ok, so the title is pretty corny, but Elijah really did amaze me yesterday morning with this maze.

He has never seen a maze before, nor has he even heard the word. I was actually surprised that the curriculum had something this complex, this early in the year. But, I went with it and thought we'd give it a shot (but my expections were low). Well, after I explained that the Mommy 'A' wanted to get to the Baby 'a', and that he needed to use his crayon to show her how to get there, he just said "ok!" and did it, with no mistakes! It appears very scribbly, of course, because he can't really use a crayon yet, but I watched him do it and saw where he was intending the crayon to go. I was so impressed!
Good job Elijah!

Coloring the letter "A"

Math time!