Saturday, April 21, 2012

Our week: April 16th to 20th

As the weather gets nicer we're spending less time indoors and less time doing "school". This is fine by me! I am so ready for more outside time!

Our shelves

Magnifying glass
After exploring these items I intended for us to go
outside and gather some leaves and sticks or something
for the next time. But she took off with the magnifying
glass and has been playing with it all over the house. :)


Zootles magazine
I decided to put this out instead of in our science
drawer. We often forget it's there when it's tucked
away. 


Rhyming puzzles

Kumon activities
The same ones out as last week. Since she hasn't been
picking it lately I asked if she wanted them back out
or not, but she always says yes.


Patterns
For copying and continuing patterns. We can of
course dump them out and do new ones, but I like
having it ready to go with the first set.


Lacing
This week she was more particular about lacing it
the same way all the way around. Often she does 
some in standard stitch style and sometimes loops
it around the side to come through the same direction
as she did the hole before. This time she noticed how
different it looked than mine, done all the same way.
So she took out her last few and redid it all the same.


Window clings
She really just loves doing these. Not sure how
educational it is, but it's fun so it's okay!


Art book
This week we did tracing objects. She liked
tracing her hand the most. 


Water color painting
And of course some painting.


I actually didn't take a lot of school-time pictures this week. The camera died early in the week and I procrastinated charging it. I have several more on my phone, but they're not very good and a pain to get on to my computer. 


This girl LOVES mazes!

She wanted to do more colored water art on paper
towels. This time she asked me to cut out some
Easter eggs for her to color. I also did some hearts.
This way was pretty fun! A new way to color 
Easter eggs! She also turned a few of them into
"projects". Mostly this meant cutting them up or
folding and taping them.



Just for fun!



Meeting a brand new baby cousin!






Monday, April 16, 2012

Our week from April 9th to 13th

This may sound really off for a homeschooling blog, but my goal this last week was NO SCHOOL. Well, really my goal was to not be in the house, but that meant not spending time in the school room, either. Between sickness, pregnancy issues, and weather, we've been stuck in the house for the majority of the last 6 months. The weather was nice (most of the week) and I had just had enough of inside. So I didn't put new activities on her shelves or prepare any of our core work. Had she really, really wanted to do school, I would have found something for us to do. I kept us pretty busy, but the couple times she did ask, I gave her an option between school and something else fun and she went with the other.

So we spent this week playing in the driveway with bubbles and sidewalk chalk, taking walks/riding her trike, a lot of time at parks, playdates, time with nana, picnics, and the children's museum. All things we do all the time anyway, but this week we did ONLY those things and packed them in!

Some pictures.







Feeding the ducks



Painting at a pottery place

This was a playdate with a friend

Proud of her puppy! She was very upset, though,
that we didn't get to bring it home with us that day.
They glaze and fire it then you pick it up when
it's finished.
Making a windsock at the museum





Monday, April 9, 2012

Our week in review from April 2nd to 6th

Our shelves

Sand tray
She loved writing in the sand tray this time.
She always likes this activity, but it worked
much better in this box tray instead of the
shallow tray I usually use. She went and got
more letters from the drawer so she could keep
playing in it. 


Egg puzzle
She absolutely loved this one! It was definitely a
favorite for the week. We did it a dozen times at
least. It's harder than it looks because each notch
is a different width, so you have to turn each level
until you find where it fits.


Ball toss math
There's also a 2 bucket you can't see in the pic. We
set the little buckets up on the other end of our table
and tossed the pom poms into them. The 1 closest to
us and the 3 furthest away. Then we added up our
points. She loved this game. After the first few rounds
we just tossed and didn't do the adding.


Lace & trace
Lacing cards is always a favorite.


Number line
The number line folds out to go to 9. She puts one
cup above each number then puts the corresponding
number of beads in each cup. She always loves
this one. I like that it is self-correcting, so even if I
see her make a mistake, I don't call it out, I wait for
her to discover it herself.


Patterns
Copying patters. She was supposed to make an
identical row beneath this one then I was going to
start a simple pattern and have her finish it. But she
ended up stealing the pom poms from this activity to
give us more for the math toss game and they never
made their way back!


Kumon Activities
She didn't actually do these this week. Surprising
as the cutting one at least is usually one of the first
things she goes for.


Stained glass painting
She loved doing these. Painting is one of
her favorite things to do.


Easter cards
Materials so she could put some stickers
on foam cards. She likes making cards for
people this way.

In action




Glue and glitter. She asks to do this at least a couple
times a week.



This is an activity from a Spectrum Early Years
workbook, Learn with Me Ready to Read. She
really likes it so I might get another from the
series.

These were actually not taken all on the same day.
She just really liked her Dora nightgown this week!


Just for fun!

All ready for dance class.


Dying eggs. This dye is from beets. We also did 
red cabbage, tumeric, and spinach.

More painting! 

"Another picture?"