All About the Journey

Our Curriculum 2013-2014

2014-04-19T23:46:00.003-07:00

It's April 2014 so our school year is almost complete. It's just in time to document the major curriculum we've used this year. My approach has been rather simple. Not simple as in "easy" ~ not at all actually. It's been simple as in "not complicated". Maybe I could say "straight-forward", but you get the drift. My focus has been on the things I know are most important and that we can do well and consistently. The rest of the activities just fall into place as we have time or opportunity. It's been a great year!

Turbo: Age 6 (1st Grade)
This boy thrives on a challenge. He's quick, funny, determined and has a terrific attitude about learning. He is such a joy to teach and learn alongside. He loves to listen to stories and to read to his sister. It's the most darling thing to see him choosing his free reading books based on what Sweetie will like. I treasure these special years. It is my greatest joy to spend my days with these children and couldn't imagine a better way to spend my time.

DAILY - These are the things that comprised our CORE school day.

Bible: Reading Bible stories and narrating

Math: RightStart Math B (1st edition) ~ already finished. Math Mammoth Worksheets as supplemental until we begin Math C.

Reading: Various Library Books

Memory Work ~ Classical Conversations (CC) Cycle 2

Handwriting: Handwriting without tears & various worksheets

Morning Binder: Daily Drawing, calendar, days of school chart, math practice sheets etc.

NOT DAILY These didn't comprise our CORE school day, but were done with various regularity thought the year.

Literature: Various Books (read by me) (Most Days)

Language Arts ~ First Language Lessons (probably weekly as this wasn't a high priority for me)

Science / Fine Art ~ CC weekly science & fine art; other impromptu things at home

Field Trips ~ Various (Nutcracker, Aquarium, Farm, Disneyland, Legoland, Beach & more)

Presentations ~ Prepare for and give weekly presentations in front of CC class

Handicrafts ~ Beading, Weaving, Household chores, Sewing

We certainly have done plenty of other things, but these are the main ones on the schedule.

GROUPS

Classical Conversations (weekly for 24 weeks)

Enrichment Program for Science, Health/PE and History (weekly for 12 weeks)

Nature Study (weekly for 6 weeks)

Science / Activity Co-op (weekly for 4 weeks)

Sweetie: Age 4 (Pre-K)

This joyous child loves to play, imagine, dance, sing and more. While she didn't desire 1:1 lessons in the 3Rs, she loved to do family learning and group activities. So she participated in everything we did! In addition, she loves to write and practically taught herself how to form all her letters. Great Job Sweetie! She's kind, funny, sporty, girly, crafty, entertaining and more...She's truly my sweet joy.

DAILY (she participated in these lessons each day)

Bible: Reading Bible stories and adding to Turbo's narration

Memory Work ~ Classical Conversations (CC) Cycle 2 ~ shortened review time

NOT DAILY (While these were not required for her, she always participated.)

These didn't comprise our CORE school day, but were done with various regularity thought the year.

Literature: Various Books (read by me) (Most Days)

Science / Fine Art ~ CC weekly science & fine art; other impromptu things at home

Presentations ~ Weekly Presentations given in front of CC class

Field Trips ~ Various (Nutcracker, Aquarium, Farm, Disneyland, Legoland, Beach & more)

Handicrafts ~ Beading, Weaving, Household chores

Lots of coloring, drawing, worksheets and creative crafty activities

GROUPS (These are required for her and she loved them!)

Classical Conversations (weekly for 24 weeks)

Nature Study (6 weeks)

Science / Activity Co-op (4 weeks)

This week, I promoted her to Kindergarten so we could lay a foundation of doing school together between now and the fall. She's SO excited to be in Kindergarten and has been doing her daily Math and Reading lessons happily! It's exciting to see her ready for some light lessons. I love teaching her!

Well, that's all I have time for right now.

HAPPY EASTER!

Tot School

2011-09-28T19:29:00.000-07:00

LilSweetie is 24 months

(During this TotSchool)

She plays so well by herself and is undemanding of my attention for the most part. Actually she takes it further and really prefers to do it herself - story reading, project work, playing with toys. "Do it myself - Mommy go over 'dare" is almost her mantra. On the other side, Turbo prefers to have my time and attention every minute of the day. He wants to do his school work on my lap (mostly a 'no') and considers me his primary playmate. Too many nights I've put the kids to bed and realized LilSweetie's only 1:1 time with me was story and lullaby before bed. Can someone say Mommy guilt!

So I'm especially grateful to do Totschool with LilSweetie as it's ensuring she gets my focused time. She, now, understands we do 'school' together and we're both enjoying this time tremendously.

We're using Carisa's TotSchool Printables combined with tray activities.

Since we're doing most things together, I don't have tons of pictures - plus I forget to take them.

This was our first weeks of TotSchool, so I kept the trays to a minimum and used these for two weeks to get a sense of what she really enjoyed, how she'd respond to a toy she'd mastered and what she didn't prefer or seem to understand.

Here's where I keep her trays.

Sorting. She didn't care to do it at all. Maybe I should have put a picture on the bottom of each container. Even after a week of just playing with the items, when I encouraged her to put the Monkeys here and the Turtles there, she wasn't interested. Next time I'll change it up and make it more simple for her.

Lacing Snake. She enjoyed this at first and chose it several times. By the next week, she had started to pass it up.

Puzzle. She played with this shape puzzle significantly more than I anticipated. I imagined it would be easy and boring for her, but no. She chose it almost every day for two weeks.

In/Out/Open/Close. HUGE HIT. She played with this often for the entire two weeks. She'd lay out the cups and put a ball on top. She'd open the container, put in the balls while counting them, then close it up.

Color Wheel. This was a completely new concept for her. She'd not worked with clothespins before nor done color matching. She enjoyed this and chose it several times.

Lots of drawing on the whiteboard. She does great with the pens so I leave them out for her.

Playdough!

Much more stuff, but seriously inserting a picture to blogger from picasa webalbum is getting frustrating because of some technical problems. I've been trying to post this for almost a week and so I have to just move on. Darn blogger - I love you and you frustrate me!

Learn more about TotSchool here!
<a href="http://www.1plus1plus1equals1.com/TotSchool.html" target="_blank"><img border="0" alt="Tot School" src="http://i688.photobucket.com/albums/vv250/carisafrank/Blog%20Buttons/totschool150.jpg"/></a>

Preschool ~ Oceans Theme Part 2

2011-09-07T21:53:00.000-07:00

We loved this theme and could have continued on for another two weeks with all that Turbo still wants to learn! Here's some of our activities these past two weeks.

Art - We stamped an Under the Sea poster with large foam stamps. This is a terrific activity for him. It's helping him practice 'staying within the lines' and I saw a quick improvement to his coloring.

He did a free painting with a circle foam brush. He says its round fish and waves. We also make these adorable ocean animals by connecting their parts with brad fasteners.

We read Over in the Oceans, a lovely book and were inspired by one of the pictures.

So we made this....

Build a Fish
We used the cute templates from Sparklebox to make these adorable creatures - 6 in all. Even LilSweetie got in on the fun. You poke holes in the pieces and attach with a brad. The kids loved that the parts moved! LilSweetie's is the Turtle and she cherished it!

Games
Of course we played Go Fish! He loves this game and will play it 100 times in a row if I will too. Daddy does, but not Mommy.

We also played Fish Bingo. I thought this was from Monterrey Aquarium website, but can't find it now. Sometimes we dumped them on the floor and other times we put them in ABC order. They have a paperclip on them and we used a magnetic fishing pool to fish and then mark our BINGO cards.

Sensory Tub
What's a fun theme without a sensory tub? The kids love these and I love that I can now leave them out! Both kids do a great job keeping it together.

Outing
We went to the beach of course! Love this beach because the sand is so soft and the water is rocky. That means the kids don't want to wade too far into the water and I can more safely take both by myself.

I had some directed play activities, but didn't use them at all. They were having such a great time playing with the sand that I didn't want to interrupt that.

Turbo was SO excited to see Sand Bugs. Lil Sweetie and I say....Ewww.

You can see our Ocean Theme Part 1 and Ocean Book list if you're looking for more.

Ocean Books

2011-09-06T21:05:00.000-07:00

Here are some of the Ocean Theme books we read these two week. I'm sharing the ones we read more than once and the kids enjoyed.
This is a sweet story about seasonal changes on an island and the secret it has to share.
This was an absolute Favorite! We made Seaweed soup at the beach, pretended to make it at home and read the story several times.
Touching and unique story about a boy and his walk with his Gramma. She’s in a wheelchair and still they go to the ocean, around the lighthouse and see the sights together. Loved this tear jerker!
Our favorite book about Tide Pools. Great use of words to describe the feeling, look and movement of the sea life. Great info too!
the kids really liked this one
A great book about Sea Turtles. Lots of facts written in the form of a story. This was read many, many times.

The following books were also enjoyed! These are fiction/fact books vs story books.
Starfish
The Seashore
Starfish, Seashells and Crabs
Seashore, Eyewitness books
Exploring the Sea
Wonders of the Sea
Exploring an Ocean Tide Pool
Life in the Water
Life in the Sea

See our Ocean Theme Posts
Oceans Part 1
Oceans Part 2

Ocean Theme ~ Part 1

2011-09-06T01:03:00.000-07:00

In addition to our Core Lessons, we had an excellent time learning about the Oceans. It's a vast subject and I wasn't sure where to being. I was thrilled to find the Sea Searchers Handbook to give some spine to our studies. I went through the online book and selected several units, then got some supporting books from the library. These were all terrific!! We learned about Wind and Waves, Tides, Crabs and Food Webs. I don't have pictures of everything because I was playing too! Here's one though....

Tides to Siphon: Here we are learning about Tides. We added rocks, gravel, plastic sea creatures to our tub, then filled it with 4 large bowls of water to simulate High Tide. As it filled, we talked about which creatures were getting covered by the water and which ones were out. We used a plastic lid to make waves and see how it lapped up over the tallest rocks. Then we siphoned the water out to simulate the tide receding. That's when the tide learning stopped and the "how a siphon works" learning began. He was SO interested in his. He would raise and lower the end to watch the flow slow and speed up. He would add air to make it stop and have me restart it. Eventually we went back to the low tide and tide pool discussion, but the highlight was siphoning!

Ocean Words ~ Turbo loved reading each of these during the day as the mood struck. It also helped to remind him what he learned and would spark questions. He mostly wants to know about "what does it eats and who eats it." He ends up using the vocabulary frequently in conversations. Adorable.

Tide Pool Fan
This was so fun! Turbo got to cut, glue and hole punch. He did a great job with the hole punching too! It's from here.

Commotion on the Ocean Fun!
What I Learned book
Each day I read an ocean book to Turbo and he would recount something he learned from it and draw a picture. Drawing and coloring have not been favorite things for him, so I wondered how he'd like this. He had a great attitude and enjoyed it. You can see he used the Tide Pool Fan as a reference point for his drawing. He had a hard time grasping what I wanted initially, then worried that he couldn't draw a good picture. A little encouragement and he did a great job!

We also did several other parts of that unit. The graphing with tricky pieces thrown was huge fun around here. Turbo loved to identify all the tricky pieces before we got started and used them for a different activity later. We did the Ocean labeling, Schema and Devotion to the Ocean. There's still so much more here for another go-round!

Science
Does and Egg float in water or saltwater? We tested the eggs and completed a little booklet. The egg does indeed float in saltwater. Turbo thought that was very cool. Then we poured out half of the salt water and added the fresh water. Can you guess what happened? It floated in the middle - under the fresh water and on top of the salt water.

Blubber Test
After our ocean visit where the water was quite cold, we read about whales. Naturally the question "How do they stay in that freezing water so long" came up. So we did an unplanned experiment to explain. Take one bowl of icy water, 2 ziplock bags and 1 container of Crisco and you've got your very own blubber experiment. They first put their hand in the icy water until it was reeaaalllly cold - about 45 seconds for Turbo. Then we put the Crisco in a ziplock to simulate the blubber. We didn't want greasy fingers so we covered our hand with a second ziplock. Then into the blubber and into the icy water. "WOW!! Where's the cold" was the response. You couldn't feel the cold at all for at least several minutes! Very fun experiment.

Circle Time Activities

Rhymes ~ She Sells Seashells; A sailor went to sea;
Reviewed the Oceans on the globe
Sang Oceans songs - My Bonnie, I'm a little fishy, Take me out the Ocean, and the very favorite "Did you ever see a fishy". We ran around to the songs, but this one kept us running the most.
Videos from Monterey Bay Aquarium

Pretend Play
Pretend to sell seashells

Nature Table
Shells and Magnifying Glass was a huge hit.

Books ~ Oh my! We read tons of books these two weeks. I began reading to them during dinner and they LOVE it. It also helps dinner time go smoother ~ less goofing, chattering and such. More eating, listening and talking. (yes, there's a huge difference between chattering and talking!) All the titles are downstairs right now so I'll do another post.

Resources ~ It get time consuming to post links on each item when there's so much overlap. I will absolutely do that when I have time. Since I won't post without the link-backs, I wanted to at least get them in the easiest way.
Balanced Literacy Unit - Commotion on the Ocean - Great resource with TONS of stuff. We did several things and will go back for more next go-round.
Monterey Bay Aquarium Teachers Place - The Sea Searchers Handbook and online videos were a key part of our theme learning.
Learningpage.com, Kidsparkz.com ~ We used theme printables from these sites. (If you're looking, I didn't post about them.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here's our Weekly Wrap Up post and Stay tuned for another post with our Books, Art, Games and Outings!! (Updated: links to related posts)

Linking to: Preschool Corner

Preschool Week 1 & 2 ~ Wrap Up!

2011-09-04T01:25:00.000-07:00

We had such a great start to our Preschool!! It was better than I expected. Turbo was thrilled about most of the activities and thinks school is super fun. Here's a few things we did.

Character: Orderly
We learned the song and verse from HubbardsCupboard.org. We created some new Order within our playroom and we looked for opportunities to compliment each other being orderly. This has made an impact in our relationships. He's really looking for nice things to say to me and his sister. I LIKE THAT!

Handwriting:
We worked on l, t, i, j & v these two weeks. I'm using the Kumon Lowercase letters workbook with various warmup and practice to start.

Reading:We're using Hooked On Phonics as I found an excellent deal on an older version. While Turbo placed in the First Grade book, I decided to start him in Kindergarten. I thought the transition to structured phonic learning was enough for him to tackle. Good decision. He saw the words, thought it was easy and started rushing the reading. He made mistakes on words he knows very well. By day 3 it was vastly improved. Stickers are such a motivator.
He also chose his Tag Reader, Bob Books and various Early Readers for additional practice.

Math
We started RightStart Math Book A. It was a toss up because he placed in Book B and the staff at Rightstart encouraged it. Still, I decided to order both A & B as I'm sure LilSweetie will start in A. Upon looking through both books, I chose A for Turbo. It goes a little slower and that's our pace for this year. He likes it and thinks it's fun. Here's a picture of the items for one lesson. No pencil in that box!! Just fun manipulatives. Turbo loves that part of the program.

Theme: Oceans!
Turbo loves themes and so do I. We incorporate our theme into circle time, books, hand-on learning activities, videos to watch and so forth. There's a ton of activities here - I'll do another post.

Outing: Beach
Somehow we hadn't made it this summer. While we went last year, the kids didn't remember that. So it was like seeing it for the first time again. Oh how I love these early ages!! The joy as they played in the sand and splashed the water. Turbo was so surprised it was COLD! We played with driftwood, found crabs (alive and dead), built sandcastles and chased seagulls. We saw a pelican dive for fish to the surprise of LilSweetie. It was a special day. The thing missing was Daddy. I'm sad he didn't get to join us due to a work situation. We might make another trip next week together.

Power of language

2011-08-12T11:08:00.000-07:00

Last month, we're in the car. Music on, Mommy and LilSweetie singing.
Turbo: Mommy, I know what this is called a collar (pointing to the collar on his shirt)
M: Why?
T: Because it sits on your collar bone.

HA! At least one of us was having deep thoughts. Not sure how he knew that was the collar bone though.

Today our interchange goes like this...
Me: "Turbo" (only I used his real name), go get dressed please.
T: No thank you
M: Honey, it's time to get dressed
T: (in such a nice, sweet voice) Mommy, I said no. You say no sometimes and I listen to you. When I say no, you should listen to me.

As much as I tried to suppress, a laugh escaped as it was so funny and unexpected. I reminded him I was the Mommy and with a big hug and a tushie pat, sent him to get dressed.

Oh the joy seeing him connect and use language for understanding and... persuasion.

Happy Day

2011-06-17T08:19:00.000-07:00

Today is my birthday (I'm 35) and for my 22 month old, should be like every other day.

As usual, this morning Turbo and I go to Little Sweetie when she wakes. She greets us with her sweet, little "Hiiiiii" and huge smile, just like everyday. As I reach her crib, she says "Happy Day" to me. This is her "Happy Birthday". Let me tell you, my heart just melted. Happy Day indeed!!

Book Storage

2011-06-16T23:15:00.000-07:00

Books, I love books. The ones on our shelves are full of amazing ideas, information and stories. When our family grew, our personal space shrunk. At a time when we had less room for bookshelves, we had all new genres of books we were adding (parenting, child education and ALL the kids books). We purged our shelves donating many wonderful books and storing the ones which we couldn't part. I'm reaching another critical mass with books and am not willing to do another major purge - so what to do?

Two things -
#1 ~ We found some additional room for a bookshelf!
#2 ~ This is the brilliant one for me ~ USE BASKETS. This allows me to categorize the kids books and store them front to back on the shelf - expanding the number of books that will fit ~ by a lot! YEA!

I just had to post because it was brilliant and if I put it here, I won't forget the idea or where it came from. If you want to see pictures - check out Three Plus Two blog just be prepared, she has A LOT of books.

Summer & Preschool Plans

2011-05-25T23:47:00.000-07:00

I'm so excited that Summer is just around the corner - despite the chilly weather we're having!

This summer is shaping up to be a full one! The exciting part is our Holiday to visit all our East Coast family. This is the highlight of our summer and we are looking forward to it more than I can say. The kids know Rick's parents well and are super excited to see them, visit their house and see their cousins. We're expecting another niece or nephew to join the family soon!! So we'll get to meet the baby on this trip too. After we get back, we'll have a little down time, Vacation Bible School, then a little Camp through our community. Blink ~ The summer is over and School starts. They say that the years go by faster once your kids get in school.....Seriously, I can't even imagine, but it will happen this year!

Turbo turns 4 this year and it is very customary in our area to send them to preschool. We picked a great one where Turbo would go 3x per week for 2.5hrs per day. We enrolled, paid a deposit and on some frustrating days, I found myself counting the days until he'd go! However, once it came time to turn in all the final paperwork, Rick and I decided it wasn't the best strategy for Turbo or our family.

So we're not sending him to traditional Preschool, but will do it together instead. While it was a difficult decision at first, I'm THRILLED about it now. I'm looking forward to our continued freedom to go and do as we'd like instead of being tied down to the school year when the kids are so little. With the kids at 4 & 2, we'll be able to spend much time on adventures and exploring.

So I'm in the process of planning away. While we won't be heavy on the academics, I want to provide him with material that keeps him a bit challenged and interested. We'll be doing lapbooks, TONS of outings, art projects, and lots of other learning through fun stuff.

So that's it for now. No pictures again ~ I know. It's the biggest challenge in why I haven't been blogging. So many have suggested Windows Live Writer that I will look at it over the summer and see if that makes it easier to blog. I really want to blog weekly once we start school. It was awesome to look back over these past 18 months and relive such fun moments.

Ok, I found a couple to post! Here are soem from our Dirt Park riding adventures earlier this month. You can be sure we'll be doing this often. The kids had a blast. Turbo was amazing on the big hills. Sweetie just wanted to be on his bike with Daddy pushing her. Cute!

San Francisco MOMA

2011-04-04T00:54:00.000-07:00

Taking a 3 year old to MOMA wasn't high on my to do list. However, we've been doing a group art class with 5 other kids and it was so fun. What better way to supplement our activities then by going to see some of the real things! Plus I'd be going as a group, so that would work. Then to find out Rick had to be out of town and Little Sweetie would join us.

The idea of bringing a 1.5 year old (who wants to walk everywhere, touch everything and climb constantly) to MOMA, while also trying to interact with my 3 year old (and keep him from touching) was just below getting a tooth pulled without pain meds. HA! Still I put on a positive outlook and hoped we'd last an hour! I set my expectations really low and decided to go for it!

The day was a huge success! Turbo really enjoyed the museum. They have a small kids area and on scheduled days have Art related crafts for them. Today we made Zeotropes.

The kids were able to make Mondrian inspired art on the computer. He was the first artist we studied 7 weeks ago and the kids all still remembered his name and his art!

Little Sweetie played with the blocks, climbed on the chairs and read the books

We went on the Family Tour. It was a tough time for Little Sweetie since she wanted to be walking. There is art and platforms everywhere and just too tempting for little fingers. So Little Sweetie was mostly held. The Docent was terrific! She just took Turbo up with her and went about the tour. I was so proud of him that he really listened to the directions and didn't touch the art at all.
The tour was on the museum sculpture.
Turbo enjoyed creating his own puzzle piece sculpture.


INSPIRATION

Finished Sculpture!

Lots of outdoor sculptures (Although I didn't get many pictures due to a squirmy girl!)

After the tour we walked around a bit more. Turbo was intrigued why chairs, equipment and such were art. We talked about grouping with an artful eye and artistic display of common items and how those can both create art.

Then we went to the cafe for a snack. Doesn't this Mondrian cake look amazing! Even the kids were impressed!

We were there for OVER THREE (3) HOURS! Can you believe it! We were on our way to the elevators and Turbo declares he would like to see even more. Nothing a promise of a Pocky Stick in the car couldn't change. Here's all of us at the end of our long and wonderful day.

COUSINS!

2011-04-04T00:51:00.000-07:00

We were able to connect with a visiting cousin on our way to SF MOMA today. She had her wonderful beau, Doug, with her (we all liked him very much!)

We played in the Yerba Gardens and chatted while the kids ate lunch. They were their usual selves! Turbo was cautious on the equipment and full speed running around the grassy area. Anne-Michelle was such a good sport playing airplane and any other game Turbo thought up! He was also showing his 3 year old funny side.

Little Sweetie was fearless as usual - going down the super fast slide with excitement and determination to do it again and again. I went with her each time because it was that fast! But when she got to the top while I was still chatting with Anne-Michelle, I just planned on catching her at the bottom (it was very, very fast slide). Doug, bounded to the top of the slide and went down with her - such a hero!

She then lead him to the top of the higher than high slide. On the way up, a precocious 7 year old girl asked Doug "How old is your child?" He says "1", the girl informs him that "You must be at least 5 to be on this equipment" Trying not to laugh, he continues to the top with Little Sweetie.
Now, I don't normally get nervous at slides, even high ones. However, this was the highest slide I'd ever seen at a playground and while it was a full tube I was still very nervous about Lil' Sweetie going down. Thankfully she realized herself it was too high and led Doug back down. Guess the 7 year old was on to something (HA!)

It was a wonderful visit with two amazing people. Anne-Michelle captured Turbo's heart as he asked me several times when we'd see them again.

We love you guys!!

Art Class - Georgia O'Keeffe

2011-03-14T20:45:00.000-07:00

Art Class Week 3 was Georgia O'Keeffe. While she is most famous for her flowers, the Mommy teacher this week taught us she really a Nature Painter. She painted all sorts of images from nature and would take something small, like a pebble, and use that one image as the entire focal point for her art - making the pebble fill the canvas and become larger than life.

Black Rock and Blue sky

From the Lake I

The teacher had the kids do two projects - both creating something from nature.

Project 1 - Oil Pastels - Free draw something from nature - Turbo titled his piece "Multi-Colored". He said that nature had many colors and so he drew "Multi-Colored"

Project 2 - Watercolors - Free paint something from nature. I think Turbo was just painting at random for this art, because when asked he said he didn't know. Being the (bad!) helpful mom, I suggested it look like a Lake (I try to NEVER do this! ugh!). Of course he said "Yes, that's it, it's a black, purple and greenish Lake"

We're also going to do a few other O'Keeffe art projects since I have really grown to like her work - specifically the flower paintings.

Art Class - Paul Klee

2011-03-11T08:09:00.000-08:00

For our Second Weekly Art class, Turbo and I were both very sick, so I was unable to teach my lesson plan BOO! Thankfully the coordinator, Rachel, filled in and both hosted and taught my plan (THANKS!). Turbo and I still worked in the art activities into our day. It was a nice break from sleeping and watching movies!

I created a laminated page of Klee art for the kids to reference during and after class. We talked about how Paul Klee paints in a simple, child-like way with Bright Colors, Geometric Shapes, Faces, Animals and sometimes funny aspects to his work. Turbo looked at the art and told me what he saw, what he liked and what he found funny. He liked the faces, especially the cat face. He saw lots of colors and animals. He thought it was funny the cat face had a bird in it and that the bird picture had one upside-down. I loved that he really looked at the art and evaluated it. I also noticed he paid little attention to the art work without faces, animals and such.

Project 1 - Crayon Relief - Color with brightly colored crayons then wash over the drawing with black watercolors.

Project 2 - Stencil Shapes - I printed a page with various shapes, laminated it and cut them out with an exact-o knife. We had both Positive Image and Negative Image stencils. This was Turbo's first time with stencils of any kind. Using a scrap paper, I used a square stencil to demonstrate the technique for Turbo. Then I placed the square on his paper for him to try. That was the extent of my 'help'. After doing the square, he noticed the triangle and immediately thought of houses and decided to make this art! He did the entire project on his own - 3 houses with chimneys and smoke and 1 sun. I will be framing this for sure!

Project 3 - Texture - Paul Klee painted with various mediums and would often add texture aspects to his work. We mixed 2 parts basic shaving cream to 1 part white glue and added some paint for color. Turbo gooped it onto his paper, spread it around, mixed the colors and used forks, sticks and other items to add texture to his art. It dries puffy, so the final piece has some texture also. Very cool!

Art Class - Piet Mondrian

2011-03-07T22:54:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago we started an art class. I'm so grateful to the Mom with the idea and who coordinated schedules to get 6 kids (4 Moms) together once a week. Our group is 3 & 4 year olds, so we decided to focus on a different artist each week. We start with a circle time (song, discussion of the art/artist, and activity or story), then the kids do 3 projects in the style of that artist. Each Mom will teach twice and we'll do a field trip at the end.

We've been having a terrific time! I know little about famous artists, I'm not very 'artsy' and it had been awhile since we'd done art - much less done it regularly. Our class has really been an inspiration for both of us. Turbo has been asking to do some kind of art every day since the start of class. It's awesome to hear him create something and say - this is like Paul Klee, Mondrian or O'Keeffe. I've been learning about various artist and expanding the tools and mediums we use to create art!

Easy, Fun and Inspirational. Here's a sample of Piet Mondrian's art.

Project 1: Glue bright colored geometric shapes and black lines onto paper

Project 2: Chalk on Black Cardstock - the kids put masking tape in various locations on black cardstock. Then colored with Chalk. Removing the tape, left uncolored black space between the colored areas.

Project 3: Paint on White Paper - similar to above, the kids placed masking tape in random locations on Paint Paper. Then painted with various colors. Removing the tape left crisp white lines between the painted areas.

Where are we?

2011-01-18T20:14:00.000-08:00

HELLO! You might thing I've forgotten about my little blog, or maybe that I'm just sitting my kids in front of the tv all day and have nothing to blog about (my friends are laughing at that!). Thankfully neither of these are true. I haven't been blogging for a bigger reason and one that I'm disappointed to confess. I have no pictures. Sad huh. Really, what's a blog without some pictures - just a bunch of words that jumble together and aren't nearly as interesting. So sadly, I haven't been blogging. Don't even get me started on the guilt that my dear daughter has a paultry amount of pictures of herself compared to my son.

Today is no different, I still have no pictures. I'm here because I missed loging our fun and we've had such a terrific time through the holidays and so far this year. It would be boring to detail it all in a single post, so I'll just summarize. (forgive me my friends and famiy if I forgot something major! Just remind me please!)

October ~ We continued to learn about trees and spent a HUGE amount of time at our local pumpkin patches. Our city has THREE terrific patches that have many things to do. If you recall, Turbo was completely dis-interested in our Tree Nature walk and I wondered if we'd continue with trees. We did and it turns out that he still, to this day, will tell me that Trees need water, nutrients and sunlight to grow. Sometimes that boy leaves me scratching my head.

November ~ We learned about Thankfulness, pilgrams and turkeys. The highlight for Turbo was making this paperbag turkey with Little Sweetie and our friends. It was really cute and he still talks about it. It was Lil' Sweetie's first glue project. We'll wait awhile for the next one. We spent Thanksgiving with our dear friends as we've done for 10 years! Only missing ones when we were visiting back East.

December ~ We learned about the meaning of Christmas and did tons of Christmas'y' crafts. We read lots of books and spent lots of time with friends. Christmas Day was spectacular! The joy, amazement and wonder in my children's eyes were my greatest gift. We also went down to SoCal to visit with family the week after Christmas. It was wonderful to see the kids with their Uncles, Great-grandparents and Grandma. We ended the year celebrating at our friend's house for a party and sleep over. The kids stayed up until 11:00pm when they started asking to go to bed!

January ~ We're learning about Insects and also the Character Trait of being Orderly. We're having fun with this theme and will soon drive down to Pacific Grove to see the Monarchs migrating. Oh what a lovely site that will be! We just spent another week in SoCal visiting my Mom and Grandparents again. We went to the Living Desert Zoo, The Largest Dinosaur exhibit and lots of time visiting. My Grandparents live in Indiana, so it was an opportunity to spend more time with them before they went home. We also spent two days visiting a long-time friend and her family who are all so dear to my heart.

I'm leaving out and forgetting tons, but that's the gist of it. My camera will be found and charged over the weekend so I start taking pictures again! Hopefully you'll see some color on my blog soon!

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-24T23:10:00.000-08:00

MERRY CHRISTMAS!! I can't believe it's finally here. It's been greatly anticipated in our house - mostly by Rick and me. Of course Turbo has been super excited about Jesus' birthday, Santa, all the lights, activities, parties and yummy food that's been surrounding us these past 3 weeks! He really 'gets' it more than ever - although he won't fully understand until the morning! We can't wait to see his face, feel his excitement and hear all the funny things he's bound to say. Our Little Sweetie isn't sure what's going on, but she's been having fun along with us. She enjoys the lights and especially loves to whack at the tree ornaments. (It reminds me of what our cats used to do!). Should be fun to see how much she enjoys ripping the wrapping paper open on her gifts!

I hope you have a safe, warm and happy Christmas!

Trees ~ Week 1

2010-10-01T20:45:00.000-07:00

I'm thrilled our first two weeks learning about Apples were successful. We did most of my planned activities and had a great time. Now we're on to our Tree Theme! I found several great ideas from The Adventures of Bear and her tree unit as well as PreKinders Forest unit.

Here are some of our learning objectives. Given Turbo's lack of interest, we might not get in depth on these.

There are different kinds of trees
Trees grow things
Trees have roots, trunk, bark, branches and leaves
Trees are plants
Trees need water, nutrients and sunlight to grow
Trees provide food, shelter, wood, paper and oxygen
Trees have different types of leaves
Leaves make the food for trees

Field Trip
We kicked off this week with a field trip to our local preserve for a nature walk. Turbo was to take pictures of nature, parts of the tree and anything else that interested him. I thought this would really get him excited about our nature walk. Nope. He wasn't interested in the nature, the activities or the topic. He just wanted to ride in the stroller next to Little Sweetie. Our only highlight was throwing sticks off the bridge into the rushing stream. Let's just say that I've scratched the Redwoods field trip off the schedule for next week! Still, ~~I forced him to have fun and take some pictures,~~ he happily took some pictures of tree parts.

We watched this great slideshow about trees. It covered all of the learning objectives and Turbo payed careful attention and asked for it most days. I wish I could find something like this for all our units as it was cute, concise and accurate.

After collecting leaves (mostly by me) from our neighborhood to supplement our sad, tiny collection from the aforementioned nature walk, we did some leaf activities. We haven't been doing many arts/crafts, so this was makeup day!

Inspecting and Comparing - we taped leaves to paper and used a magnifing glass to look at their veins and compare the differences.

Leaf Rubbings - with both crayons and chalk

Tree Bark Rubbings - Turbo had the idea "Let's do this on a tree!" so we set off to rub on all trees in our yard.

Paper Plate Wreath

Leaf Collage - Turbo surprised me with this present he made while I was getting the paint for his leaf painting. Awwww. Seriously sweet little boy.

Painting with leaves - it was so funny, he really wasn't sure how to paint with these. Although he enjoyed it! Not really a tree learning activity, but a fun way to paint!

Then we played "Does it grow on/live in a tree?" game. I had him yell Yes or No as loud as he could if it grew on a tree or if it lived in a tree. We didn't have enough dry leaves to crunch one for each answer, so we yelled instead.

We read Fall Leaves Fall by Zoe Hall. We also read this last year and likely will every year! Such a lovely book. At the end we got out the silk leaves and pretended to be the wind and trees.

Kumon Books ~ We continue to work our way through the Kumon books. We're starting off very easy and once I start RRSP, then we'll move onto the Capital Letters book.

Weekly Game - This week we're doing puzzles. He does fairly well, but they don't hold his interest long. After putting it together once, he doesn't want to repeat the same one again.

Pretend Play ~ He asked me to play grocery store this week. He wanted to play with a 'credit card' and really needed the phone since the clerks have them too.

That's it for this week. I'm not sure what we're going to do next week. He's not that into trees. Maybe I can find some fun science experiments. If you have any, let me know!

I'm linking up to Preschool Corner over at Homeschool Creations

Tot School ~ Little Sweetie ~ 13 months

2010-09-25T21:05:00.000-07:00

Tot School

Little Sweetie is 13 months

While we do a lot, again, I don't have many pictures. I need to get my little camera and sit it next to me while I work with Little Sweetie. I've been using Rick's SLR camera and while it's wonderful, it's big and a complete baby magnet!

Here are the hightlighted things I had out for her this week

- Ball and basket ~ HUGE Hit. She really loves ball and is getting good at throwing!

- Laugh and Learn Piggy Bank - This is still one of her favorite toys. She can do all of it herself and plays with it often.

- Bowl, spoon and cup - She's getting good at feeding herself at meal time and enjoyed the pretend practice.

- Blue Bristle Blocks - Wasn't interested in playing with the few in the basket. She likes the big tub.

- Stacking Cups - She loves to play these with Turbo and by herself. She understands the nesting and tries to stack them.

- Baby Touch & feel books - this girl loves her books and will happily sit there while I read book after book.

We played ball a lot this week. Rolling, dunking, and a little bit of keep-a-way by Turbo.

Hanging out with Brother working on food matching. This climbing business is new to me as she is really very daring!

Family Calendar Time. Little Sweetie really has the cruising down and goes after what she wants!

She is so excited when Turbo builds something for her to knock down.

This girl is into her ACCESSORIES! She especially loves to use Turbo's (clean) underware as a bracelet.

Or a Hat.

Big smiles for her brother

Going after the chalk

Working together

Working on a drawing

Other Posts This week
~ See what Turbo did doing during Preschool Time
~ Check out our Calendar Time for this year

Head over to 1+1+1=1 to see what others are doing with their Tots!

Learning about Apples ~ week 2

2010-09-24T18:12:00.000-07:00

In the spirit of my approach for this year, we're taking our time with each theme, repeating activities throughout the week when we find ourselves ahead of schedule. It's actually working out great right now. Last week was Apples Week 1 We had a great time and are both excited about more preschool days.

After breakfast each day, we do our Calendar Time.

We did a lot of apple learning outside this week.

Apple Toss & Catch: First we played catch with the apples. He's great at throwing and has good aim. He's improving on his catching skills. Since I was playing, no pictures.

Ready, Aim, Fire ~ He tried to roll the apples into the circles. Very challenging!

Apple Races ~ We raced our apples down the driveway. We learned which ones roll the fastest (more small and round, the faster) and why some wobbled all around (very knobby/less round)

Feed Me ~ The bucket is hungry and we needed to fill it up with as many apples, while tossing from ~~behind~~ on a line.

Apple Fractions Puzzle: We grabbed a bucket, our apples, some sidewalk chalk and a knife. I showed him 1 whole apple, cut into half and apple, then into fourth and finally into eighth. Then gave him the pieces and he got to reassemble the apple into a whole again. He liked this.

Apple Fractions Hopscotch
He played hopscotch while dropping the apple pieces in the correct 1/8, 1/4, 1/2 section.

He got to stomp on the final apple ~ loved that!

Hide & Seek - Hot and Cold Game: I hid an apple in the Family Room. Turbo would try to find it and I would say " colder, warmer, or hot" depending on how close he was to the apple. He LOVED this game. It took a couple times for him to really get it and process it all and now he asks for it most days.

Board Game ~ Hi-Ho-Cherry-O ~ Closest thing to the theme I have. It is a big success. Something he can play easily and enjoys. One afternoon he took it into his room and played it by himself. Did I mention Lil Sweetie was napping? Oh yea, 20 minutes by myself! You bet I love this game.

Patterning: He laced red, green and yellow apples (faceted beads) onto a pipecleaner. It made a bracelet and he wore it for a nanosecond.

Counting ~ I used Confessions of a Homeschoolers Apple Counting sheets for Turbo to count the seeds from our apples. I only asked for two sheets - low numbers and higher numbers, just to see if he has the concept and to work on simple addition. We took the seeds from 6 and slid them down to 7 to realize we needed to add one more. I still think Math is a boarderline concept for him right now and need to think of more fun, hands on math activities.

Pre-Writing ~ Costco FINALLY has the Kumon books back! I seriously looked most weeks for months and months. Of course I bought all the ages 2-6 books We're starting with My First Book of Tracing. I want to assess Turbo and see if I can get him to slow down a bit and really focus on his pencil holding and writing form before moving on....we'll see.

Tons more Playdough/Pie making play ~ he continues to ask for this every day.

His imagination is in overdrive these days. Which says a lot for an already imaginative boy. He was doing a lot of cooking on his own. He would say the funniest things to himself ~ "just gonna pop this in the oven for a few minutes"

Cutting and Gluing ~ Confessions of a Homeschooler's cutting practice and cut/glue Apples onto a tree activity.

Books ~ We continue to read "Apple Pie Tree" by Zoe Hall. We talk about the seasons, lifecycle of the trees and apples.

Well, that's the bulk of our Week 2 activities.

I'm linking up to Preschool Corner over at Homeschool Creations

Calendar Time

2010-09-23T23:17:00.000-07:00

Here's our calendar routine for this preschool year. While we have a large home, we have very limited wall space. So it had to be compact and easy to put away.

It's simple and has the key pieces. Most importantly it is quick!

The background is a white foam board. The colored pocket holders came in a pack of 10 from the dollar store. The small one is just a larger one trimmed.

Calendar
The calendar frame is printed on 11x17 paper. I created it in MS Word.
The month and number pieces are from Childcareland in their free printables section.
We attach the numbers with tape. At the beginning of the next month, I'll put up another calendar frame.

First thing we do is Pledge of Allegiance. Yep, we say it every time. Turbo has learned to be still and respectful during the pledge - as I take this very seriously. The great printable came from Homeschool Creations.

Everything else below are printables from Carisa at 1+1+1=1. I printed them out, laminated, cut and attached velcro dots where needed.
Weather - Turbo LOVES this part. He runs over to the door to check if there are clouds and picks the right card and puts it on the velcro dot. (see main board picture). Then we sing the song.

The Date - This is when we put the new calendar number on the calendar. Then we sing all the songs that follow.

Months of the Year -

Days of the Week

Every Week

That's it! Short, sweet and space saving!

Tiny Talk Tuesday

2010-09-21T22:34:00.000-07:00

We just studied apples and now we're studying trees. (note, I'm posting a week behind in my preschool posts) In effort to take our learning outside, we went for a nature walk at one of our city's reserves. This isn't my thing, so the main reason we went is because I believe my kids need the experience of nature. Often to my chagrin.

On our walk, Turbo sees some large green rocks stacked and decides to climb them. Already I'm wondering what creature/bug/spider is hiding in there. I start asking him to get down and see he's not looking and is about to put his hand in some god-only-knows what kind of animal poo.
Little. oblong. poos!!!! maybe rat, squirrel.....EWWWWWW.

No calm Mommy here. I'm squealing: "Ewwww, Stop, Don't touch anything. " Turbo is looking worried about what went wrong. I show him that it's animal poo. After a few moments, he says "You know Mommy, it looks like seeds... Apple Seeds, yep, that's what it looks like".

Honestly, I was so busy washing his hands and emptying my bottle of purell on them, that it didn't register until later. Then we both got a great laugh.

Head over to Tiny Talk Tuesday for more great laughs!

Tot School ~ Little Sweetie!

2010-09-19T22:32:00.000-07:00

Tot School

Little Sweetie ~ 13 months

I think this might be my first real Tot School post for Lil' Sweetie. I'm not structured in my approach with her. We're just playing together and having fun. Alas, since we're playing together, I'm not taking many pictures.

I'll start with her 'trays'. They're not really trays, just pieces of felt that designate an area for the highlighted weekly toys. We have little cars and a paper tube; Leapfrog Magnet letters; a chunky puzzle; pompoms and a tall container; spoon and bowl; nesting/stacking cups.

The things on the bottom shelf were a smash hit! The things on the top were mostly unloved. The puzzle got some playtime, but not much. I rotated their placement throughout the week, but it didn't help much.
These are all the pictures I took of her tray play. Be assured we played with those stacking cups more times than I can count!

The thing she wants the most is Turbo's car. Just to make it interesting around here, Turbo is ultra-possessive of this car. Can you hear the crying from our house every day? It's worth it to see her very excited face while playing with it. (we're working on the sharing thing, I hear it can take awhile HA! any tips?)

She played with Playdough for the first time (*blush* didn't even think to give it to her earlier) You can see she really loved it. It is the perfect thing to occupy them both while I'm making dinner.

We also did a lot of outside playing. We're outside everyday ~ in our yard and often to a park.

Playing toss with brother. She LOVES to play ball.

Intently listening to the directions on how to play toss & catch.

Yep, I know it's not Christmas, but I found this in a box of old things I had for Turbo and had to squish her in it while I still could. Her legs are bent and the back couldn't zipper all the way - but doesn't she look cute? The photo op went quickly down hill.

Playing with the very old camera. She was able to get the strap on and off as well as crawl with it around her neck. (closely supervised). She really likes to do the things she sees her brother doing! Although it would be nice if she would emulate the walking sometime soon!

Tot School playing really helps ensure I get that focused time with Lil'Sweetie every day ~ Just for her and totally at her level. I love the joy of just playing with her!!

Head over to 1+1+1=1 to see what others are doing with their Tots!

Learning about Apples ~ week 1

2010-09-17T00:11:00.000-07:00

Turbo likes to be intrigued. He is very curious and if I can excite that part of him…then we’re sure to have some fun. Part of that is, anticipation. I had this Five Senses chart out when he woke up. He immediately wanted to know what it was, what it said and what we were doing with it. I casually said it was for our preschool and he’d find out after Breakfast. That piqued his curiosity!

Then it was time to get started! We started with calendar time, post on that coming soon. Then I grabbed a closed brown paper bag, hiding an apple (another point of anticipation), and went to the 5 senses chart.

We reviewed the 5 senses and then Turbo got to stick his hand in the bag and guess what was in there. I was a little surprised that he easily guessed apple! We first went through the 5 senses with the apple whole (reminding him not to bite it yet about 10 times). When we got to Taste, he said "Mommy, I have to bite it now" with a huge smile. We went through all 5 senses twice, once before tasting (responses above the line) and once after (responses below). This was a very interesting exercise. I learned about him and was really proud of his thoughfulness.

General Learning ~ Apple Types; Similarities / Differences & Parts
As he was eating his prize, we did some General Apple education. He examined several types: Fuji, Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, Granny Smith and Braeburn. We talked about the similarities - apples, have the same parts, grow from seeds, grow on trees, etc. Then the differences of outside appearance and inside taste. Finally, we cut open and examined the insides and learned all the parts. It was reinforced throughout the week with a little felt apple puzzle.

Grouping:
He grouped apples by type, color and size. This was really easy for him. Next time we'll do graphing along with it.

Taste Test ~ Of course we had to taste and compare all these different apples. I didn't get a picture for some reason. Maybe because we both LOVED this part of the day. My favorite continues to be the Granny Smith and Braeburn. Turbos were "all of them".

Sequencing ~ Sequenced the eating of an apple. Very, very difficult for Turbo. We did it together and he was happy it was over. We should have used real apples and taken bites out of each of them. It would have given it more meaning ~ but I didn't think of it until just now. ~~Sadly, I can't remember right now where I got the sequencing cards. I will update my post when I find it.~~ Found the cards at Kidssoup.com

Art/Crafts
He colored in the "I like Apples" booklet. After we're done with apples, I'll make a little lapbook for us to review and remember this fun theme.

Apple Prints

Playdough
A wonderful blogger over at Counting Coconuts has some great Playdough ideas! She also did Fall this month and did Cinnamon Playdough with little apples and let her little one make apple pies. It was a HUGE hit over here.

Books:
We read Apple Pie Tree by Zoe Hall ~ love her books & 10 Red Apples by Pat Hutchins We did this pocket chart activity for 10 Red Apples. We start with 10 apples on the tree. When we got to 7, Turbo announced he was almost done. When we got to 5, he looked at me and said - "I get it. Can I be done now?" Uh, ok. We won't be doing these types of counting activities again. Cute activity ~ just not a good fit.

Spoon Transferring Apples

That's the bulk of what we did on this short week. Stay Tuned for week 2!

I'm linking up to Preschool Corner. Check it out for more great Preschool Ideas!

My Approach for 3 year old Preschool

2010-09-13T08:09:00.000-07:00

Last year was my first year doing this sort of thing. I have to admit, it does not come easy to me. Despite that I used others pre-created things and ideas, it took me A LONG TIME to pull it all together. I was over-thinking what we should be doing; Learning myself about how/what to prepare and teach; etc. There are so many great ideas, things to learn, activities to do.... It was a bit overwhelming in that I wanted to do and teach it all.

This year, I'm doing things differently. I've assessed my goals. Turbo turned 3 at the end of June. This very well maybe my last year with him full time. Next year, he'll likely go to a local Preschool, then it's off to Kindergarten and then....well, the time just flies. *sniff* I get a little sad just thinking of it.

So my goals for this year are very simple, but keep me grounded in my planning.

1. Have Fun!
2. Explore
3. Learn New Things
4. Play Outside *note: we play outside everyday, but I'm talking about taking the learning outside and playing in different ways and places then we would normally.

That's it. No goals for him to write his name, count to 100 or anything like that. I'll work that into our learning of course and he likely will do that, but really it's not my main focus.

Main Elements of our Preschool
We're doing Themes and I'm super EXCITED about it! There are so many things Turbo is interested in doing and learning. This is a great way to explore these areas in more depth.

- Activites - Our Preschool time will be interactive with a lot of hands-on type activities. We'll touch it, take it apart, put it together, make it, break it etc. He's that kind of a boy!

- Outings - We will do outings related to the theme we're doing. (This is my favorite part!)

The Second key element are what I call the Weekly Extras - These are the tray type activities that we'll work in when we have time or he needs something to do and I'm otherwise busy. I'm planning 6 trays per week - they'll be letter of the week worksheets, Playdough, word games, puzzels etc.

Lastly, we'll play a different game for several days each week. These could be board games, card games and such.

There are other things I want to incorporate - like country studies, Raising Rock Stars Preschool, Artist studies and more. If I have time, we'll work them in. If not, then no worries, I have the basics planned!

There you have it! My approach for the year. I'm planning less things (although it still takes me a long time) and allowing more time to complete them. What if we get it all done early? Then we'll do them again! Preschoolers love repetition!