School: Week Five

Week five was rough.  We were only in the school room one day last week thanks to major foundation work on our house.  We spent lots of time practicing folding laundry, watching National Geographic on the iPad, and doing anything we could to drown out the sounds of jackhammers tearing through the floor downstairs.  I was too busy holding onto my sanity to take many pictures.

Every day starts like this.

New lacing work.

Texture dominos!  She really loves these.

She is working hard on lowercase letters.  It is challenging for her to go through the steps of tracing the letter with her fingers, then convincing her hand to write the letter, as opposed to just drawing the shape she sees.  I really enjoy observing this work.  It's a very real mental and physical challenge for her.

One of her confidence boosting works, counting.

They love working together.

My husband was away on business all week, so the girls and I were stuck at home "supervising", but we had no access to the playroom, schoolroom, or any part of the yard.  There were six foot deep holes on every side of the house, in the playroom and kitchen (at the base of the stairs that lead to the schoolroom), and they pulled up the back deck and destroyed the yard.  We are left with a level house, but no deck, no yard, and no floor in the playroom.  Thankfully, the girls don't seem to be nearly as traumatized as I am.

Until I can get it all down myself...

I've been mentally writing and rewriting and then forgetting to write about how and why we do "school" the way we do it.  Eventually that post will appear, but in the meantime, I thought I'd share this post from a kindred spirit in South Africa.  

School: Week four.

Beatrice invited Mr. Owl to calendar time.  She thought it would be polite to offer him a chair since owls like to be up high.

A new puzzle.  Bea was certain that she COULD.NOT.DO.IT.  But she did.  Over and over and over again.

Sharpening pencils.

Patience and persistence.

"This is my forest princess discovery belt."

She spends so much time just like this.

She loves to do this work with wet erase markers, especially the wiping clean part.  Her little hands were green all week.  This activity is from this free Preschool Pack.

Sunflowers.

An "owl tree."

"I wonder what happens if I use a crayon instead of a paintbrush?"

Mastering the cone.  Getting pretty good at it!

This puzzle was a true confidence builder for Bea this week.  She was impressed with herself every time.

Checking books out of our library to take to quiet time.

Leona reading Squirrel Nutkin.

Bea's favorite works of the week.

School: Week Three, THE FOREST!

Our theme for September is "The Forest".  I wish more than anything that I had a video of Bea's reaction walking into the school room that first day.  She gasped and ran from shelf to shelf, shrieking at the sight of each new work.  She teared up and gushed, "You are the best mama ever.  Thank you for school!"

Leaf stamps.

Beatrice teaches Leona to match heads and tails.  This activity is from this Tot Pack.

Leona loves to match the animals with pictures in her books.

Making snack for her sister.

Beatrice explores her book (and everything else) with a magnifying glass.

Leaf matching.  Bea pretends to be a tree that loses all its leaves, then she collects them in matching pairs.  Note the helpful magnifying glass.

Exploring the owl clock.

Examining September with a magnifying glass.

Using the forest plant vocabulary cards with her toadstool set.

The pieces are so tiny, she has to really focus.

Exploring forest animals.

Behold!  The magnificent squirrel!

Working together.  Beatrice matches animal mamas and babies, Leona opens and closes the box the cards are stored in.

Such a wonderful hostess.

Experimenting with tongs.  Proof she watches and learns from everything her sister does!

Counting leaves on each branch and marking the correct number with a clothes pin.  This activity is from Homeschool Creations' Bird preschool pack.

Working with the movable alphabet and beginning sounds.

Sorting animal families, and then letting the owl carry each one back to the basket.  Kinda tragic.

Leona matches the animals in the basket with the animals in the book.  I thought this was pretty genius.

More matching. 

Art for sister.

Art appreciation...right before Leona ate half of it.

Studying van Gogh.