Preschool Week 5

We finished our study of North America this week.

I got caught up on a couple of the activities that I haven't had time for. We did a sticker activity in Adventures Around the Globe and talked about New York City. We learned about Canada. We did a little activity in Adventures Around the Globe where we were supposed to find the differences between two pictures. Rhonda was surprisingly good at it! There was one that neither one of us could find, though--I guess finding differences isn't my strength!

I skipped some of the crafts we were supposed to do, but we did make a Statue of Liberty torch. That was fun for Rhonda because she got to cut the little pieces of paper to go in the top to make "flames." (She likes to cut paper, but she's not very good at cutting particular shapes yet.)

We finished Little House in the Big Woods. I think Rhonda really enjoyed it. I had so much fun sharing one of my childhood favorites with her.

We read a book about Sitting Bull, A Boy Called Slow. I didn't know much about Sitting Bull, so this was an interesting read for me, too.

We finished Thirteen Moons on a Turtle's Back. 

Rhonda finished her North American animal project this week. We looked at pictures of baby deer and she drew a picture of one.

Rhonda had fun using the flag stickers in the Flags Around the World book. It was fun to see some of the different flags of North America.

Here are some of the supplemental books we read this week:

Too Many Tamales
We the Kids
The Golden Flower: A Taino Myth from Puerto Rico
Coyote and the Firestick: A Pacific Northwest Indian Tale
Arrow to Alaska

On another note, Rhonda memorized her part for the Primary program: "Go to church on Sunday." We had a practice during Primary this week and she did such a great job speaking her part loudly, clearly, and without any help. I think she might have been the only kid who had her part memorized (yet--we still have two more weeks before the program). I'm so sad I won't be able to see her in the program this year (we'll be in London), but her grandparents will take her so at least she'll still be able to participate.

Preschool Week 4

This week we did lots of reading about kids who live in the United States in Children Just Like Me. Rhonda really likes reading this book and gets excited to learn about the kids.

We continued reading Little House in the Big Woods. Rhonda's enjoying it so far. Sometimes she'll mention things to me from the book. She wants to be just like Laura. It's really cute.

We've continued to read Thirteen Moons on a Turtle's Back, and Rhonda really likes that book as well. She makes guesses about the stories based on the pictures. (She wasn't too happy to see a picture that didn't have a moon in it.)

We read about bison in the Animal Atlas. I was sad to learn about the history of the bison. There used to be tons of them in North America, until they were very quickly hunted almost to extinction by European settlers, and now there are very few.

We read some fun animal poems. I really like the animal poems in the National Geographic Book of Animal Poetry because they aren't just silly poems (although some of them are); there are plenty that I find very intriguing personally.

Rhonda especially loves to read the nursery rhymes out of Over the Hills and Far Away. I can't recommend this book highly enough to families with little kids! The illustrations are so beautiful and interesting, and I love that it includes rhymes from English speakers all over the world. Rhonda always asks for "just one more nursery rhyme."

We've also continued to read through the Illustrated Book of Mormon Stories. Rhonda used to have a hard time remembering something from the story, but now she always remembers something, plus she will often ask questions about the story while we read it. It's fun to see her engaging with the Book of Mormon stories so well.

Supplemental books we read this week:
Cinco de Mouse-o!
Song of the Swallows
Thunder Boy, Jr. 
G is for Golden Boy: A Manitoba Alphabet
Show Way

This week we started Sierra in dance class! I wasn't planning on putting her in dance this young because I don't think kids her age really need any structured classes, but the last few weeks she's been trying to participate in Rhonda's class. She loves it so much that I couldn't resist putting her in a class of her own! It's a mommy & me class so we get to do it together. She loved her first class. She did a lot of just watching, but she loved playing the instruments. She's remarkably good at following and copying actions.

Speaking of Sierra...she learned to climb out of her crib this week! So, we moved the top bunk out of Rhonda's room and put it in her room so she could have a regular bed. The transition has been smoother than I dared to hope. She loves her new bed! When we go in her room, she often points to it and chatters about it excitedly. She has no trouble going to sleep. She is so cute lying in it--she looks so tiny in such a big bed.

Preschool Week 3

This week we continued our study of North America.

We continued reading Little House in the Big Woods. We had fun talking about Christmas traditions. We also talked about the things we do and don't do on Sundays and compared them to how the Ingalls family kept the Sabbath. (If I were Ma Ingalls, I would go out of my mind trying to keep kids happy with their standards. They couldn't even play with toys--just quietly look at them.) We continued reading about the way the moon changes in Thirteen Moons on a Turtle's Back. According to our curriculum, we're supposed to be keeping track of how the moon looks each night. But Rhonda usually goes to bed before the sky is totally dark, since it's summer. Plus, I just don't think of doing things like that at night, so, oh well. I don't think Rhonda's quite good enough at drawing to accurately draw the moon, anyway.

We talked about the Sonoran desert and found it on our map. We read Over in the Desert, a book about the animals of the Sonoran desert.

We talked about Hawaii this week. We colored a picture of Hawaiian shirts in Adventures Around the Globe (I thought it was sort of a weird way to represent Hawaii, but oh well). It gave us an opportunity to find Hawaii on the map and talk about what Hawaii is like. It was especially fun for me because I got to tell her about my own trip to Hawaii as a kid, and my grandfather's mission in Hawaii.

During our study of each continent, we'll do a cute little animal research project. For her North American animal, Rhonda chose the white-tailed deer. She drew a picture of a deer, and we learned what it eats, where it lives, and what its predators are. I was surprised by how excited Rhonda was about this project. She kept asking to work on it. She was excited to learn that humans are one of the deer's major predators, because she can draw humans!

Rhonda has been really into helping me cook lately. She helps make pancakes some mornings, and has learned how to stir well (without making a mess). She asked to make cookies this week, so I let her do a lot of the work. She's learning to measure ingredients accurately.

This has been a really good week for chores. We've been diligent about doing them every day, and Rhonda has gotten better about doing them. I've been trying to guide her through them more, which helps. She also enjoys it when I time her and she can see how fast she does a chore. I've learned that the best way to help her keep her room clean is to just not keep any toys in there. Of course, toys do migrate into her room, but I think if I go through it every week and move toys to the playroom it'll be a lot easier. She still has plenty of things to entertain her in there during quiet time (books, stuffed animals, her dollhouse, the "doll suitcase," and quiet books). If she really enjoyed having her room messy, I would probably be more lenient about her cleaning it, but she actually hates having a messy room and enjoys playing in her room much more if it's clean.

Here are the supplemental books we've read this week:

Over in the Desert
One Morning in Maine
Over the Hills and Far Away (a couple of nursery rhymes a day)
The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush by Tomie DePaola
The Legend of the Bluebonnet by Tomie De Paola
What Can You Do with a Paleta? 
Gathering the Sun: A Spanish Alphabet
Diego Rivera: His World and Ours
Jingle Dancer
Abuelita's Heart

Preschool Week 2

Week 2 was our introduction to North America. It was really fun to pick out picture books for this unit of the curriculum. It made me realize how truly diverse North America is. To be honest, I don't always think of North America as having the cultural diversity of, say, Europe, or Asia. But there are a lot of very different cultures here, from Native American to Mexican to Caribbean to Eskimo. Plus, there's a lot of diversity in the land, with deserts, islands, forests, ice caps, mountains, and so many others. I only wish we could cover more!

We started reading Little House in the Big Woods, which is a lot of fun for me because I loved that book as a kid (and still loved it when I re-read it not too long ago). I love picturing what life was like back then. I think it's interesting to read it with Rhonda, because I'm not sure how much she really understands of it. I don't know what she's picturing when I read about a pig being butchered, or butter being churned, or even Laura playing with a pretend doll that's just a corn cob. (Can Rhonda imagine a life without dolls?) I'm glad there are some pictures in the book to give her at least a little bit of reference. She always listens attentively.

To go with our Little House reading, we made homemade bread and homemade butter (just like the Ingalls family did!...If the Ingalls family had had a KitchenAid.) Rhonda loved making her own little loaf of bread, just like Laura.

We started reading Thirteen Moons on a Turtle's Back, which has Native American stories about the different moons of the year.

We two crafts this week. One was making a suitcase from a cereal box. I had a lot of fun making this craft. (Rhonda had a lot of fun cutting and gluing scrap paper, and then putting stickers on the suitcase when I finished making it.)

At the end of the week we made papel picados out of tissue paper and hung them on the wall in our playroom. 

We read some other books about the United States that I found at the library: 

The Scrambled States of America

The Scrambled States of America Talent Show

My Grandfather's Coat

Johnny Appleseed

L is for Lone Star: A Texas Alphabet

Unrelated to school, Rhonda asked to have a "cookies and milk tea party." I thought this seemed like a reasonable request, and she kept asking for a few days, so I invited over a little friend of hers. Michelle loaned us a kid-sized table and chairs, a little plastic tea set, and a cupcake ferris wheel. We made sparkle sugar cookies and got both chocolate and regular milk. The girls dressed fancy. They had the BEST time! They sat at the table for ages and poured endless cups of milk from the little teapots. Sierra also enjoyed herself, and even managed to drink out of her own teacup with very little spilling. 

Rhonda had a really fun time with all our activities this week. I found it a little difficult at times to fit everything into our schedule, but I love having really fun things planned out for her. 

Preschool Week 1

Our first week of school was a fun introduction to the world.

We learned about maps and read Me on the Map several times. Rhonda drew a map of her room, and she made a "Me on the Map" flip book where she drew pictures of her planet, continent, country, state, town, house, and herself. We also read about maps in some of our main curriculum books. We made a pop-out globe from Adventures Around the Globe, which was a great way to see how a flat object can represent a round object.

We read How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World almost every day, and we did activities related to it. We went to the store and I let Rhonda pick out any kind of apples she wanted. (Of course, since she's 4, she wanted every kind of apple.) We were supposed to taste-test them, but I skipped that activity since I was skeptical that she would try any and then I would have a bunch of apples with little pieces cut out of them.

At the end of the week, we made our own apple pie! I wasn't sure how I wanted to do this activity, because nobody in our house is a huge fan of apple pie and I didn't want tons of leftover pie. I thought about giving it away, but I wanted Rhonda to at least have a chance to taste it. So I found the perfect solution: apple hand pies! They were easy to make and very tasty. (I did offer Rhonda some of the apple when I cut it up for the pies. She didn't want to try it.) Both kids ate parts of their pies.

We made a passport for Rhonda to put her continent stickers in when we learn about a continent. I also took a picture of her and printed it to put in the front.

I'm learning that the crafts in this curriculum are a little above Rhonda's level. She probably just needs more practice using scissors, glue, etc. The crafts usually end up with me doing the craft, and Rhonda cutting up and gluing scrap paper next to me. I don't really mind it (for now, anyway), because I enjoy doing the crafts and Rhonda has fun doing her own thing. It's good practice for her fine-motor skills. If I start getting tired of doing the crafts, I may stop sometime during the year, but usually there isn't more than one craft per week.

We read a lot of fun books throughout the week that I found at the library, including:
A Cool Drink of Water
What We Wear
Whoever You Are
Can You Say Peace? 
Glass Slipper, Gold Sandal
Mapping Penny's World

I also discovered a gorgeous international nursery rhyme book that is illustrated by tons of famous artists and illustrators, called Over the Hills and Far Away. I got it out of the library, but then I just had to buy it! (I got it for cheap on Thriftbooks.) We'll read some nursery rhymes from different places throughout the year.

First day of school!

Monday was Rhonda's first day of school! I couldn't tell you who was more excited, me or Rhonda.

We did have a little snafu first thing in the morning, though. Apparently, when I told Rhonda that today would be her first day of school, I didn't communicate clearly enough that it would be school at home. 

I guess I thought, since we have been "doing school" for a little while now, she would automatically think that it would be more of the same. But she doesn't live under a rock. She knows about actual, real schools. (We have one literally one street down from us.)

So, she was pretty disappointed that she wasn't getting to GO to school. But she recovered from the disappointment quickly and then enjoyed our day together.

I asked her the night before what she wanted for breakfast for her first day of school. I told her she could pick, since it was a special day. She picked M&Ms. After some discussion, we agreed on pancakes with M&Ms on top. She loved her special breakfast so much that I got a genuine smile for a picture! (Pretty rare for a 4-year-old.)

Before we started schoolwork, I couldn't resist taking a traditional first-day-of-school picture in front of our front door (sans backpack and cutesy sign saying what grade she's in, because I'm not a fun Pinterest-y mom). Of course, we couldn't exclude Sierra.

We started with many of our regular morning time things: song, prayer, Book of Mormon story, and a new Spanish word ("la escuela," of course!). Then we got to get out our fun new school stuff!

We read Me on the Map and How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World, then looked at the animal atlas and talked about the animals we saw. Then we read some additional books about the world I picked up from the library:
Glass Slipper, Gold Sandal: A Worldwide Cinderella
Whoever You Are
Can You Say Peace? 

Then Rhonda drew a map of her room. I really underestimated how much she would enjoy this activity. (She's sort of hot and cold on drawing and coloring.) She needed some help thinking of what things to include on her map, but once she got going, she was all over it. When she was done, she wanted to draw a map of our town! I didn't even suggest this--she got the idea from the book.

The big rectangle with stuff in it is her doll suitcase, which she is very into lately, so it took up a lot of space on the map. In very artistic fashion, Rhonda made the most important things the biggest. 

After drawing, we had a reading lesson and some Reading Time. ("Reading Time" has come to mean a time when the kids get to pick the books.) We read Magic Tree House, Frog and Toad All Year, and a couple of board books that Sierra picked out.

Later we went for a walk, which I will not do again this entire month because it was absolutely boiling outside (and it was only 11 am), and we picked up some trash around the neighborhood. (Another activity that I really underestimated. These kids love to pick up trash! Or at least they enjoyed it this one time.)

Our school day was low-key, but definitely fun. My favorite thing about it was that Rhonda and I (and Sierra--she was actually pretty involved today) got to spend some time together doing things we both genuinely enjoyed. In twenty years, she probably won't remember the things she learned or the books we read this year, but I know she'll remember that quality time.

2019-2020 Curriculum!

You guys, I could not be more excited for what I have planned for this school year!

I've been eagerly anticipating Rhonda's first "official" year of homeschooling. (Actually, this technically isn't her first official year, since she's still preschool age, but...it's official according to me.) Last year, I felt that she was too young for a lot of structure, so we just had our morning time, did chores, and tried to read as much as we could.

However, going into this year, I wanted to incorporate a little more structure. Not because I think it's necessary, but because I think Rhonda would enjoy it. She really likes having activities planned for her, and I think she especially enjoys the attention and one-on-one time she gets when we do things together. When I don't plan for one-on-one time with her, sometimes it doesn't happen.

So, for a while now, I've been on the lookout for easy preschool ideas that will keep us all learning and having fun together, but don't have a lot of specific academic requirements. I definitely want to keep her first year of homeschool fun and exciting.

I was really excited to find Build Your Library. It was just what I was looking for: a laid-back, but easy to plan curriculum for preschool/kindergarten. (It's geared more toward kindergarteners, but I think Rhonda is a little intellectually advanced for her age.) This curriculum does not require any reading skills or math. However, with all the great books and activities that are included, Rhonda will undoubtedly be learning a ton.

I have to admit, I'm also excited for what I'll be learning! This curriculum is focused on learning all about the world. There's a lot I don't know about the world myself, so I'm really looking forward to learning with Rhonda.

Thanks to price shopping on Thrift Books, Half Price Books, and Amazon, I got almost all the required books for the year for less than $200. And it's a lot of books. This picture only includes what I got shipped in one day--still a lot more to go!

I love that the curriculum includes a few reference books, a few chapter books, and lots of picture books. I think it will be just the right variety for us. After looking at all the books I got in the mail, I'm very happy with the quality of the books. None seemed to be chosen just for the sake of having a book from a specific country or continent--I think all of them will be truly enjoyable to read.

I'm definitely unleashing my inner nerd as I get ready for the school year. I've been looking for tons of extension books in the library and making lists of books we can add to the curriculum. I've been on the lookout for different food and craft ideas from around the world, plus additional activities like documentaries on Netflix. I know Rhonda will enjoy this curriculum, but I think I'll enjoy it even more!

Aside from Build Your Library, we will continue doing our morning time, and we'll dive into Exploring Nature with Children (a collection of nature walks that I bought last year, but we've been sporadic about following it, so this year I hope to use it every week). We'll keep doing dance. I'm thinking about adding some kind of math element--perhaps just doing a very simple and fun math activity a week. We'll also continue to learn to read with Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.

I'm also considering what else we can potentially add to the school year. I don't want to overdo it, but this curriculum is only thirty weeks, so that leaves a few extra weeks of school year time to do other things if we want. I'm planning out a unit study based on Christmas around the world that I'm really excited about! I'm going to try to pay attention to Rhonda's interests and perhaps try to make a unit study surrounding them.

I know my enthusiasm might slow down and some things will end up falling by the wayside. If we only end up doing thirty weeks of school, I think that's okay! But if Rhonda enjoys our school activities this year as much as she enjoyed everything we did last year, she might actually be disappointed to take breaks from school! (We actually never stopped any of our school activities over the summer.)