NowVille: 9/23/12

The past 3 weeks have flown by i a flurry of activities and school work. We have been very busy and most importantly, have gotten a lot of school done! Being organized has been key this year and although I did falter a bit on that at the end of Week 3, I quickly saw what was happening and picked myself up and got back in action in time for Week 4!

I have found out that the preschoolers weekly schedule is essential to our ship running smoothly. Otherwise, I am scrambling to figure out things to keep them busy and it is a waste of valuable time. When everything is planned out and prepared (which takes a lot of time at the beginning, but is well worth it), our days just seem so well-oiled.

Here is what we did during the past 3 weeks:

PRESCHOOL

Patterns
We have done a lot with working on patterns these past few weeks. We started with just ABAB patterns and then moved to the harder ABBABB and ABAABABAAB, etc. We also finally switched from color patterns to picture patterns which was a different idea I found out. Both girls did pretty well with pattern work. Why do we do it? Understanding patterns is "just the beginning of lifelong mathematic skills," according to www.education.com. "Times tables, addition and skip counting all require an understanding of and proficiency in patterning."

File Folder Game

Letter G

We did Letter G last school year, but in our review, it was clear we need to do it again! It's a hard one because its sound doesn't sound lie it's name! Here's some of the Letter G work we did this week:

Games Geoboard

Gumball Puzzle Letter G Do-a-Dot

Toilet Paper Roll Grapes

Grapes Exploration for Science

Science

Adding regular science activities to the preschool curriculum has been fun this year. I have gotten a lot of ideas from the Teach Preschool blog. It is fabulous!

It Looks Like This in My Magnifying Glass Colorful Salty Art

Color bubble science

Lentil Investigation

Marbles, chutes, and tubes

Baby frogs Cloud dough

Math, Phonics, and Other Fun Stuff!

Small motor practice Alphabet Bugs

Sight Word Puzzles

Harold and the Purple Crayon

Spin a Number

Trying to learn those pesky teens!

Rock climbing with the Girls Scouts!

A trip to the Halloween store :)

Mom, I want this one please!!

BIG KIDS

The big kids school has been running pretty smoothly. Jem has been telling me all sorts of interesting things he's learning from his daily non-fiction free-reading :). Scout is doing really well with her writing curriculum and is doing more writing than she has ever done before - good thing :) Both are doing very well at learning their Asian countries. Our Middle Eastern geometric art study is still interesting and fun. It's challenging getting the designs to come out right because everything has to be pretty perfectly aligned. Makes you wonder at the challenge it must have been for them to do it on walls and ceilings with less sophisticated tools during the middle ages and before. Music Man rehearsals are in full swing for Jem. He is doing really well. His adult co-actors keep coming up to me to tell me how much they love working with him and how well he is doing, so I am proud of him :) And finally, we went indoor rock climbing with Scout's Girl Scout troupe. I was the "belayer" for my 3 climbers. It was exhausting!! But they had a lot of fun. Everyone made it to the top, even Flossie, and Scout and Jem even went horizontal! We had a busy, but fun, two weeks!