C is for Caterpillar - 1/17/12

Well, I was eminently prepared for today due to my staying up til 2:30 am last night and getting about 4 hours of sleep. That always seems to do the trick. It's a huge trade off. When I do that, my school day is great because I have everything prepped and ready to go for the kids. But then I am exhausted by mid afternoon. When I don't, things run less smoothly, we aren't as organized, but I get more sleep. Not enough hours in the day for everything I want to do!

Anyway, we had a good school day. I got a brilliant idea somewhere around 1:30 am that I have been doing things all wrong. Usually I have the living room set up with various activities to keep the preschoolers busy for awhile in the morning when they first arrive:  things like puzzles, manipulatives, games, "work jobs," or tray activities, blocks, easy worksheets, basically things they can do on their own. After an hour or two when they have done all of these things, and I have eaten, checked my email, gotten Jem his breakfast, got his school ready, and basically got ready for them, woken Scout, we start school. Then begins the balancing act of trying to do preschool and manage the other kids school too. I've been bothered that I am not giving them big kids the attention they need because I am spending more time doing preschool and the big kids school is getting pushed back in the day when they are getting more tired.
Well, it finally dawned on me that I am doing things backwards! I should start the preschoolers on school right away when they get there and get the bulk of their school time done early. Then we can do our calendar time as a group. And then I can have the preschoolers do their floor time (their on their own time) while I am working with the big kids on school. This is mostly Jem's time. After lunch, while they nap, I spend most of that time with Scout.
This was our first day of trying the new schedule and it worked like a charm! Woo hoo!

Today we read Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar. We looked for C words as we read.

 Then thanks to some great printables at 1+1+1 we had lots of fun things to do!

These last two pics are from an activity called "Read and Write the Room." The kids absolutely LOVED this! I printed out the words with pictures and hid them around the house and then they took their clipboards with their worksheets and went word hunting. When they found a word they could write them down. Flossie's sheets were tracing and Freddie just had blank lines so he could write the words himself. They were so excited searching the house for words. At the point I took this picture Flossie had just said, "This is so fun. I love this game!"

So, after all that preschool fun, the big kids were up and we were ready to do our calendar notebooks.
I finally got binders to put them in and the kids designed covers today. They were very excited to do this. I love how they came out!

For independent activities I had set up a painting area where they could do folded paper butterflies and then they has several floor activities. I was excited to see Flossie pull out this puzzle. It is much harder then any puzzle she used to try. She has really been challenging herself lately.

I only got one picture of the big kids working. It's of Jem working on his animal male/female names minibook. We've been reading Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White and we found out that a male swan is called a "cob." So that got him thinking about other animal names. I was surprised there is no Trumpet of the Swan lapbook online anywhere. Maybe I'll have to do one myself!

 

Theater Day - 1/13/12

Today the big kids had a field trip to see Romeo and Juliet at Mesa Arts Center.

This is our second time seeing a performance of the play this tear. We also saw Theater Works' production earlier this year. The kids took a class on Shakespeare and Romeo and Juliet this fall, so this was just a a follow-up. We enjoyed this one, but man those actors were spitting all over the place!!  After that we took the opportunity to take a few pics around the grounds :)

 

That night we attended the TheaterWorks Youth Works Gala which is their yearly fundraiser event. It is basically a night to dress up, see a show, have dinner, dance, and visit with friends. They also have raffles and auctions. The kids didn't win anything, but they danced the night away and had a blast! 

C is for Creativity! - 1/11/12

Our printer ran out of ink today so we did less table work and more school with puzzles and manipulatives and art materials. As you can imagine, the kids were perfectly fine with that! :)  I pulled out the Lego free-from puzzle. Every time I get it out, Freddie starts out by being frustrated and saying he can't do it. I have no idea why because it's a puzzle where all the pieces fit each other in any way you want them to go. There is no right way to do it. I guess that freaks him out. There is no picture to put together. You just build it anyway you want to.  Once he gets going, he's fine, but it always trips him up at first.

 

Flossie came in with her oatmeal this morning, so I figured it was a good time for her to start learning to make it herself. I showed her how to measure out her water and pour everything in the bowl and then how to work the microwave. She did pretty good and seemed proud of herself. (Of course I reminded her that she always need to have a grown-up helping her with the microwave because it makes things really hot!)

Later she played with the 101 Dalmations. She separated them all into those that were "sleeping" and those that were "awake." I snuck a little bit of math in there too. She is doing pretty well with addition when we use maniplatives.

Scout led the art project today. She got a big roll of paper out and all of the different types of art materials out and she said they were going to make the "Biggest picture in the World"  ala Ramona Quimby.  She wanted them to keep it all intact but they grumbled a lot about that, especially Freddie who wanted to cut his section off so he could take it home. In the end he agreed they could hang it up on the fence outside. 

Unfortuantely the day ended in a migraine for Jem. not sure why. It's his 3rd one. Hope he's not following in Scout and my footsteps!

C is for Calendar and Colors

Bit  of a laid back day today - long diabetes night! Guess this was a good day for it since Scout's voice lessons got switched to today. That means park time for the others and a dent out of the middle of our school day which was ok by me today. But we did get in some good school before all of that. We started with our calendar notebooks which went quick and smooth. The kids like knowing what to do on their own and what comes next.

Then they all went on with their individual work. Flossie worked on colors and shapes. Freddie started some new sight words. The big kids did free reading until it was time for their live  History and Science lectures.

Afterward Jem read Brown Bear, Brown Bear to the kids to go over color words. They have been learning to read color words as sight words in their calendar notebooks and in a few worksheets too, so he thought the book would be a good idea. He of course then ended up reading Polar Bear, Polar Bear and Panda Bear, Panda Bear too.

After this it was pretty much rush, rush, voice, park, home, play play, play, and me read and chill - or try to with 4 wild animals and 2 little dogs running madcap around the house!

My favorite pic of the day:

Preschool Letter C - 1/9/12

Today was our first day back to school after the holidays. It was mostly a day of getting back into the swing of things and trying to remember our old routine. A the end of November, we played around a little with doing calendar notebooks  as seen at RRSP.  They all seemed to enjoy it, but in December, we let it fall off because for one, we didn't do school for the whole month, and for two, we did for crafty stuff than real school. After talking to the kids, we decided to start them again with the new year. We will see how long they want to keep it up. They have some pages that they all do and some pages that are different. Scout's pages are all in cursive. If nothing else, it is good daily number practice for the preschoolers, and Scout and Jem will always know what the date is and won't have to ask me!

We decided to keep on doing letter C this week since it got short coverage during December. I have found some things on Chameleons, Cactus, Castles, and Cars, so it may take us one or two weeks to finish.

Everyone seemed ready to get back to school. We did a full day. The big kids were ready to be done by the end of the day :) but I think they were getting bored, and were glad to get back to learning.

 

 Even though I enjoyed my time off, it was good to see everyone back to their routines, and also to see that they hadn't forgotten everything over the past few weeks!  :)  Now let's see what tomorrow brings!

C is for Christmas - 12/13/11

Today was a lazy rainy day. We don't get too many of those! We did have to go out once to take Bella some lunch at her school, but otherwise, we stayed in where we were warm and dry and did some Christmas crafts and watched a movie - Golden Compass. It's good to slow down now and then!