Learning by Heart – January

“The mother’s heart is the child’s schoolroom”
– Henry Ward Beecher

The sweet deer that visit us weekly at our nature center.
  We are getting to be good friends with these graceful and beautiful animals. :)

I’m not sure where the time has gone this month!  We haven’t done a ton of learning activities, but we are slowly getting back into the swing of things.  I’m re-thinking and re-planning some things as we go.  I’ll try to just hit the highlights of this month in this post (sorry if it gets too long!).

~M is 4 years old~

SHELF ACTIVITIES
(independent or semi-independent activities)

Mostly, I’ve been rotating toys on M’s shelves this month.  New toys from Christmas make this easy to do for a while.  I have plans to create a page where I can list all the activities I rotate on the shelves for M, because I think it’s fun to read that kind of thing, but also because I think it gets kind of tedious on these weekly posts to keep listing the same things time after time.  I will, however, make sure to mention any new items that I put out for him.

Folding:

M folds laundry like a pro (towels and washcloths mostly), but has been practicing his paper-folding skills since we got this great little book.  He loves this book, and I let him do as many pages as he wants.  He tends to get obsessed with something until he has mastered it; apparently this is just what makes him happy and how he learns best, so I don’t really follow the rule of stopping an activity while he’s still enjoying it.  Doing that frustrates him and makes him less likely to take it up again.  Here’s a little example of what this book is like:

See the little mouse?

Eek!  It’s really a giant elephant! ;)

It is so much fun – I’m not much of a fan of traditional workbooks, but the Kumon group of books is excellent.

 

Cutting and Pasting – I cut construction paper in several colors to size, hole-punched the edges, stuck it all in a 3-ring binder and gave it to M for his own photo album: He has his own digital camera (an old camera of ours that doesn’t have a memory card, but takes about 20 pictures at a time), so I’ve been printing out some of his photos for him.  He loves to cut them out and place them on the pages.  He actually uses double-stick tape most of the time for the “pasting” part of this.  I think it will be so much fun for him to look back through when he’s older.  It’s not the best quality, but it’s simple, inexpensive, fun, and a good way to sharpen those scissor skills. :)

As you can see, he’s fond of self-portraits, hee hee:

 

Mazes and dot-to-dots - I also made a little book of these for M.  The mazes were from another Kumon book, and the dot-to-dots were something I found on Amazon.  I cut off the binding and placed each page in a page protector, then all of it went into another 3-ring binder:

This has been a big hit with him.  There are, I think, roughly 80 mazes – great for reasoning skills and fine motor skills.  The dot-to-dots each go up to 100, which is a real challenge for him right now, and we normally do those together.  Since the pages are all in page protectors, he uses a dry-erase marker to do them, erases them with a piece of felt, and then does them over and over again.  I think this will be a great car-trip book!

Math: Not much has been done on this front, although M continues to enjoy counting anything and everything.  One day he decided he wanted to count to 100 and surprised himself by actually doing it. :)  He only needs a little help once in a while, and he does not recognize the written higher numbers, but wants to, so that’s what we’ll do next. 

Science: M loves doing this: 

Mixing colors of water in an ice cube tray.  He asked to do this, which he does from time to time.  It’s one of his favorite things.  He likes to watch the colors mix, use the pipette, etc.  Normally he then asks for these ice cubes when he’s taking a bath, and enjoys watching them melt and color the bath water.

We’ve been doing one mama-led science experiment per week, and I’ll post about these at Science Sunday on Ticia’s blog – stay tuned!

As you may know, M is obsessed with all things electric, especially light bulbs and batteries.  He has been itching to know how these things are made, and I found a couple of interesting you tube videos about just that – How Light Bulbs are Made, and How Batteries are Made.  He was fascinated by the machines that make these things and loved the videos, although I’m not sure how much he really understood (the voice over sounds like a computer voice and has what might be a British accent).  I was pretty fascinated too!

 

Literacy:  We’ve been reading, reading, and reading some more these past weeks.  We are content for now for that to be the main thing in this area.  Actually, more than content, we are loving it.  I feel like we’ve found so many great books lately, which I hope to post about soon.  I’ve decided to wait until this fall to start any book units with extension activities – that’s what we will do if M doesn’t go to a “real” preschool then.  We’ve been reading chapter books at lunch over several days, and picture books for about 1/2 hour each afternoon (snuggle time!).  M’s comprehension of the longer books continues to amaze me.  Sometimes he understands things I don’t even catch!  He’s developing a real love of books, which makes this mama very happy. :)

He is also a rhyming fiend.  Everything has to rhyme lately – oh goodness, you can imagine the nonsense going on here.  Things like, “Mommy, did you ever see a bug licking a fug?”  {Sigh}  or “Are you a dishwasher, made out of fishfasher?”  {Sigh again}

I found some great nursery rhyme sequencing cards here.  I made a little cardstock mat to place them on: 

I printed out several sets of sequencing cards, and by looking at the cards, M was usually able to tell which poem they were for.  Then we’d say it together and then he’d say it again, while setting the cards out, in order, on the appropriate square.  He really enjoyed this.  I’ll probably set this out on his shelf with more cards for him to do independently.

 

Karen at Prekinders has these fantastic rhyming mats and cards, which we also did.  M always enjoys doing these!

 

Art:  We’ve started going to a weekly music class – it’s very informal – lots of playing around with a great assortment and variety of instruments, some movement songs, and lots of rhythm activities.  We enjoy it a lot, but I’ve noticed it’s the same activities, in the same order each week.  Occasionally there’s a new song thrown into the mix, but there just isn’t enough variety to keep us interested in going each week.  There are only 6 more sessions, so I think we’ll try to make it to 2 or 3 more.  It could be such a wonderful program if a little more effort went into the planning.

As far as other art – this drawing cracks me up:

It’s just a regular drawing of him, but see the rectangle drawn around him?  And how his feet aren’t touching the bottom?  It’s M jumping!  Hee hee, I love it.

We’ve also been doing one planned art project per week.  Most recently, we colored on white construction paper with crayons, then rubbed over it with mineral oil.  This was an idea from one of Mary Ann Kohl’s books (can’t think of which one right now), and it was supposed to make the colors brighter.  It didn’t really seem to be working, so I showed M how to make a loopy design and then color in each open area, hoping that with more color all over the paper it would work better.

It worked okay, and actually the oil made the paper seem more like a thick vellum, which was pretty neat.  We hung the finished artwork in the window to be a suncatcher, but unfortunately we haven’t had much sun lately.

 

Miscellaneous:  Lately I wander around my house, seeing things like this:

M has definitely mastered his screwdriver skills, and I realized that I really don’t need to worry about providing many fine motor skill activities for him anymore. :)

 

This is a little old, but every year, once Christmas is finished, we set our tree outside and make treats for the animals:

We also read The After Christmas Tree, by Linda Wagner Tyler:   which talks about the tree’s “second season of giving”. 

 

Finally, I’m not sure what category this falls into, but it was fun!  I filled a bowl with water, added a bunch of small objects, and let it freeze outside overnight.  The next day M chiseled away at it to get all the little things out.  He really enjoyed this!

 

Hope your winter is full of coziness! 

 

I’m linking this post up to Preschool Corner, Friday Wrap Up,and Weekly Wrap-Up; be sure to check them out!

Have a beautiful day! :)

 

Learning by Heart – weeks 8 and 9

“The mother’s heart is the child’s schoolroom”
– Henry Ward Beecher

Fancy shot of our first Advent candle :)

My camera broke halfway through week 8, and since I was behind in my posts anyway, I decided to combine the past two weeks into one post.  Believe me, it didn’t take long for me to go buy another camera (I HAVE to have a camera!), but anything we did that wasn’t captured in a photo has completely escaped my memory.  I KNOW we did things on those days without a camera, but I have no idea what they are!  Besides, it’s not much fun to post about an activity without a picture to accompany it, right?

{ M is 4 years old }

SHELF ACTIVITIES:

For December I’m sticking with easy and fun activities.  Some of them are just plain fun with not much learning involved.  We’ll get hardcore preschool again after the holidays are over. ;)  (That is totally a joke, btw.)

I set out an Advent wreath craft for M, with glitter foam pieces, glitter snowflake stickers, green cardstock, and sequins.  No shot of the activity beforehand, but here it is finished: He really enjoyed making it!

Counting – I set out our number cards and a gumball machine (Dollar Tree!) full of wooden beads.  M loves this little gumball machine and I knew it would help grab his attention.  It’s the first thing he went for the morning it was out.  He set out the number cards in order, then worked the gumball machine to get beads out and counted them onto the cards:

A new puzzle:

Sewing with yarn on a piece of cotton fabric -  I have to smile to myself when I put things like this out for him.  He LOVES doing this kind of thing, but I don’t kid myself that his interest will last.  Someday he will get the idea that this isn’t a very manly sort of activity. :)  But it is great fine motor skill work and really, it’s important for boys to know how to use a needle and thread too!

This was sort of a review and catch up week, so M did a cut and paste sheet for the soft /g/ sound to put in his ABC book.  Somehow G escaped us as we were going through the first few letters of the alphabet.  

Play dough cooties -  I’ve been seeing a lot of people use Mr. Potato Head objects with play dough.  It is such a great idea!  Unfortunately the only Mr. Potato Head we have is in our camper, about an hour away.  So I grabbed the pieces from our Cooties game, and M made a lot of fun little sillies:

Play dough number mats 11 – 20 – with some leftover fall-colored play dough (gotta get that Christmas play dough made!):

Pipeline Game pieces – for fine motor work:

Extra Activities:

A lot of shoveling has been going on…

And a lot of snowman-making…See the tiny snowman beside M?  He made this one all by himself, and used MY GLOVES for hands, hee hee. :)  It’s a very sweet little snowman.

And one day M made a pulley system with the fridge door handle.  He didn’t know it was a pulley, but it was!  After I told him that it was a pulley and that in real life they use them to lift heavy objects, he was awfully proud of himself for inventing it. :)  And we did some on-the-spot learning about pulleys!

Hey!  You are looking at the pulley,
not the ugly kitchen flooring, right?!

I’m linking this post up to Preschool Corner, Friday Wrap-up, and Weekly Wrap-Up; be sure to check them out!

Have a beautiful day! :)

 

Learning by Heart – week 7

“The mother’s heart is the child’s schoolroom”
– Henry Ward Beecher

{M is 4 years old}

{ Happy Belated Thanksgiving, everyone! I hope you had as blessed of a day as we did.  I’m still having computer woes (still writing without a connection, then scheduling a bunch of posts out at a time), and my camera broke (great week for that), but all in all it was a wonderful thanks-filled week, and I’m very grateful for all my blessings.  Blessings like a broken camera and computer topping my list of frustrations, instead of something like not having enough food to feed my family. }

Our school time this week…

SHELF ACTIVITIES: 

Die-cut letters (Dollar Tree) and some “better blocks”, which are sort of like legos, but they swivel and you can create things that have moving parts.  I set them out for M to use in forming the letters A through I:

 
A new dot-to-dot book:   

Magnetic pattern blocks and patterns:

Wedgits:

Geoboard with colorful binders.  I bought the geoboard from Amazon last summer, and the hair bands are from Dollar Tree.

This was the first time M saw the geoboard, and he really enjoyed making shapes and designs.  he enjoyed using it to fling the bands around the room too… but well, he is a four year old boy. :)

I remember making these suncatchers when I was little, and I LOVED them.  This is the kind that has tiny plastic beads which you put into the metal frame, then bake in the oven.  I found some at Michael’s, and bought them up.  M tried his first one this week.  It was on his shelf as just a fun item, but I had him pinch the beads to place them where he wanted, so it ended up being a good fine motor activity too.
The finished suncatcher:

There were a lot of beads left over, so we got out some metal cookie cutters, placed them on a cookie sheet, and M used the left over beads to fill them up.  After they baked and cooled, I popped them out of the cookie cutters:With a hole, and different cookie cutters, these would make fun Christmas ornaments to give the grandparents, don’t you think? 

New H and I objects for the phonics box: horse, house, hammer, hippo, ice cream, and ice

We’ve been playing a lot of Mancala lately, so this was out on his shelf too (although it wasn’t really an independent activity):Mancala is a great game for counting to higher numbers too, because at the end of the game all of the stones have to be counted.  It took M a couple of games to really understand all the rules, but he picked it up with no problem.  We’ve been having a lot of fun playing this!  Thanks to The Adventures of Bear for this wonderful idea!

New scissor practice pages.  Thanks to everyone who gave advice about cutting pages a few weeks ago.  I decided to go with a book of activities, since I thought these would engage M a bit more than just lines on a paper.  I wanted to get the Kumon book of cutting, but no store around here seems to carry it.  I am happy with the one I found though: 

 

TOGETHER ACTIVITIES:

Literacy:

Sorting objects by beginning sound:
We played a “go fish” style game with our ABC cards.  We asked each other for the big or little letter of one we needed for a match.  When M wasn’t sure, I was able to help him out by saying the name of the thing pictured on the card.  We did all 26 letters, and this game lasted a loooong time!   

Math:

A little counting game I came up with on the spur of the moment, which ended up being the hit of the week:  I grabbed our number cards, some dried beans, and a pillowcase.  The cards went into the pillowcase and we took turns pulling one out (no peeking!).  We had to set the card on the floor, turn it over to the counting side, and count beans onto it.  We used cards 0 through 15.  After all the cards were out of the pillowcase, we counted the total number of beans for each person.  The winner was whoever had the most beans.

Getting a card (hey, it looks like he’s peeking!):
Counting out the beans:   

Science:

M found a pet this week.  A little pill bug pet.  I am not thrilled about this, but I’m trying to be reasonable. :)

We have learned a lot about Mr. Pill Bug.  His skeleton is on the outside of his body where we can actually see it, and it protects him.  He can curl up into a ball when he’s afraid, and then he is completely protected.  He likes damp areas.  He likes to climb on rough rocks and hide under them.  He does not like smooth surfaces, like the inside of a bug catcher or say, a glass jar that he can’t climb out of.  He loves to eat decaying leaves and wood and maybe even pieces of shredded carrot. 

Frankly, I’m pretty sure we are slowly killing Mr. Pill Bug because he really doesn’t seem to be eating even though I’ve researched as much about him as I can (er… want to).  I’d love to set him free (outside, mind you) but then M’s heart might break.  I’m thinking the jar may just tip over and he may escape one of these days.

Here he is out for a little daytime stroll (actually I dug around for him to see if he was still alive):

Part of me says “ew”.  And part of me says “poor Mr. pill bug” and part of me says “I’d really rather have a dog”.

We also did a fun science experiment with balloons, which I posted about earlier.

 

Outdoors:

We had some gorgeous weather recently.  I just love this picture of the big rake and the little rake leaning against our fence after two boys worked hard in the yard:

Isn’t that sweet?

And then a few days later we woke to see this out M’s window:I wonder if that pile of leaves is still out there, under all that snow.  You can imagine how thrilled M was to see this! :) 

Well, when we began this year, I had mapped out activities based on one or two “letters of the week”, with math activities coming from the Montessori bead bars and number boards lessons.  Other than this, I planned on focusing mainly on fine and gross motor skills, art, and a fun science experiment here and there.  Really it was the math lessons and alphabet activities that were propelling us through the weeks.  Now that M has officially rejected the Montessori math lessons, and isn’t into the letter crafts, or even our phonics boxes very much, I’m having a hard time feeling like our weeks have any focus to them.  I’ve been haphazardly gathering ideas from a variety of places, and trying to be creative with making up new activities that aren’t too time-consuming to create (all the time keeping up an internal dialogue about how this isn’t really as important as I’m making it – sigh).

It’s going okay, and I think for the time being it’s just fine.  But I like a little more order and a plan with clear goals (OCD much?).  I’m definitely learning to be more flexible, and it’s encouraging that in the past couple of weeks M has begun counting as high as 30 without missing a beat – a huge leap from where he was when I was trying to stick with the Montessori plan.  So, something must be going well!  Still, I’m considering doing some unit studies after the beginning of the year – they are so much fun… but they take so much work to plan!  Ah well, we’ll see…

I’m linking this post up to Preschool Corner and Weekly Wrap-Up; be sure to check them out!

Have a beautiful day! :)