♥ School ♥ – week 2, part 1

“The mother’s heart is the child’s schoolroom”

– Henry Ward Beecher

So, I’m playing around with what to title my school posts.  I’m looking for something catchy, and I’d like to make reference to the quote above, since I love it and it’s what I try to keep in mind while we are “doing school”: listening with my heart, following my maternal instincts, etc.  However, Mama’s School of Love doesn’t quite sound right, hee hee. ;) Any suggestions?

Wondering why this is just “part 1” of week 2?  Well, we started week 1 out with colds, and ended week 2 with an out-of-town funeral.  My husband’s very sweet uncle, Bud, passed away on Wednesday.  So, between recovering from being sick and then packing and heading out of town on the spur-of-the-moment, only a tiny bit of school was actually done.  I’m going to carry my plans for the week over into another week.  Honestly, I’ve been running behind on everything since my grandmother’s funeral at the beginning of the summer.  Another funeral and all the stuff attached to such an event just makes it harder.  I hope to get back on track next week!

For now, I thought I’d give a quick explanation of how I have M’s shelf activities set up each week.  I bought these last spring, but have not gotten around to posting about them until now.  Here’s how they looked over the summer, for the most part (this was right before M’s birthday, so I had cleaned off a couple of shelves to make room for new toys):

I have been playing a trial and error game with rotating M’s toys on these shelves; I’m not sure it’s working like I envisioned, but I plod on anyway.  Now that we are doing more preschool-ish activities again I’m using the shelves on the right for school activities and the ones on the left continue to hold toys.  

Some things are out permanently (more or less): the music instruments and songbook (shown on the top left in the photo above, but have been relegated to the corner on the floor at this point); M’s ABC collage and trace book; his phonics box (mentioned in this post); and whatever math work we are doing, which is currently bead bars and number cards.  I also have his flannel board tucked in beside the shelf, and all our flannel board sets in the folders on the bottom shelf. The remainder of the shelves hold rotated activities.

I’m trying to rotate a total of 6 to 8 activities every week.  I put out 3 or 4 activities each Monday and 3 or 4 every Thursday.  Each activity stays out for one week, unless it’s something he’s really loved and shows an interest in continuing to do.  Or, if it’s a one time thing – a craft or just a little something fun – then obviously once it’s done, it’s off the shelf.  If I have something to replace it with I will, but if not I just move everything around so the shelf looks full again. :)  Initially I planned to only use the top two shelves for school activities, but I can not put out enough activities for M, as he absolutely loves them, so I decided to use the entire 4 shelves of the one unit.

Recent activities on our shelves

I’m trying to use more attractive baskets and trays for his activities and I do think it helps grab his attention when things are presented in a pleasing way.  I made this cute little “work mat” for him too, for when he’s doing something potentially messy (using markers, etc.).

Most of the activities I set out are related to language or math work we’ve done, or are fine motor skill practice of some sort, for which I get most of my ideas from Montessori practical life activities.  I also try to include one sensory bin or sensory activity per week, although this doesn’t always happen.

The activities on M’s shelves are meant to be semi-independent work.  This means it’s something he knows how to do and can do completely on his own, or it’s something he will bring to me for instruction on how to do it, then complete it on his own.  I have to say I am usually in the room with him doing something and we keep up a running conversation regarding what he’s doing and how he’s doing, with a lot of me jumping in and out of any particular activity as needed.  There are a few activities that totally engross him and it’s then that I say a prayer of thanks and try to think in something more than 20 second intervals. ;)  We also have “together” activities, not on the shelves, which are things that we, well, do together.

I think this all sounds like more work than it actually is.  I actually have fun planning and preparing M’s “work” for him, both shelf activities and our “together” activities.  And I love, love, love spending time with him actually doing them.  I just wish I didn’t need to sleep so that I could have everything perfect, all the time.  But I can’t.  I’m already tired enough. ;)

I’m linking this up to Preschool Corner, and Weekly Wrap-Up.  Go check them out to see what other moms are up to with their kiddos!

Have a beautiful day! :)
 

Art Time – Fun with Paint Dough

We’ve been trying to fit a mama-directed open-ended art project in each week.  This week we made “paint dough”.  The recipe for this was from one of the books I’ve mentioned in previous posts – Preschool Art, by MaryAnn Kohl, a book very well worth getting!: 

To make this special kind of paint, mix together equal parts of flour, salt, and water.  I used about 1 cup of each to make about 2/3 a bottle of 5 different colors (you can see our bottles below, I think they each hold about 2 oz.).  After mixing you should have something that looks like this:   Add a tablespoon of tempera paint in various colors (divide the mixture into separate bowls before adding the color), and mix in.  You could use a few drops of food coloring too, if you’d rather.  Use a funnel to fill squeeze bottles with the paint.  Because I know I’ll get questions about where we bought our squeeze bottles, here’s the link. :)

The neat thing about this “paint dough” is that it’s runny, but the colors just bump up against each other and don’t mix together.  You could swirl them with a toothpick or skewer for a really neat effect!  It also creates texture because it is so thick.  Not quite like puffy paint, but very similar.  Thick, yet runny… a very interesting combination!

Use heavy cardboard or something similar for painting on.  We ran out of cardboard and started using cardstock, which was not a thick enough surface and some of the paint soaked through.  It’s a very heavy, wet paint, so a layer of newspaper underneath is a good idea too.

M was fascinated with this this paint.  I have to admit, I was pretty fascinated myself, and spent a little time just playing around with it and having fun. :)

He squeezed and painted and immensely enjoyed himself until every last drop of paint was gone.We had oodles of paint dough creations.  Here’s a few samples of how it looks:

A van on a colored road

     A tree

 A lion, with a green smile :)

Once the paint was all used up M begged for more, but I had used up all our salt and couldn’t make anymore that day.  However, this is definitely on our do again list! 

I should mention that this paint dough takes a while to dry – ours took two whole days for the pieces that had pretty large puddles on them, but only overnight for the pieces with simple lines.  Next time I’ll adjust the tips of our squeeze bottles (they are the glue kind) so they don’t allow quite so much to come out at a time.  All in all, it was a definite success and clean up was minimal for the amount of time it kept M happily occupied!

Have a beautiful day! :)