Homeschool–“Blueberries for Sal”

-Abigail is 2.5 years old-

- Adam is 4.75 years old -

We survived our first week of home preschool and tot school!  It went pretty much as expected….lots of juggling and plate-spinning for me.  But we had fun and the kids absolutely loved it!  They asked, and asked, and asked, every morning when we would start school.  And if the baby needed to be fed or I just wasn’t ready at the time I had told them we would start, woo-wee…I heard about it!

Our theme this week was the book Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey.  Using the resources from Before Five in a Row, Homeschool Share, and Homeschool Creations, we did a bunch of fun little activities.  We also read McCloskey’s Make Way for Ducklings which I love!  I pointed out that the illustrations in “Blueberries” are done with blue ink and the ones in “Ducklings” are done with brown.  I don’t think Adam cared.  But I thought it was interesting!

Abby counted blueberries on a “math mat”.

And Adam did some addition on his “math mat”.

Pre-writing practice tracing lines.

I quizzed Abby on her uppercase letters and she correctly identified the lower group and missed F, K, I, U, W, V, and M.
(Notice my mistake?  There are 27 letters there!  It took me so long starting at this picture to figure out that I somehow got a lowercase y in there!)

Adam working on a puzzle.
This was a little tricky for him.  The picture had thin lines in a grid pattern, so we carefully looked at each square, talked about what we saw, (half white, half black or a lot of green, and a little black, etc.) and then found the matching piece to add to the puzzle.

Making a “directional word” book.
Each page read, “Little Bear is _____ the ______ and they glued Little Bear in the appropriate place.  Well, Adam did.  Abby glued wherever she wanted to!

Adam “reading” me his book!

 

 

Rhyming Word Match

Blue Ink Drawings
Robert McCloskey illustrated Blueberries for Sal using just blue ink so the kids drew pictures with a blue pen.
Adam drew a “fixing machine” with blueberries, a tic-tac-toe board in the left corner and a “twisty part of the machine” called “The Toyota” on the right.  Abby drew a crocodile.

Painting Blueberries
We used pom-poms and blue and purple paint to make blueberry prints.

 

One thing I’m really excited about doing is narration.  I’m hoping to have Adam narrate 1 book a week to me.  His narration of Blueberries for Sal is as follows:

What happened in the story?

“Well, before the end of the story, they got all messed up.
Sal’s mother and Little Sal were picking blueberries.
Bears came and ate some that Little Sal and her mother were gonna pick.
They were picking blueberries and Sal accidentally picked blueberries out her mother’s pail.”

 

(I asked) What happened when they got mixed up?

“They looked behind them and saw that it was not their child.
Sal’s mother was picking blueberries all the way to the car.”

 

My most favorite part of the book was:

“My most favorite part when they were going to the car and picking blueberries for the winter.”

Blueberries sounding “kuplink, kuplank, kuplunk” just like in the story!

I had the great idea to toss some blueberries out in the grass and have the kids “pick” them.  As soon as we got outside, there were huge claps of thunder which sent the kids screaming for cover!  This picture cracks me up.  I’m standing outside, holding a pail in my hand, while my kids are screaming at me from the doorway to come inside so the thunder doesn’t get me.  Mind you, it wasn’t even raining!

So I sat in the grass and picked blueberries by myself.

A fun project we did was making homemade, berry-scented play  dough!  I used a Kool-Aid packet to color and lightly scent the dough.

Rolling balls into “blueberries”


The pail of “blueberries”complete with star and seahorse “cookies”!

We also made Lemon Blueberry Breakfast cake but I forgot to take pictures.  They love helping me in the kitchen and I’m working on embracing the “help” and enjoying the slower, messier process of cooking with kids!

In addition to our theme, Adam started his math and handwriting curriculums and continued with his reading lessons.  (I only took pictures of math).

Here is he working in his math workbook.  This week he used the one’s blocks to count and cross out the incorrect number and trace the correct one.
 

He also counted pictures and circled the correct number on the number line.  This is a breeze for him, but that’s exactly what I want right now.  I don’t want to force my 4 year old to do math that frustrates him!  There will be plenty of time for that in life!

Here’s a picture of the kids playing with the Math-U-See blocks for the first time.

It was a good first week of homeschool!  I’m linking up to Tot School and Preschool Corner.

Preschool at Home!

Or, in our case, START SCHOOL!

I posted this post almost exactly a year ago.  At the time, I either didn’t know yet, or had just found out I was pregnant with baby #3, (I can’t remember!).  I was in la-la land with my expectations of what I could accomplish while dealing with morning sickness, exhaustion, heartburn, more exhaustion, the uncomfortableness of a big belly, and exhaustion that comes with pregnancy and caring for 2 small children.  We did exactly 1 week of preschool.  Letter L for Ladybug.  We had fun.  But I just couldn’t do it after that. 

So here we are, one year later and I’m determined to make it work this time!  Caleb is almost 4 months old and is sleeping a solid 7-8 hours at night, so I’m feeling more like myself than I have in a year!  Not to mention that we are all going crazy with lack of a routine and constructive things to fill our days.  I’m hoping that preschool and Tot School for Abby will actually make things easier around here.

I’m going to copy and paste a lot of what I wrote last year because a lot of it is staying the same.  The difference is that I’m going to be more relaxed and less structured with the actives that go along with the themes.  Rather than planning which activities to do on which days, I’m just going to fill bins with things to do and let them choose what and when to do them.  Abby is actually going to use a lot of what I had planned for Adam last year, and Adam is getting more advanced work.

We start tomorrow, August 6th!  We are going to start our school time with Circle Time which the kids have really enjoyed in the past.  Then, I’m thinking we’ll probably just spend 30-60 minutes doing activities or art together and, if Abby and Caleb allow, I’m hoping to get either math or handwriting done with Adam.  Then, in the afternoon when the littles are napping, Adam and I will do a reading lesson together before he heads off to quiet time.  When I think about it like that, I can handle 90 minutes of “school” a day!  Especially because most of it is just playing around and reading!

My 3 main goals for Adam this year are learning to read, learning to write, and beginning math skills.

READING

All About Reading Level Pre-1

I’m very excited about our reading program!  We’ve been using All About Reading Level Pre-1 since January and we both love it!  We took a long break when I was on hospital bed rest and then after Caleb was born, but we’ve been doing a few lessons here and there lately and Adam begs for it every day!  We’re about 1/3 of the way through and even in just the past 6 months, Adam has grown so much and we’ll be ready to move right into Level 1 as soon as we finish this level. 

In addition to reading lessons, we’re going to be reading together a lot!  I’ve read the books Read for the Heart: Whole Books for Whole-Hearted Families and The Read-Aloud Handbook and I’m excited to read longer picture books and then short chapter books to Adam.  I’m putting together a train chart to record every book we read for our read-aloud time so we can see just how much we’re reading together!

Adam has also been playing Reading Eggs online.  I got an awesome deal on a yearly membership and he has actually learned how to sight read a bunch of words!

HANDWRITING

Handwriting Without Tears: Get Set For School Pre-K

I am so excited about this program! It’s very hands on and we’ll rotate whether he makes letters with play-doh, uses the Stamp & See Screen (magna-doodle), uses wet sponges and/or chalk on a slate, or practices writing in sand, pudding, shaving cream, etc.  Last year the plan was to do one letter each week, corresponding to the Letter of the Week.  This year, we are just going to work through it from start to finish.  I’m thinking twice a week.  In the past few months, Adam has learned how to write his name and is finally showing a real interest in writing!

MATH

Math-U-See Primer

I’ve been researching homeschooling for a long time now.  One of the things I enjoy is researching different educational philosophies and curriculums.  For Math, the one I have been drawn to over and over again is Math-U-See.  It uses manipulative blocks to teach the physical nature of numbers and math.

As a math-a-phobic (yeah, I made that up…..much like "uncomfortableness” above), I’m hoping my children inherit their Dad’s ease of understanding.  The Math-U-See Primer level is an easy introduction to numbers, place value, and simple addition and subtraction.  Like handwriting, we’re just going to work through this at his own pace, aiming to work on it 2-3 times a week.

 

WEEKLY THEME

Letter of the Week Preschool and K4 Curriculums by Erica at Confessions of a Homeschooler.

Abby will be able to do a lot of the Letter of the Week activities and Adam will be do the more advanced things as well as activities from the K4 curriculum. 

To go along with the letter theme of the week, we will read the corresponding book from,
AlphaTales Box Set: A Set of 26 Irresistible Animal That Build Phonemic Awareness and Teach Each Letter of the Alphabet



We will also read the corresponding poem from the e-book ABC Poem of the Week from Scholastic Teaching Resources.

I have planned a few weeks throughout the year to take a break from Letter of the Week and do a fun Preschool Pack by Jolanthe at Homeschool Creations and Carisa at 1+1+1=1 or to re-do the Before Five in a Row book units that I did with Adam when he was Abby’s age.

Last year I wrote about incorporating Spanish…..I’m giving myself a break here in an effort to simplify!

So there you have it.  Our preschool at home plan!  Juggling a preschooler, toddler, and baby isn’t going to easy but that’s already my life anyway!  

Adam cannot wait to get started….and neither can I!

Cute Caleb

Random pictures of baby Caleb over the past couple of weeks.

Daddy is out of camera view making this boy light up!

He’s my chubbiest baby I think.  I could just eat those cheeks!

Tummy Time!

He just adores his big brother!  And Adam loves to make him smile and coo!

Snoozing with Daddy.  I swear all my babies look so much alike when they are asleep.

Daddy’s favorite shirt:  Chick Magnet!
Caleb at 3.5 months old.

And here’s Adam at 4.5 months old.
Sometimes when I look at Caleb I see Adam.  But then when I look back at pictures of Adam as a baby, they really don’t look alike at all!  Siblings, yes, but Caleb definitely looks like his own little person and not a clone of his older siblings.

I love babies in their undies!

More Tummy Time
 

Caleb is quickly approaching 4 months old and I’m looking forward to having him weighed and measured.  He’s easily fitting into 3-6 month clothes and his 3-6 month onesies are already getting small!

Swimming Lessons

Wow, I’m horrible at blogging lately!  I just can’t ever seem to get to it when I have a bazillion other things I should or could do.  The main thing being planning preschool for Adam….I’ll post more about that next week when we start!

Adam took swimming lessons a few weeks ago.  He has been in lessons every summer since he was 6 months old.  However, you wouldn’t know it!  He’s my timid guy so every year it takes him almost the entire session of lessons to be able to go in the deep end without ripping his teacher’s arms off.  I think next year, when he’s 5 1/2 years old, I’ll be a little more adamant in his actually learning how to swim.  So far, it’s all about fun and exposure.  Which leads me to Abby.  I did parent and tot classes with her every Saturday in July.  She did ok the first 2 weeks, Nat took her the 3rd week and said she cried the whole time.  I took her the 4th and final week and she SCREAMED until I gave up and took her out.  Maybe Caleb will be my water baby??  I’m sure it doesn’t help that we haven’t taken the kids “fun swimming” at all this year.  That’s what a newborn will do to you I guess.

Anyway…..on to pictures of Adam’s swimming lessons!  (I did not get any pictures of Abby for obvious reasons, I was in the pool!)

The swim school strongly suggested goggles.  Despite the fact that they left big red marks on his face, he loved his cool goggles!

On the last day of class he made some major improvements!  Here he is floating on his back with just a little support from his teacher.

His little preschool class.

Nat was out of town on the last 2 days of class so I had to cart the 2 other kids with me.  Of course when I was taking pictures of Adam, Abby required me to take about 50 pictures of her and her “friends”.

Mr. Caleb was pretty good, despite it being a chilly one day.  He kept busy by chatting with his cow buddy.