Giggles

We are going through names of body parts with Blueberry. I ask her where her elbow is, she sticks her arm out straight, looks at it and says "uh oh!" with furrowed brow. There is a pause, she bends her arm then she goes "heh, there it is!"

Homeschool: Preschool

These are some of the activities we did last week:

-- Reading: Abbie's Book of Shapes, Cookie's Book of Numbers, Muppet Nursery Rhymes ABCs, Curious George's First Words at the Zoo and First Words at the Farm.

-- Coloring with washable markers, Frog and bee pictures. We spelled her name many times.

-- Traced shapes. www.preschoolmath.info

-- Apple Color Matching File Folder Game

-- Shape Matching File Folder Game (made my own)

-- Colored Halloween Pumpkin and Cat pictures to decorate the front window.

-- We sang and danced to children's songs

-- Did patterns with Nonna with the chalk outside. Nonna makes patterns and Blueberry continues them.

-- Playing blocks with Daddy is becoming a daily routine. They talk about the letters and colors on the blocks.

-- Health: We incorporated fluoride-free toothpaste in the pre-bed routine. Blueberry loves brushing her teeth every night and yells "yay!" as we run down the hall to the bathroom when I say it is time to brush our teeth.

-- C is for Caterpillar with the numbers 1-9

Homeschool Log: Preschool

We are starting a new nap schedule today so I was trying to keep her busy so I could put her down later today. For the last week or two Blueberry has been able to go down at her usual nap time but refusing to take an afternoon nap, indicating that she might be transitioning to one nap. However, the first nap is not lasting her until bedtime, so we end up putting her down earlier which makes her a very early riser (before the sun). SOooooo.... We're trying the noon nap. I kept her up until after lunch then she slept for three hours and it worked out perfect. We are truly blessed with how well she sleeps and how easy her needs are to read.

-- We colored fish pictures. She loves "ish"!

-- Butterfly Numbers Practice. I have this printed out, laminated and on a ring like a flip book. She doesn't trace them yet, but we flip through them and I sing through the numbers 1-10, then backwards like a song we heard on Sesame Street. She asked me to repeat this many times, then she wanted to flip the book for me to sing. It was a fun game.

-- I wrote the Alphabet on paper with a crayon as I sang the Alphabet song. She wanted me to repeat the song many times. We went through it once where she repeated the letter back to me after I said it. She is starting to recognize some letters, though not consistently.

-- Sang the Stegosaurus song. She has been favoring the dinosaur toys in the last few days.

-- When we played with blocks I pointed out the letters.

-- I let her watercolor paint while I washed dishes.

Daddy Time

Homeschool Log: Preschool

-- Apple Color Matching File Folder Game. Blueberry did this three times, asking to do it "more", and her matching was more precise each time. There are several shades of each color and I was impressed by her distinction between shades. We talked about the names of the colors but she did not need my help differentiating. I did not tell her it was wrong if she put green on the wrong shade of green, for instance. She would correct herself if she put it on not-quite-the-right color.

--We made a Fall Tree by gluing leaf shapes on a

construction paper tree. I drew lines for the tree trunk and cut the top part out of green construction paper. The leaf cutouts were using a leaf-shaped punch from the craft store. Blueberry learned the word "leaf" and "tree" and I told her that in the fall the leaves fall off the tree like we see outside. Blueberry glued some leaves on individually and then we put a lot of glue all over the tree and ground and let her sprinkle the leaves on the paper. We shook off the ones that didn't stick and then sprinkled them on again. She loved doing this over and over.

Homeschool Log: Library Day

Today our big thing was going to the Library. Didn't make it to story time because it has been moved inconveniently to her regular nap time. They have drastically cut library hours this fall and it is amazing that we can make it there at all. I'm not really sure if she has the attention span for story time, but one of these days we will try it out.

Blueberry was not very interested in the books today, but we went and she saw many other children reading while we were there. I think the exposure is something meaningful. There is a dollhouse and some blocks in the children's area that I let her play with for a while. She pointed to many things and either said their name or asked me what they were. She said "book" a lot, there was a big stuffed Flounder (from the Little Mermaid) and she said "fish" and gave it a "hug". She often says "hug" when she gives one. There was a Mother Goose riding a Goose hanging from the ceiling and she pointed to it and said "duck" and I said "it is like a duck, only it is a goose" and she repeated "goose". There was a giant bee and she ran up to it and pointed and said "yellow" and I confirmed that it was yellow and told her it was a bee.

I think she had a great time. On the way out I picked up the books I had reserved (great system for busy moms) and we checked out.

Homeschool Log: Preschool

1) We are doing B is for Butterfly these two weeks. This is a construction paper butterfly. I cut out the shapes and she glues them on her butterfly. We talk about the colors and shapes that we are gluing on. We have white circles, yellow squares, purple hearts and blue triangles.

2) Great Grandpa John and Great Grandma Judy sent Rachel some

Fall stickers so I gave her some cardstock and let her put the stickers on each card however she wanted. We talked about the name of each picture as she put it on the card. There were many different animals, fall vegetables, sunflowers, leaves and acorns. She is good at and likes to repeat words after me. She picks them up really fast.