The letters L, T, & H

  

We are entering into our third week of our new preschool adventure, and so far, I have to say, I'm pretty pleased with our progress!   We've started many a things in our days at home, but none have been so consistently successful, and the only thing I can credit is Evie's eagerness to learn!  She keeps me motivated to keep preparing and printed and getting ready for the next day's work.

We've been pretty flexible with our "school", we almost always get some done on Monday, but the other days that we hit it in the week depend on our family's schedule and the weather.  If it is sunny, we usually try to be out and about, so we save a lot of our paperwork/puzzles/crafts for the rainy days that we are stuck inside, and since we know we still have lots of rain coming, we've been utilizing our "school" papers on those days.

The first week we followed  1+1+1 blog's 1st week of preschool curriculum . I love the way that she decided to take her son through the alphabet and teach him his letters, and so we will be following in the same order.  The letters make sense, the writing concepts build on one another, and since I'm not looking to reinvent the whole preschool thing, just take my kiddo through it, her tried and true method worked GREAT for us!

Here she is completing her missing "L"'s.

The first week our letter was Ll, our number was 1, our sight word was "see" and our verse/Bible lesson was "letting our light shine".  Evie was LESS than thrilled to be doing the letter L.  When I excitedly presented her with what she would be learning, she went and got a piece of paper wrote a big "L", a little "l" and a "1" and said, "I know how to do that already mom." Well, okay then.

But, she was game for doing her "papers", and she's always asking to "play school" so she seemed to go along with it to humor me.

We also have the challenge of having a little brother in our preschool mix.  I'm still trying to find the right balance for our family's day and timeline to do school.... When Chet is awake it is impossible for me to give Evie my full attention and take her through a task and actually teach her- so I'm learning to have things for her to do that are learning, but that aren't necessarily new learning.  And, I've been pleasantly surprised with Chet's interest in our activities and planning little things for him to do with us each day, and starting up Tot School with him!  He is enjoying many of the activities I have left over from things Evie and I did at around 2 years old, and he's really surprising me with his level of knowledge--- he's not very verbal so he fools me.  I want to think of him as more of a "baby" than he really is, and he's SUPER smart and capable and showing me so!   He's sharp.  He really does notice a lot and he learns fast.  He just has to want to.  (My stubborn little man!).

Here he is doing some Word World matching cards that I had originally made for Evie, but ended up giving to him to do and he did great!

Sister is teaching him!  (She's so sweet when she explains to him, and she does a great job!)

Focusing hard, looking for the match...

There it is!

All tired out from so much learning, nap time!

The next week (the letter Tt, the number 2) we sort of had a repeat in Evie's enthusiasm for the content of her lessons.   She repeated the "I know T, I know 2" act and showed me that she did indeed, have both down.   Our Bible lesson was "thou shall not steal" and that didn't take long to learn so... We had a busy week and we weren't as diligent in our lessons as often as I would have liked, but all that was needed to be completed was completed.  And apparently my camera was never grabbed, so these were snapped with my cell:

PE?  Just kidding.  Evie on my stepper :)

Working at her "desk" on our room

We are I am trying something every Wednesday... Wacky Wednesdays!   I've dubbed them that because I am trying to do something out of MY comfort zone and that takes me away from MY choices and focuses on something that they would really like to do... this includes finger painting, rice play, play dough, cooking with them, and anything else that is potentially complete chaos.  They need to be exposed to these sorts of things, and I need to suck it up and just BE with them, so Wacky Wednesdays it is!  I am doing it on Wednesdays because typically by that point in the week the majority of my deep cleaning and distractions are taken care of for the week, and I can sit with them and BE.  So I am.  Sitting.  Just being.  (Confession: It's terribly hard for me to do so.)   These are a couple of snapshots taken with my cell of our playdough with cookie cutters activity:

This week's letter was the letter "Hh", the number 3, the sight word "and" and the verse is "Honor your father and your mother".  We started this unit to today and Evie was much more excited than the previous two weeks!  I went to an additional website for some more content, Confessions of a Homeschooler.  She has a whole "letter of the week" curriculum and many great printables, that are all FREE.  So we are/and will be utilizing both sites to make a custom made curriculum for Evie's (and then Chet's) at home preschool journey.

Our learning board

Evie dominating this game that I had printed for her in 20 seconds.. Sigh.

Doing her "dots" on her letter of the week- this was a HUGE hit and will be done each week!

Adding the missing "Hs"

Chet working hard on a number puzzle.

So, here's where we are!  I've wanted to update several times, and I was actually hoping to update each week with our learning, rather than blast three letters/weeks through at a time.  But, what happens happens I guess!  :)

Blessings to you and yours,
Brooke & Fam