A Bit of This and a Bit of That

Well, last week we did a Whole Lot of Nothing, and this week we did a bit of everything. It was a very eclectic week, but we're starting to get back on track around here after a week of sickness. We had fun with the letter V along with other activities this week. AND...we FINALLY have ink in our printer, which makes planning much easier!

Reading

Since Lexy has learned to identify all the letters (upper and lowercase) and knows the sounds they make, I've decided to move forward with reading. I'm taking this VERY slowly and only doing as much as Lexy seems interested in. We found and printed some great site word activities here. I was also given a bunch of used homeschool materials. A Beka's Handbook for Reading was included. We started going through these lessons, and Lexy really enjoys it. She wants to learn to read. For now, I'm keeping these lessons very short. I don't want her to get bored or frustrated. So, we stop before she's ready to stop...an idea that I got from Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns.





Letter V Activities

A few things we did for the letter v - read First Steps to Reading Little V, did a letter craft (made violets out of tissue paper), brainstormed words that start with v, and played with Josiah's new Vet's office! They had TONS of fun painting with vehicles. We used brown paint to look like mud, and I poorly drew some roads on poster board. They painted with the vehicles. Then, Lexy added stop sign. Afterwards, Josiah was covered in paint and had to take a bath. We put all the vehicles in the bathtub, and they gave them carwashes! Fun! We also did a spontaneous, mini science activity that Lexy came up with on her own. She rolled vehicles on the tile floor in the kitchen and then on the carpet in the living room. She said that it didn't roll as far on the carpet because it is soft and the tile is hard.





Bible

This week's Bible story was on the Prodigal son. Alex planned several cute crafts and games to do with them. We spent this week reviewing previous memory verses rather than adding a new one.

After our morning devotion and breakfast, I've started putting on the Singing Bible. While I clean up the kitchen from breakfast and throw in a load of laundry, the kids listen to it as they play. Lexy's favorite part is about the birth of Jesus. She and Josiah danced around and pretended to be Mary and Joseph, or maybe Josiah was a sheep...??? I really like the Singing Bible. It covers the Bible from Genesis to Revelation through songs with a narrator in between. Highly recommended!



Writing

Lexy is coming along with her writing, but we still have grip issues. We practiced writing the letter v. She also wanted to write a lot of names of people she knows. As I was washing dishes, she would ask me how to spell the name of someone she knew. I would tell her, and she would write it. I was really able to see what letters she wrote well and which she struggled with. She tends to write primarily in uppercase, except for her name which is a mixture of both.

Science/Math

Fortunately, both of Lexy's magazine subscribtions came this week which made planning easier on me. We took one afternoon and did her "Big Backyard" magazine. She wanted to do the whole thing and every activity in it.

She counted out 25 steps to see how far a kangaroo jumps. Then we took turns jumping to compare our jumps with the kangaroos.

We also played a game out of High Five. We practiced ordinal numbers.

We played a game of Go Fish. I'm needing to make my own version of this game so that we can practice higher numbers.

We made our own beaver snack and talked about shapes. My own little eager beaver got ahead of me, so we didn't cut the head into a circle or add triangle ears.



She made a triangle collage. She drew her own triangles by connecting 3 dots. Then she cut them out and created a collage.



We also played with popsicle sticks again, but she wasn't as into it this time.

Life School

Besides helping in the kitchen, Lexy helped me match 3 loads worth of socks.



Library Class

This week in Lexy's preschool storytime, they read and did activities revolving around denistry. She made a letter d necklace, picked cavaties out of playdough teeth with tweezers (cute idea, but realistically you can't pick out cavaties). They cut smiles out of magazines. Then on the magnetic wall they sorted teeth by the number of cavities found. She also sorted foods into 2 groups - good for your teeth or bad for your teeth.









Girls' Night

Daddy went to a late IU game one night. Since Lexy had taken a late nap, and I knew she'd have a hard time going to sleep anyways, we had a girls' night. After putting Josiah to bed, we made hot chocolate and popcorn and watched movies in Mommy's bed. Of course, she picked Madeline. As the picture shows, she had her Madeline doll with her. I couldn't get her to take her eyes off of the movie to take a picture. She LOVES Madeline. She's been picking up on lots of French words through the movie, books, ballet, and her Madeline doll that speaks French.



For some great ideas to do with your preschooler, be sure to check out the Preschool Corner!