We Made It!!!

We FINALLY made it to the end of the alphabet! Lexy never seemed to mind, but I was getting a little tired of the letter themes. I went ahead and did letters Y and Z this week so that we could finish up. I am very excited about moving on to new things! We get to start our 12 days of Easter next week (Thursday - can you believe Easter is coming up so quickly?). Last year was our first year for doing this, and the kids really enjoyed it. I've got a lot planned for it this year. I'm hoping to post each day what we do, so check back often.

Our New Schedule

We started doing our "school time" a little differently this week, and it worked out great! I plan on doing a more detailed post about our schedule and schedule magnets soon. Basically, after our breakfast/calendar/devotion time in the morning, we do a fun (sometimes messy) activity that can include both kids. Josiah isn't much into anything crafty (painting, playdough, etc). So trying to come up with something that they both enjoy can be challenging. Then we spend the rest of the morning playing...whatever they want to do. I have the centers set up in the schoolroom. They've been choosing to do them a lot, but if not that's fine. The weather has been great, so we've spent a lot of time outside. They also love "make-believe" world. Most of the morning is spent there. I do my best to enter that land with them...sometimes I find it hard.

After lunch, Josiah takes a nap. Lexy has given up naps for the most part (there are occassional days when she still needs one). So, we use the first hour of his naptime as a quite school time for us. I've started turning on some light classical music while we have this time together. I can't believe the difference it has made in the atmosphere. We work on writing, math, learning games, phonics, science, geography, etc (not all in one day!). Or, some days we'll spend coloring and drawing pictures together. Also during this time, we have our own little devotion time together. We spend 10 minutes on the couch reading our own Bibles and praying. Sometims Lexy reads hers, and sometimes she just watches me. After 10 minutes, I let her pick something from her Bible that she'd like me to read to her. All of this usually takes about an hour. During the 2nd hour of Josiah's nap, Lexy has her own quite time in her room...and I get my much needed quite time!

Letters Y and Z

I wasn't very creative this week with our letter activities. We did all of our regular activities: read "first steps to reading," brainstormed words that start with each letter (Lexy is getting really good at this!), and practiced writing the letters.

I printed off Letter Y and Z handwriting sheets from Home Grown Hearts. I laminated them, because dry erase markers seem to make everything more fun! Lexy loves using these minature "re-writables." They have their own little eraser attached to each marker. Lexy has been getting sloppy with writing her name. Notice in this picture that she wrote it backwards and didn't put much effort into her letters. I know that she can write it better, but just doesn't seem interested lately. She did a great job of tracing "Y is for Yarn" and the letters.

We also worked on filling in space and staying in lines while coloring this hidden "y" picture sheet.

Lexy still enjoys looking for letters in nature and around the house. I've tried to take pictures as she points them out. I want to print them all off and create an alphabet book out of them once she has found all the letters. Today, she discovered that her scissors create an "x." To see my original post about this click here.

We're still having grip issues. I gave in this week and broke her crayons into tiny pieces to help with the grip. I hate broken crayons, so this was hard for me. However, she was holding them correctly!

St. Patrick's Day Activities

Each day, we talked about a different aspect of St. Patrick's day, and they did a craft. When we talked about different St. Patrick's Day traditions, Lexy was horrified that people pinch you for not wearing green. When I told her this on Monday, she quickly decided that she didn't like St. Patrick's Day! We tried to have fun anyway. Even Josiah (my anti-crafter) joined in on the crafts this week! We also enjoyed the St. Patrick's Day parade!

Lexy also added a St. Patrick's Day story to her story notebook. I printed it from here. She added the missing words and illustrated it. It is titled, "The Leprechaun's Walk." She had fun walking the leprechaun on the popsicle stick through the story!

Outside Fun!

We enjoyed the long-awaited nice weather this week by riding bikes and picnicing at the park!

We are looking forward to some more outside fun this weekend as we take a weekend trip to Mama and Papa's cabin!

Bible

I am now posting our Bible time in separate posts and linking up to Raising Rock Stars. Check back on Tuesdays to see all of the creative ideas my husband is coming up with!

To find some great ideas to do with your preschooler, check out the Preschool Corner every Friday!

Letters in Nature (and anywhere else)

Well, obviously I have lowered my expectations on how often to add updates to the blog. I have kept record of what we've been doing in a binder and have been saving the kids' work, but I can't seem to find the time that I want to post pictures and updates. I have found some amazing blogs out there of other families that have chosen to homeschool preschool. They post pictures, ideas, and links galore. How they find the time...I wish I knew. But for now, this is what it is...someday maybe it'll be more.

Peaknuckle loves to point out letters everywhere that she sees them. Over the weekend, we took a trip to the cabin in Brown County. She began pointing out letters as she saw them in nature. I decided to take pictures of the letters that she found and make them into our own "Letters in Nature Book." Well, we didn't find all 26 letters. So, as she finds them other places, we will continue taking pictures until we have all the letters for our book. It has been a fun game to play. All the letters will not be in "nature" so I need a new name for our book. Feel free to make suggestions. I'll post an update when we get this accomplished. Don't hold your breath, it may be a while.

Letter Y - notice the small y in her hand and the large y leaning against the tree




Letter A - the ladder was left there by the men of the family as they were putting up siding




Letter O - I thought this was pretty clever!




Letter W - anyone know what kind of leaf this is?




Letter T - no we didn't create this. It was there from the siding project.




Letter X - the extra wood around the yard helped.




Letter little i: notice the indent in the tree. There is also a small circle above it. It's hard to tell from the picture.


Letter V: Sitting in it




Letter H: turn your head. Not in nature, but on the rug in the cabin.


We do have doubles of a few letters. Letter O and Y were pretty popular. We're having fun with our little game. Keep your eyes open, you will see letters everywhere!