Closing the Case for Nature Detectives

We finished our Nature Detectives theme this week.  Miss M and Littlest really seemed to enjoy exploring trees, water, air and dirt.  In addition to the calendar, reading stories, counting blocks
and singing songs we did some fun learning activities on Monday and Wednesday.

The kids love the theme posters and cluster around looking for things with their laminated magnifying glasses.  I think it would be fun to make our own poster as the month goes by, drawing or cutting out pictures that relate to the theme we are studying.  It's a great language activity and one they seem to enjoy.

One of the activities included burying letters in dirt or sand and then digging them up and identifying them.  I decided it was okay if they got a little dirty and we actually attempted this as written in my sandbox/planter but as luck would have it, it was quite windy and kept blowing the sand in their eyes so we stopped after a few minutes, even though they were really enjoying the treasure hunt for letters.

We were supposed to draw in sand or dirt but I had the genius idea (insert sarcasm) to use flour instead because for some reason I thought that would be easier to clean up (it's not).  At least the kids loved tracing the shapes in the flour and I know it would be a popular way to work on writing again.  I started this activity by tracing the shape myself and then having them trace my shape before patting the flour down (and up into the air, all over their clothes and faces...) and doing it themselves.  It seemed like a successful way to help them get the idea of making shapes other than spirals and circles.  Salt would have been a better medium to use since it's heavier than flour and would dust up so much.  I will do this again with Miss M and Littlest but not on a windy day, so we can take it outside.  I am also going to make a gel writing pad like this one, that they can use inside and on road trips.

The hedgehog art activity was fun, I let them roll the spiky ball in paint and then around a blank piece of paper while I painted their hands one at a time for the hedgehog.  They liked the sensory nature of this activity a lot and afterwards we watched a little kid's nature video about hedgehogs during snack to learn more about them.

The girls really liked the Mouse Maze activity, although Miss M needed a lot of direction to get started (she just wanted to draw a straight line from the mouse to his mommy).  They didn't know what mice ate so we watched another little video on mice (I'm started to love YouTube) in order to learn what they should draw on the pictures.

I was a little surprised by how much they enjoyed patterning with the cards.  They took turns making each pattern and repeating it out as far as they could.  At the library later, Miss M and I practiced some more with the blocks, using the different shapes.  I thought she was maybe a little too young but with as much fun as she had, I think we will be doing more of this.  I see colored pasta necklaces and patterned collages in our future.

The mushroom houses were adorable.  Since we only have an hour, there wasn't enough time to paint the tops and let them dry but they seemed fine with markers.  I kind of want to make some salt clay and create little critters for them.

That's it for July.  I am really excited for fables and folktales in August since I love stories and reading and want to pass that on to the girls.

Professionalism at Home

This month, we as Mother Goose Time bloggers, have been asked to think about professionalism in regards to how it applies to us personally.  Being a homeschool mom, I have a slightly different take on it than a childcare provider or preschool teacher using this curriculum.  For me, I bring professionalism into our home preschool in two ways:  being prepared and understanding the learning process at different age levels.

Being prepared is huge and it can be difficult at times.  It is tempting to just fly by the seat of my pants during lessons, opening the lesson book up to a page and just picking something.  However, I find when I take the time to read through the activities and gather my materials ahead of time, everything goes so much more smoothly.  Miss M is 2.5 and Littlest just turned 1; neither has a very long attention span at this point so if I want to keep their attention, I have to be prepared.  If I look down to read about the activity or go digging through the closet for the materials, they are off on their own adventures and bringing them back to school can be a fight.  That is not what I want for them or myself; I want them to want to engage in the activities so I need to have my stuff together ahead of time.

I find that reading through the lesson book the night before generally works pretty well, although ideally I'd like to be about a week ahead so I can purchase any materials I don't already have at home (this isn't very common since most of the materials are either provided or quite common).  During breakfast I gather all the materials we will need for my chosen activities and prep our circle time area.  After the girls are done with breakfast, they play while I clean up the kitchen (I can't concentrate with dirty trays and dishes sitting on the counter) and I make sure I give them several warnings that we will be having school when I'm done.  If they are in the middle of an imaginary scene when I finish, I let them play through it and then find that they willingly come into the living room for school.

Understanding child development and the learning process helps me know how much to present, what to expect of them and when I should back off and just let them play.  A lot of this information I learned in my undergraduate and graduate studies in speech language pathology and while working in the schools.  My husband and I took a child development/parenting class when I was expecting Miss and I try to read up on current studies.  A lot of it comes from Baby Center and similar sites right now because that's all the time I have but keeping current and following best practices reduces frustration on everyone's part.  I am working my way through "The Well Trained Mind" by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise and it has been quite helpful.  I'm not going to expect either girl to sit for ten minutes in a chair and practice copying the alphabet.  I can expect them to practice scribbling for a few minutes (maybe longer if I have lots of different supplies to choose from) and maybe work on circles and lines briefly, the precursors to writing.

Above all, I try to stay sensitive to their moods and their needs as really little children.  I know they will learn to read one day but they will never get to be little children again.  The main goal is to build a strong relationship with them, let them play and explore and present information that they may or may not absorb in that moment but will some day.

Here are some pictures from school this past Tuesday.  I let Miss M dictate the length of each activity based on her interest in it and it went really, really well.  Much better than when I decide we are ready to move to another activity.

This "washing" activity was very popular with both girls.  I took our dry erase crayons (if you want to get some, back to school sales are the best time to do that and they are starting now/soon) and wrote numbers on a page protector, then named a number and Miss M got to "wash" it off.  Littlest showed interest in it so I did the same for her but actually wrote her name on a piece of laminated paper.  She had a more difficult time cleaning it off (she wasn't push hard enough) and soon decided shredded the tissue was more fun so Miss M took over and named all the letters as she wiped them off.  I think this could be a fun and easy road trip activity.

Next we did a little sorting activity.  They were supposed to use the ladle to fish out a shape and then we'd talk about what it was.  That lasted two turns before they dumped everything on the carpet so instead of pushing the "rules" of the game, we adapted.  I picked a shape and then Miss M found all the shapes that were the same and the three of us put them in my slipper (it was handy and Littlest loves to put items into things).  Then we counted how many we had and started with a new shape.  They were both very engaged in the activity for over five minutes, until we finished sorting them all.

We also read the "I Wash" book that came with our materials.  I got through it one time before it was taken away so Miss M could read it "all herself", which was fine with me.

Lastly, we did a little mixing experiment with milk, food coloring and dish soap.  Unfortunately all of my food coloring was dried up except blue (a lesson in not being as prepared as I should have been) but Miss M didn't seem to mind.  She got too excited both times and would just stick the q-tip with dish soap right in the blue instead of in the middle the bowl like you were "supposed to" but we still had a fun time watching the dye scatter through the milk.  She loved mixing it thoroughly but I had to put a stop to it when it became a hand printing session on the table and floor.

So that's what being a "professional" homeschool mom looks like to me.

Exploring Air and Water

We are getting caught up on our school units.  There are so many fun activities, it's hard not to do them all but I had to do some picking and choosing this week since we also had to shopping,  cleaning and other necessary things around the house.

On Saturday Miss M and Littlest needed something to do so I slightly adapted another art project from our lesson book from the tree week.  I taped off a tree shape onto a piece of paper and let Miss M paint the whole paper, then peeled it off when it was dry.  It's somewhat noticeable.  Littlest was given crayons but really wanted to paint like her sister so she managed to dip the crayon in the paint and use it to stamp her paper.  She was actually pretty careful with it, not trying to decorate the wall, table or herself, so I stood nearby while she had fun.  Miss M thought that was pretty neat and started doing it, too.  I am working on controlling that part of me that wants to make sure everything happens the way it "should" and let things happens the way they will (within reason, of course).

On Monday we had a great time with our friends learning about air and the fun things it can do.  This month's theme poster is a big hit with all the kids, they love looking for new things during circle time.  We looked for things that float, fly and make colors in the air.  We talked about hot air balloons (one of friends got to go up in one in June during our town's annual festival) and made the adorable craft.  During snack I found a Mr. Wizard clip on YouTube that teaches about hot air balloons so we watched that.  The kids were mesmerized.

The feathers were fun, the kids waved them in the air to feel the way the air moved and then we had feather races, blowing them across the floor.  They were a little giddy and took off, pretending to be birds or I would have contrasted how the feathers moved with trying to blow on something heavier.  

Our last "structured" activity was coloring rainbows.  I showed them the daily poster with the rainbow picture and we talked about the recent rainbow that had appeared in our neighborhood during the last rainstorm.  The kids could name the colors and kind of tried to follow the pattern for their coloring pages but Miss M especially liked using whatever colors suited her fancy.

This morning found us friendless (due to other plans, not because they no longer like us) so we did some school with just the three of us.  I had planned a lot of different activities from the water week but the Puddle Jumping activity proved to be quite fun and then we modified it a bit so that was the only one we got to today.  Miss M liked seeing how far she could jump and then counting her steps to see if she could jump as far as Mommy.  When it got too hot to hop outside, we brought the puddle pieces inside and I made a trail of letters from the start to the finish.  Miss M hopped from one letter to another until she reached the end, naming them as she went.  Another modification could be to make more puddle pieces, number them on one side and put letters on the back.  Kiddos have to hop from puddle to puddle in order and then identify the letter on the back before hopping to the next one.  I think we might try this tomorrow, since we are starting potty training and will be housebound for several days with hours and hours of time to fill close to the powder room.  I really want to do the Eyedropper Art project (dripping watery paint down an umbrella cut out) and hope that Miss M will be amenable to it tomorrow (she just wanted to hop today).  I'll post the finished product if I can get her to do it.

Into The Woods

We are back from our first camping trip with the girls and I am thankful to say it was much more successful than anticipated.  We were terrified that no one was going to sleep the whole time, and while it was harder to get them to bed at a normal bedtime, both girls slept fairly well.  I definitely recommend a big tent that allows for room to walk around and stand up fully, especially in the middle of the night.  This may be an experience we repeat in the future.

Our Mother Goose Time music came in handy on the twelve hour drive, although I have had the words to the ABC Soup song stuck on repeat in my head for nearly a week now.

We camped with my family, including my five year old nephew, who asked if we could have preschool.  I had brought up a few activities from the first week of July's "Nature Detectives" theme for that exact purpose and it turned out to be a great idea.  We read the book that came with the theme this month, "Get Close to Nature!".  Miss M was passively interested and wandered around collecting rocks while I read but my nature-loving nephew was enthralled and loved learning lots of new facts as well as connecting information he already knew about the creature or plant on each page.

Miss M enjoyed wandering around with the magnifying glass, looking at leaves, sticks and rocks.  Now that I'm thinking about it, I hope it made it back into my bag...

We  collected sticks to make huts for the numerous chipmunks in the campground and then made pinecone feeders for them with peanut butter and seeds.  They were originally supposed to be for birds but the closest branches were still 30 feet off the ground so we tied them to some shrubs.  They provided hours of entertainment for the kids and adults alike.  There were at least two regulars who were dubbed Fatty and Dasha.  We talked about how they lived in trees, what others foods they liked to eat, how they were different from squirrels and why they would run away if you got too close (although they would let you get pretty darn close if you were quiet and slow).  It was a great way to include a little science in our vacation.

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