A different kind of school

Mommy here. We've been doing a different kind of school this month. In addition to our usual weekly routine which includes playgroup and storytime, we've been doing going to the children's museum and doing various service projects, for lack of a better description. But on Mondays and Fridays, our usual home days when we do "school," we haven't been doing the reading book. Read this entry on our family blog, and you'll see that we've drastically cut down on Caley's TV time. Instead, Caley's learning how to keep herself busy by reading books, playing with toys, or coloring. And I'm learning how to take time to read with her more regularly and just slow life down a bit. 

In 2009, we'll put projects and the reading book back into her school schedule. But TV won't be in the schedule like it was a few months ago. This month Caley has been learning to not need TV and movies as much, because now they're more of a novelty!

It's Christmas time...

"So I get to eat candy!" 

That's what Caley's been saying all day today. I think it's because I told her she couldn't eat the gingerbread house until it's Christmas. And since we decorated the house and tree today I guess that means it's Christmas. 

We did some fun and easy projects today that worked on cutting, cutting on a line, patterning, gross motor skills and eye-hand coordination. 

I got this idea from MommyLife. I used dry pasta and spread it around outside the circle and showed her how to sweep it in. And even though I made a  big circle and told her the pasta just has to be in the circle, she made it all into a little pile.

Next we made a Christmas chain. I originally just wanted to make a Christmas decoration but then realized it would be a perfect opportunity for her to practice cutting on a line (or crooked line) and patterning. Red, white, green, red, white, green, red, white, ___? I helped with chaining them together, but Caley did a lot of good work too! Later she proudly displayed it on her bedroom wall.

I was taking pictures of Caley doing her project and she said, "Take a picture of Amelia!" So here she is.  Isn't she cute?!! :)

Merry Christmas! Hopefully we'll do more fun learning activities and maybe Caley will post something herself soon! Mommy's being a blog hog.

Caley's Thanksgiving with her friends

Check out Caley's Thanksgiving over at our family blog!

More fun school days

We've been more sporadic with school days the last few weeks, but we have still be doing some fun activities. Caley is getting better at recognizing letters and sounds, and in her reading book yesterday she read, "See me read"!! We are still learning about Thanksgiving and this week we are having a playgroup Thanksgiving "dinner" and the kids are going to help make some of the food. It should be a lot of fun. Caley is also loving her church preschool on Sundays and Wednesday nights. She always asks, "Mommy are you going to be in my class?" I'm there on Wednesday nights. Last week the big kids came in and washed the preschool kids feet! Caley thought that was pretty neat, which was a huge surprise to me, I thought she'd freak out for sure! 

Here are some fun things we've been doing:

Marshmallow toothpick creations--Caley mostly just loaded a toothpick with 5 marshmallows and called it good.

Learning about money with the money book--I had her match real coins to the ones pictured.

A turkey box! We got the instructions from this website. Ours doesn't look like the picture shows, but who cares?! She helped cut out the tailfeathers and colored a few (Amelia helped). Then she had me write the names of some people she loves: Amelia, Mommy, Daddy, Papa, Grama, Nana, Grampa, Fiona, Lenora, Olivia, Joy, Chris, just to name a few.

Happy Thanksgiving!

November Fun!

It's November! Caley is going to learn about God's blessings and provisions and Thanksgiving in playgroup so I wanted to do some activities to reinforce what she's learning. The last few days we've been making pilgrim hats from styrofoam cups and reading some Thanksgiving stories. I got the "recipe" for the craft from here and changed a few things (pipe cleaners for the buckle). Of course ours aren't as pretty as the picture on that website, but it was still fun to make hats!

I'm sure the little Pilgrim girls wore pink on their hats (and ate hot dogs)!

Amelia wouldn't let me take a picture with a hat on her head. But she did do this at lunch today:

I made this Pumpkin face for playgroup a while ago and finally pulled it out for the kids to play with. The best part is that it was part of Caley's "school" today. Gross motor skills, following directions, and sharing are important for her to learn. Plus she had a blast and so did Amelia! Bonus!

After throwing the beanbags the normal way, I suggested she try some other ways like from far away, from behind, or on her head like above. Then I pulled out the Home Depot paint sticks and she chopsticked the bags into the face. I was surprised at how well she did this! She didn't get frustrated and concentrated quite well.