Caley's Reading!

And Amelia's pooping (she actually was pooping when we were reading and taping). 

The Easter Story

As mentioned before, I'm not with it enough to plan ahead and do Easter activities in anticipation of Easter. So Monday we did our Easter lesson. We read the story in the Bible about Jesus getting baptized by John the Baptizer, which tied in nicely with Caley seeing people get baptized at church the day before. First we made a cross on the hill at Golgatha and Jesus (played by an Indiana Jones action figure) died on the cross and was then wrapped up in lots of cloth (white yarn). The red yarn on the grass shows Jesus' blood. Then Jesus was placed in a tomb (chocolate cake that Mommy hosed and was all gooey) for three days, then rose from the dead! The women who came to the tomb were played by Princess Atta and Ariel the Little Mermaid, and Peter the disciple was our own dinosaur friend. 

Eating the cake was the best part! Yummy!

The girls had a lot of fun acting out the story and I hope it made the Easter story more concrete for them (especially Caley). We talked about why Jesus died and rose again, which is the whole point, that she learn about Jesus' love for her.

He is risen indeed!!!!!

Zaccheus and an Easter House

My old neighbor, bible study leader and friend, Trisha, generously shared her Easter VBS curriculum with me recently. It's designed to be a 4-day week-long preschool, with each day teaching part of the Easter story. A whole week is a little intense for our life right now, so we are doing the curriculum at playgroup this month. This week Caley learned about when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey and the people praised him with palm leaves. It was so fun for the kids to take turns being Jesus while everyone else shook their palm leaves saying, "Hosanna! Blessed be the name of the Lord!" Next week the playgroup is doing a ballet dance at the retirement center. Miss Acacia has been teaching them a routine to "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." 

This week at Gerlach school we did the reading book--Caley is up to lesson 28. We also read about Zaccheus in the Bible and did a little play. The moustached doll is Zaccheus and Caley is Jesus in this video:

We also made an Easter house! Actually it was a leftover Christmas gingerbread house (THIS is why I hoard stuff--I got the gingerbread kit for $1 in January). We dyed the frosting pastel colors and put it together. The girls were mostly eating the candy, or at least licking it before putting it on the house. It's not really fair for me to expect any different, they're only 4 and 1.

Another thing to note is the girls storytime behavior--they're awesome! This week at storytime they sat next to each other, intently listening to Miss Monica read the books. While the other kids (mostly Amelia's age) were running around being crazy-like, Caley helped Amelia sit and had her arm around her. It was so cute! Storytime is an integral part of Gerlach School, because they learn to listen to someone other than Mommy.

Reading and Writing

Just checking in...

Caley has been doing so well with reading lately. She most recently learned the letter "f" and is sight-reading several words such as "is," "a" (pronounced "uh"), and "on." It's so encouraging! I will try to post a video soon.

We also have been doing the Handwriting Without Tears  curriculum to work on writing letters. This curriculum is so fun because it starts with using wood pieces to make the letters so it's a very visual and kinesthetic, which are a 4 year old's prime ways of learning.

Other than that, we've been doing a lot of playdates with new friends and games such as Scrabble and Guess Who. Caley also visited the Crista Senior home and played Bingo with the children's ministry kids. She met several people and loved it. 

Bye!

Miscellaneous and a Free Day

Continuing with the St Patrick's Day theme, the girls painted green crosses on Monday. I tried to make them with some Celtic flair, and then they put hands and feet on them. The hands and feet are to represent how St Patrick used his hands and feet to share the truth of Jesus with the people in Ireland.

I also did a counting exercise with Caley, to help her identify numbers and what they mean. First the cups were in order left-to-right and top-to-bottom, then I mixed them up. 

Friday we had a free day! I was going to do the reading book with Caley but didn't want to interrupt the girls doing this:

Learning to play nicely with your sister is an important skill, and I don't want to ruin a good thing!

Then we went to downtown Mukilteo and finally used some gift certificates from last summer. They got a free mug and cocoa at Whidbey Coffee, a free ice cream, and free balloons! Chocolate face = happy kids.

I also wanted to share this post encouraging homeschooling by Barbara Curtis. You can find it here.