Learning Through Love

I just love Susana’s new linky entitle Learning Through Love, after all it is through love that our children truly thrive and learn. It’s not always the material things we give or do with them but the love and time we give to them. I feel that the time that Grandpa and I spend with Selena is bringing out so many of her abilities, of self confidence, independence, and critical thinking skills. Children learn so much from the examples we set as parents and for those with siblings, they learn from watching and being around their siblings. For this reason I am linking my weekly wrap ups at My Family My Forever.

I will still link up at Preschool Corner as well, Jolanthe at Homeschool Creations hosts this wonderful linky for all preschool families to share ideas of what is and is not working for our preschoolers. Selena loves to see what other preschoolers are doing as much as I do.

Since last week we didn’t do all of the worksheets in Selena’s curriculum on the letter Hh we continued our theme on Helping Hands, and finished up this section in her workbook. I was thrilled to hear from her Sunday School Teacher, that Selena is starting to show her reading abilities during not only Sunday School but Awana. Her Teacher was telling me that Selena points to all sorts of words, sounds them out letter by letter, then puts the sounds together to form the word with what she says is 100% accuracy, these are words that we haven’t really even talked about yet, since our phonics is still the short letter a. I guess she is pronouncing all sorts of words and even letter blends. Not that she hasn’t demonstrated this ability here at home with her reading but to know she is gaining the confidence to do it outside of the home is just awesome! We can teach our children so much, but we have to stop and ask are they gaining the confidence to use their knowledge in everyday life?

Phonics:

  Selena got to add quite a few new words to her phonics wall this week. She is now up to 31 words all short vowel a words that she pronounces and reads with 100% accuracy. Selena is enjoying the stories in this little book, and surprises me all the time pointing out new words from it all the time. We are almost finished with this book and I already have the second book, short vowel e printed and ready to go. She so enjoys this activity it has really brought a lot more joy for her in her phonics, then just reading. Now she has a goal and is able to watch how it is truly growing and I see much pride in herself over how much she is learning!

Math/Science:

We woke up Tuesday morning and I happened to look out to discover all sorts of mushroom outside our dining room window. It actually was a fairly nice day here and it wasn’t raining! We were getting ready to go to the library, so I told Selena we were going to go see something new before heading to the library. She didn’t know what to think of the mushrooms, and I wasn’t sure just what type they were so I allowed her to poke them with a stick, but refused to let her touch them. We got some great pictures, she counted how many there were, and then we went by the grocery store after the library where we examined and looked at all the different mushrooms that they had there. I bought a few, but Selena decided she didn’t really care for mushrooms.

Selena continues to count on her calendar everyday, and is doing very well. She gets a little mixed up on 15 wanting to call it fiveteen. She will get it, I don’t know of too many children who don’t get confused over that number.  She loves to count just as high as she can, which so far is to 30, and I am beginning to see the wheels spinning as she is figuring out the number patterns that take place the higher she goes.

We played one of Selena’s favorite games, that we haven’t played in a while. We used this game to reinforce shapes and colors, this time we tried various different ideas with it like timing it, counting the different shapes as she placed them on the peg board, and then I put all the shapes in a bag and we picked one out at a time so Selena could place them on the correct peg. As I said this really was for fun, since Selena knows these games by heart.

We spend a lot of time playing games here in the home. I encourage Selena to use her imagination and to explore different ways of playing with her toys. We revisit older games all the time that we played when she was younger and I always receive the same enthusiasm as I did when we first introduced the game to her.

Bible/Awana:

In her Awana handbook the second section is talking about Creation. I did not like the story in the handbook so decided to use Selena’s Bible and make a lapbook, by doing this we were able to begin the transition right on into next weeks section as well.

We used The Beginner’s Bible

      

Her verse for this week is Genesis 1:1 God Created the heavens and the earth. After gluing all the pictures from her Bible story onto the lapbook then we discussed everything we found in the pictures that God created. We then talked about how beautiful everything is that God created, leading into next weeks Bible verse, Ecclesiastes 3:11 God made everything beautiful.

Selena did earn her uniform a couple of weeks ago, but we had to wait for it to be ordered in. She got it last night and has now earned her first patch, again we have to wait for it to be ordered. Grandpa and I have firmly decided after this year we will be looking for a new Awana Club, as I feel these children not only need a little more structure in their group, but also they should be getting their awards as they earn them and not having to wait. It has been a great place for her to start though as she is familiar with the people she is working with, thus building on her self confidence.

We had another great week in our home, watching Selena learn and grow! Thank you Susana, for coming up with this wonderful idea! Come on over to Learning Through Love hosted by Susana at My Family My Forever and see what others are doing in preschool.  Also make sure you check out Preschool Corner hosted by Jolanthe, at Homeschool Creations. Join in and let us see what you are doing as well!