Preschool Corner/End of the Week Update

We had a busy week exploring all the new things that we received for homeschooling. We got our new table on Saturday, it is a lot larger then the one we had. Selena had to immediately pick out her chair, and where she wanted to sit for meals. She wouldn’t settle for any other place but across from Papa. She exclaimed while she sat in the chair, “More School!” then informed me, “I am starving!” We should get the china hutch this Sunday if the weather cooperates. When it is all in here and everything is put away I will take pictures to share.

Reading:

While I still highly recommend Progressive Phonics as a great program to start your young readers, I do believe we have found the program that we will be using instead. Oh we will use certain aspects of the Progressive Phonics to reinforce some of the trouble areas, that Selena might find hard to understand, and we will continue to use the flash cards for her word board.

Selena has finished her fist little book. She loved reading it from the white board. Every morning she got up to find 4 to 5 sentences up on the board. I always started them all in black ink, as she read the sentences and correctly read the word with no help I changed it to red. She enjoyed watching her own progress through out the day like this. Then when we finished the book on the board, she sat down and read me the book completely. Selena was so shocked, amazed and proud of herself that she actually read her first book from front to cover, with no assistance, no guessing at what the word might be, she just read smoothly as if she had been reading for a long time. She learned several new words, like fast and help in this first book. It is nice to find materials that is not only reinforcing the skills she has learned from Progressive Phonics but also teaches her new words, and confidence at the same time.

Math:

Selena enjoyed working with her number line cards and Linking Cubes. I was very proud when she figured out the unit standard of the cubes as quickly and easily as she did. I do believe we will start looking at simple addition this coming week.

We also made some musical instruments out of household stuff, just anything we could find that would make noise, and practiced counting in time. Selena loved this activity, so I will be doing more of it with her.

Science:

Selena had so much fun with our science experiment this week. She still talks about how Mama made an ice cube that wouldn’t melt.

We have also had many opportunities this week, to experience weather changes. We are definitely in a Spring pattern here weather wise, so it has made for some very interesting days of mixed sun and rain, rainbows, puddles, and all sorts of birds, worms, and fun predicting what will happen next. Sunday we even had a close up view of a bald eagle that was flying so low across the highway. Selena was in awe over it’s white head.

Geography/History

We plugged away at our postcards this week, this time taking a look at Indiana. I am surprised each time we work on our geography as to how fast Selena is able to locate the State on her blank map after looking it up on our atlas. She still amazes me that her interest in this area is so strong, and her desire to learn brings about such an attention to small details.

Since we have started this unit, Selena is really becoming more of a backseat driver then ever before. She doesn’t like it when Mama takes a different route to get somewhere, she insists we are going the wrong way. As she settles into some of the different routes we can take to get to places, she is beginning to ask now, “Which way will we go today Mama?” She looks for landmarks and tells me when to turn and which direction to turn. She is beginning to sound off what businesses are ahead of us, before they are even within site. I am discovering that she is realizing when we go to town we are leaving our town to travel to a different city, she is learning the name of the city and refers to it more and more. Sunday she worked real hard to figure out the route to our new church and squealed with joy when she spotted the church.

Other:

Dance class went real well for Selena this week. She actually endured the entire half hour class. She did get a little frustrated when they introduced a new dance step and she was struggling to figure it out. She will learn it though.

We took advantage for some bike riding while the weather was nice. Selena learned that if she doesn’t watch where she is going things pop out in front of her like the garbage can. She also began to realize if she doesn’t turn the handle bars she will just go around and around in circles and not get where she wants to go. Her breaks right now consists of running her bike onto the grass, so she still has to try to figure those breaks out. She tries, but it just hasn’t clicked yet.

Selena did a lot of random coloring this week. She isn’t interested in any real craft, but more just free coloring. I gave her access to the white board and she drew her family. Art is still a big part of our home, but Selena just wants to free color either a bible page or just on a piece of blank paper. I really feel this is a good activity for her as she is really toning those fine motor skills needed for writing. We have plenty of time to get back into the organized crafts, so for now I am just supplying her with the supplies to color her heart out.