Week 1 - Preschool

I feel so blessed to have the opportunity to homeschool Ducky. This week was so much fun and the look on her face when she accomplished something she was struggling with was priceless! We plan on using Raising Rockstars Preschool as well as the Letter of the Week as our main curriculum(s) but we are going to begin that next week. This week we did a fun Chicka Chicka Boom Boom theme. What a hit! Here are some of moments I was able to capture this week:

Chicka Chicka BOOM BOOM!

Playing with her magnets one morning while I read the story. 

Lacing work

She wanted to illustrate the book herself

She used her marker to make a dot as I called out random letters. She LOVED this activity. 

Uppercase and lowercase matching. You can tell by the look on her face that she knows the j doesn't go with the E.

Daddy was helping her with cutting practice. This is something she had been struggling with. 

They worked for a long time and then... IT CLICKED! She cut!!!

I am not going to lie. I cried I was so proud and she was SO excited that she had to call Grammie on the phone right away and tell her. 

Monkey Man joined us a few times this week. 

Counting and gluing coconuts on trees. 

Board game fun. 

That's it! My baby girl is in PRESCHOOL!!!!

Curriculum Week - Not Back to School Blog Hop

It's time once again for the "Not" Back-to-School  Blog Hop! This week's topic is curriculum so I am going to share a little bit about what my plan is for the year with Ducky. She is currently 3 years old and will be turning 4 in December. We will begin official "school" on September 10th. I know that if she were going to public school she wouldn't be starting PreK for another year. However, after this past year of doing Tot School with her I saw readiness signs for PreK. I plan on following her lead throughout all of this and I am open to change if it's not working out. I've put hours of planning and prayer into this and here is what I've come up with:

Raising Rockstars Preschool (RRSP) from 1+1+1+=1

Hooked on Phonics - Prek

Letter of the Week theme -  corresponding with the letter we are working on each week in RRSP.

Weekly Bible Story - I will read the same story each morning for a full week and we will do crafts and activities to go along with the story.

We will also be doing:

Puzzles

Games

Crafts

Life skills

Music

Sign Language

Library Time

Calender time 

Fine Motor/ Sensory work

Field Trips

and SO MUCH MORE!

I plan on using a workbox system for Ducky. I am re-purposing some Ikea shelving that we already had on hand. I will touch more on this next week when I post the pictures of our school room.

Monkey Man will be doing tot school this year and next. I will be focusing on his speech. We will be playing a ton. He loves joining us for Bible, calendar and circle time.

Having 2 kids schooling at the same time will be a new journey for me but I am up for the challenge.

The new baby is due in late November but is expected to make an early arrival like her brother did 

Thanks for stopping by and reading. I hope you'll be back soon.

BFIAR - Corduroy (Teddy Bear Theme)

I decided to do one of our units from our Before Five In A Row curriculum. We "rowed" the book Corduroy, by Don Freeman. Here are some of the highlights from our week:

Along with reading Corduroy daily we read lots of bear books.

Bear dress up puzzle ( Melissa and Doug )

Teddy Bear shape matching

(Childcareland.com)

Mr. Teddy joined us at the table for school every day. 

I love this shot of Ducky concentrating 

Button Matching

Searching for buttons in a bin of dried beans

Geometric Stacker ( Melissa and Doug )

Snack time - Teddy Grahams, carrots and dip )

Bear color matching. She finished this activity super fast so I handed her a color one at a time and had hear search for items in the house to match the color. She responded really well and we used the idea with a similar activity later in the week. 

(ABCTeach.com)

Word/Picture matching 

(HomeschoolCreations.com)

In this week's play-doh kit I added brown play-doh and teddy bear cookie cutters. 

Monkey Man was here!

This week's memory verse. 

Coloring her Corduroy picture

(BookitProgram.com)

Doing some shape work. First I used these as flashcards. Then we went on a shape hunt, similar to the color hunt that I previously mentioned

(HomeschoolCreations.com)

Here she's doing the "sit on the ground" portion of our song that we did every day:

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear 
Teddy bear, teddy bear, turn around.
Teddy bear, teddy bear, touch the ground.
Teddy bear, teddy bear, up on tiptoes.
Teddy bear, teddy bear, touch your nose.
Teddy bear, teddy bear, walk to me.
Teddy bear, teddy bear, bend your knee.
Teddy bear, teddy bear, hop around,
Teddy bear, teddy bear, sit on the ground.

We took a field trip to Build A Bear Workshop:

Which one should I choose?

I like this one Mommy!

Picking a heart.

In goes the stuffing.

Her first bath.

Brushing her fur.

I shall call you Lola.

 In this picture she's at the computer next to me pretending to type. This is my favorite picture of the week. 

She wanted to ride the escalator just like Corduroy

Look, Mom!

On the way down

I am going to ride again Mom, ok?

Mom, look at me!!!

( She rode it twice with Daddy then once with Mommy and cried when it was time to leave )

Playing the iPad on the way home. 

Valentine/Love Theme

This week was our most productive one yet. I introduced the idea of sensory bins. I wasn't sure how this would go over with Ducky. As it turns out she LOVED it. Every morning she would ask when it was going to be sensory time. 

We attempted to work on our cutting skills. That didn't go over too well. She was begging to learn but she really struggled with the fine motor aspect. My mom works at a special education school and she is bringing me some scissors to try out that she thinks might help. I will update once I get them this week. 

Our first ever sensory bin!!!! 

Digging in

Concentrating on finding the hidden hearts

She said the paper tickled. 

How do you open this thing, Mom?

Still playing

I printed some ABC hearts and glued them onto some construction paper hearts that I had left over from this past week's Sunday School lesson. When I did this, I wasn't quite sure how I was planning on using them.

We used our Melissa and Doug wooden letters and matched them with the ABC hearts. I would hand Ducky a letter, ask to tell me the name and then to find the matching letter. Ducky responded really well to this activity. I plan on using it again soon. 

Her coloring skills have really improved in the last few weeks.

She's thinking:  I wonder if Mom will notice if I eat one of these?

Conversation Heart counting activity

V is for Valentine puzzle 

Some fine motor work

Working on her heart butterfly

Covering up her letter Vs

Heart hands ( probably my favorite part of the week )

"Hold your hands up and don't move until I get back."

This was a last minute activity. Ducky was begging to do more crafts so I had her glue tissue paper to a heart that I cut out of cardstock. 

Hard at work.

Play-Doh time

Stacking Rings

Monkey looks so pitiful 

That's better!

Hard at work.

Our newest sign language words/phrases this week were:

Heart

and

I love you

Our printables this week were from the following websites:

Confessions of a Homeschooler

1+1+1=1

Over the Big Moon

The Lesson Plan Diva

~Ducky is currently 38 months old ~