DEAR ZOO

We survived our first week back to school (and that is about all we did, was SURVIVE!). I could choose to post these sweet pictures and write a wonderful entry about how our week was and leave you thinking that I must be a super mom who has it all together. However, my biggest issue with blogs is just that, blogs that leave a false impression. If you read lots of blogs (speaking specifically about homeschool blogs at the moment) you could find yourself feeling much like a failure. It is easy to see the smiling faces and admirable list of activities and be deceived into thinking that the home of that blogger must be perfect. It is important to remember while reading blogs that we are only seeing a glimpse of the whole picture, only the part the writer chooses to let us see. Not to say that there aren't some wonderful homeschooling bloggers who do a wonderful job managing their home, but we all have struggles, we are all sinful beings teaching sinful children. Praise God (especially after a week like this) for forgiveness and grace! So all that to say, we did have a lot of wonderful moments at school this week, but it wasn't always easy. We had lots of bad attitudes (mine and theirs), we had way too many interruptions to our schedule causing us to not complete our work for the week, Bible time was a disaster, and other than laundry and meals no housework got done. There you go, the REAL story behind the week. Now onto some of the GOOD highlights of the week.

First Day of School Photo

They look "happy" right? This photo follows several minutes of fighting over where they

wanted to stand for this picture!

Itty Bitty Bookworm

This month we are using Itty Bitty Bookworm's Bo Curriculum July Year 2. This week was focused on the book DEAR ZOO by Rod Campbell. We had lots of fun reading zoo books, singing zoo songs, enjoying other zoo crafts and activities.

They made their own DEAR ZOO books. This took three days to complete- lots of coloring, cutting, and gluing, but they turned out GREAT!

I was especially proud of Caleb. He has never liked coloring much

and use to just choose one color and quickly color the entire picture that color. But just look at all the detail is his picture above- completely on his own, I didn't give him

any instruction as to how to color it. HUGE progress!

We talked about habitats and used blocks to build a zoo.

We also cut pictures of zoo animals and used them as manipulatives

for simple math problems. And of course we enjoyed snacking on zoo animal crackers (I even let them have the ones with icing and sprinkles!)

Science

Our Science lessons from McRuffy Kindergarten Science were about organizing by size. This was very easy for both Caleb and Hannah, but we are doing each lesson for reinforcement and assessment anyway. I don't want to just assume they already know something and then find out later they don't. As long as they are enjoying the activity we do it. If they show mastery over a skill then don't want to keep working on it, we will stop.

They cut out Happy Bean pictures, ordered them by size then glued them to a strip. Hannah lined hers up right, but then didn't keep them in order when she glued them.

I told each of them to go choose any 5 objects. I then asked them to put them in order from smallest to largest.

Preschool Time

We did lots of preschool worksheets on a variety of skills. Here are a few other things Hannah did this week.

Playful Patterns from Discovery Toys

We are working on matching uppercase and lowercase letters. This week we only did A-E. I will add a few letters each week. She actually didn't have any trouble with this, I thought she might.

The Original Memory Game

McRuffy Kindergarten Phonics

I really struggled with whether to use Kindergarten or First Grade curriculum with Caleb. He already knows all the skills in at least the first half of the book, but I decided to go with the Kindergarten because of the handwriting, writing prompts, spelling tests, and long vowel words. The biggest accomplishment this week was handwriting. We started with a handwriting program when Caleb was 4 1/2 and it was a nightmare! His fine motor skills at that time were week and he hated writing. After about 4 or 5 weeks I just decided to wait until he was older. This year at 5 1/2 it is NO PROBLEM! He doesn't complain about it (much) and his letter formation is really good.

McRuffy First Grade Math

Nothing new here this week- counting to 100, number identification, adding simple one digit equations, timed test, and making a chart.

Centers

Making zoo animals with playdoh

Played SORRY- This is one of Caleb's favorite games.

Other Fun Parts of Our Week

Caleb has been laying on his bean bag to sleep. This night I checked on him and it was on top of him. We I showed him this picture he said, "Oh yeah, I was being a turtle."

Bowling for Daddy's Birthday

Chalk Drawing with a friend

Playing the new Wii with Daddy

Singing "The Animals at the Zoo"

Check out Homeschool Creations to see what other preschoolers have been doing this week.