Do you hear what I hear?

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In Oregon we heard much needed rain fall on our rooftops and on our forests.  As soon as it rains I consider it candle lighting season and I just couldn't choose which one to light so I lit them all.

In the second week of the My Amazing Body theme we learned all about the five sense.  On this day we were focusing on the sense of hearing and we made our very own musical instrument out of a bowl.  First he colored the paper bowl, then I helped him stretch two rubber bands over the bowl.  When you pluck the rubber bands it makes an awesome sound.

We did things a bit backwards (for us) and did the Make & Play craft at the table as we were eating breakfast.  Then, after breakfast, I moved the Circle Time board to the living room so we could sit on the rug and try to work through the full Circle Time routine.  I asked the opening question about hearing, we checked the weather, talked through the days date, and I set out a few of the tools we were going to use that day.

This month I put all the calendar pieces on the calendar and created a gold star that I could use to mark the current day.  I was putting the dates up as we worked through the month but if we got a few days behind it would take a lot of time to catch up on our dates and delay the start to our day.

 Here is a close up of the gold star.

Once we completed all the Circle Time stuff we moved into the My Senses Game.  We were given a beautiful spinner with the five senses and cards with photos of items we could either hear, touch, see, smell or taste.  Some of them we could do multiple things with of course.  You can smell a skunk and possibly touch a skunk.

He spun a nose, I asked what he could do with his nose, smell of course, then asked which item he could smell. He found the rose first.

Next he spun an ear and I asked him what he does with his ear.  He pointed to his ear but gave me no response so I held my hand up to my ear like you can see him doing and asked again.  Honestly, I don't think we ever talked about how our ears hear, so he couldn't come up with the word.  See! Even the topics you think have been well covered by your little one in everyday life haven't been.  The information was never put together for him in this way.

Now we were off to find something we could hear.  He pointed straight at the french horn.

Here we go, spinning again and this time we got the mouth.  What do you do with your mouth? "Eat something" he said.  True.

Then he found the banana picture at the same time he happened to be eating a banana.

So I asked him, what does a banana taste like?  That's when I got the face you see below.  He took a bite and looked up as he chewed and thought about what a banana tasted like.  "A banana" he said.

Fair enough.  I am not really sure how I could describe a bananas taste either.  But it was fun for him to ponder.  The older boys were around as we were discussing this and I asked them which part of the mouth tastes.  Lachlan knew it was the tongue and that we had little bumps on our tongue that did the tasting.  I am assuming I can thank the "Magic School bus" for this scientific understanding.

At this point I lost Adam, he was ready to move on.  We had only one more activity to do to complete the day and it was a science experiment.

So I gathered all of the supplies and put them together and left them by the Circle Time board.  I figured there would be a natural time in the day where Adam would become curious and we could pick up the items and we would get started.  We were to drop the items in this metal bowl one at a time into the bowl and sort them by which items were LOUD when they hit the bowl and which were quiet.

This month all the Blog Ambassadors are talking about their routines.  Ours has always been pretty simple, we start at breakfast, usually doing Circle Time while we eat.  I ask about the weather, we talk about the date, study the pattern on the calendar, count along with the numbers, talk about the letter and the sound it makes.  Sometimes we sing the alphabet as I point to all the letters along the bottom.  We almost always sing the days of the week song and the months of the year song.  Usually by that time Adam is almost finished with eating breakfast and I get out one or two of the days activities that can be done at the table.  When he is ready to get down he is free to do so and I gather supplies for any remaining activities and leave them out for us to grab later in the day.

However, on this day we did things a bit different. We have been going to a preschool co-op where they are using Mother Goose Time and doing a formal Circle Time with other preschoolers once a week.  This inspired me to try to get him down in front of the board on the floor for a nice one on one formal Circle Time.  It went pretty well and I think I might try to incorporate this slightly switched up routine into our weeks more often.

Since our Circle Time has always been so informal I have never done much research or looking into how to do a good Circle Time.  But recently I have been watching videos and gathering ideas from the other Mother Goose Time Blog Ambassadors and hope to keep testing and trying out a variety of options to see what works best for us.

And now it's the big kids turn.  Lachlan finished up his writing assignment and then spend quite a while building a Lego RV.

A Little Bit of Boats

My poor two year old has been neglected the last few weeks.  With our house torn apart because of the dishwasher leak, I have barely gotten the basic subjects done with my 1st grader.  Seriously scraping by by doing one maybe two subjects a day and rotating through the week.  As I read through all the other Blog Ambassador posts I felt bad for my little guy and decided to at least give him one of the tray play activities from Bubble, Boats & Floats. 

This activity was from Boat day and it had us make "lakes" with circles drawn on the lakes, one lake with one circle, one with two, one with three and so on up to five. 

I just have to add here that this post is going to use all cell phone photos (gasp) because of the current office, or lack of office space.  But back to my regular program soon, I hope . . . 

The first one I made was the lake #5.  I figured he could count to 5 as he placed the boats on the circles.  For some reason I made a mental goal of trying to teach Adam to count to 5 and having that be my focus during this crazy time in our life a.k.a dishwasher leak of 2016.  If I can just focus on one thing for him, then I maybe, just maybe I could feel successful. 

When he was counting out his boats and putting them in the circles, he tried to also put one on the number five that I had written.  If I were to do it again I don't know that I would write the number on there at all because for him we are just working on the counting and one to one correspondence, not necessarily number recognition, yet. 

I kept cutting out the lakes as he kept counting.  As time went on they looked less "lake" like and more like rectangles. 

 Counting to 3.

 I don't think he noticed the shape of the paper. 

Eventually we got out our whole bin of manipulatives and all sorts of creatures and automobiles were being placed on the papers. 

To end the day he joined in on an All About Reading activity.  These were eggs that they had to flip out of the pan and then read the word on the back.  We adapted the lesson a bit by having baby flip the egg out of the pan and then having a big brother read the word.

I was surprised at how careful he was.  I thought for sure he would just push them all out of the pan, but he carefully only flipped one out at a time.  This wasn't meant to be his lesson, but he saw the words, then heard the words and did some fine and gross motor building.  So it didn't hurt! I am sure he picked up on more than I could imagine.   

And for dinner we had "waffle Wednesday" which we have every week.  We just normally have a breakfast meat, a fresh waffle with fruity yogurt mixed into the batter, and a fresh fruit side.  Tonight, with no kitchen and no sink we had toaster waffles and canned peaches.  Not so well rounded, but fun!

Homeschooling in Real Life - our day with zebras

Here is the play by play.  I often tell you about all the good parts but am feeling more and more like I should tell the whole truth, even the tough parts.  I know this is a blog, but it's also real life.  

To begin our second week of Going On Safari with Mother Goose Time we made binoculars.  This week was all about the animals one might find on safari.  So having binoculars to find the animals with was quite perfect.  I made Adam's for him.  I figured he could decorate them from there.  When I first handed them to him he looked at them, like what the heck are these.

 I demonstrated how to use them and he gave it a try.

There you go bud, that's it.  I have been reading all the other Blog Ambassador's blogs and seeing tons of adorable pictures with these binoculars.  They are such a great play prop.  I have tried this before but they never held together.  I think the key to Mother Goose Time's toilet paper binocular set up is the strip of paper that they had us wrap around both tubes and tape on. 

They held up for 4 days!  That's pretty good for a toddler.  He saw me try to throw them away and got really mad at me.  So back out they came.  The only think they are missing is the paper holding them together.  So it looks like I will be fixing them rather than throwing them away. 

Don't mind the iPod collection on the table.  Two are the originals or close to it and almost obsolete.  They were all brought to the table for some reason. 
On zebra day we of course had to make zebras.  Peter complained "I wish they were white zebras we could draw black stripes on."  I'm thinking, really?  We always have white paper, black paper with white chalk is awesome.  He of course had a blast. 

 Adam holds his chalk in a unique way.  But it worked.  I glued the eye on there for him. 

 Peter stuck his eye ball to his glue stick and thought that was pretty funny.

Adam really enjoyed coloring his.  He often puts his hand down and colors between his fingers to mimic the times we have traced his hand.

 Again Goose joined us.  I teased Lachlan "there's someone watching you."

"Who?" as he looks up to find Goose staring straight at him.  Maybe it was the black and white of the zebra that attracted Goose, or maybe it was the milk still left in the cereal bowls.  I know it's not good cat training to let them drink when we are finished, but sometimes we do anyways.  Just keepin' it real.

It was a hard shape to glue.  You had to get glue down the legs and tail if you wanted to get your zebra to stick well to the background paper.

 Super fast zebra stripes.

While they worked on their art project I read the circle time section of the Teacher Guide.  A bit backwards I am sure.  We were introducing the letter z today.  They had us ask them to draw in the air the tiniest z they could possibly draw. 

Then the largest z.  I keep forgetting about this, draw it in the air concept.  I need to use it more often.  The day after this Lachlan and I were working on something and he needed a little hint so I drew in the air.  It's nice that Mother Goose Time constantly changes things up, gives you new ideas that you can then take and use with all your children, even the 1st graders.

There were some other lessons and activities that came with zebra day but I wanted to get Lachlan onto some of his 1st grade work.  So I got him started on the z page in his Handwriting Without Tears workbook. 

I stopped getting the More Math and More Literacy workbooks for Lachlan because I wanted Peter to have something that was just his.  Peter decided he wanted to write "zebra" on his zebra art.  I got the topic poster down so he could see it better and he wrote all the letters to for the word on the page all mixed up and crazy.  Later he added his name in the same fashion. 

 I think it's kind of fun. 

I had Peter's journal and More Math and More Literacy workbooks all set out and ready for him.  But I have been struggling with Peter lately.  He has always had a hard time staying focused on a task.  His mind is just running too fast. 

He's kind of like me, I go to the play room to drop off a toy, see a mess, clean it up, walk by the bathroom, notice the towels messed up, fix them, hang a new hand towel, wipe down the toilet, start walking back out to living room when I see a shirt, throw it in the hamper, remember that I am thirsty . . . or maybe that's just typical parenthood. 

Anyhow, Peter can hone in on one task and work and work and work on it for ever when he wants to or when it's something that really excites him.  But there are other moments it's impossible to get him to focus.  Cleaning up toys is a nightmare!!! (Peter's internal monologue: oh yes, I love that toy, I shall play with it.) "Peter, stop playing and clean up!" So he tosses one toy in the right bin and the next toy he picks up, oh yes, I love that toy, I shall play with it.  But here's the thing, he is 4 and EASILY does his brother's 1st grade curriculum when he wishes.  So he's not behind.  That's when I realized I need to use this time to not focus on the academics as much as his ability to complete a task.  So even though I had this all set out, I did not expect him to do it all and my expectations going in are key.  I had him help me pick a page and we worked together to finish it if he seemed up to it we would pick one more page and so on.  When I saw the cues it was time to be done we finished what we were working on and moved on.  We didn't necessarily finish the whole page, because the goal is to celebrate finishing what Mommy has asked him to do.  So I may only ask him to finish the math problem he is on or finish writing the word he is working on and then be done.  He still has to stay focused long enough to finish but he is also set up for success.  Then I can praise him for finishing everything I asked him to do.  If he does more, then it's just an added bonus. 

I got Lachlan's Saxon Math 1 lesson ready next.  We were weighing tubs with mystery contents in them.  I had them labeled A,B,C,D,E.  He would put two on the scale and tell me which one was heavier.  Eventually we narrowed it down to which one was heaviest. 

And here is where Lachlan is learning a skill, that I keep telling myself, will be a positive in his life some day.  How to keep focused even with a screaming baby right next to you.  Adam woke up early and was DONE. 

He actually calmed down a bit and let me finish with Lachlan which was wonderful because I have been focusing on another important skill with him.  His tendency is to decide to be done with school when ever he gets frustrated by something.  So he quits and storms off quite often, OR he fights me tooth and nail to get anything done so it takes ALL day.  I keep telling him that if he works with me and sticks to it, we can get done with all of his schooling in an hour.  Then we would both have the rest of the day free to explore further into the topics of our choosing or in my case WORK!  I get so behind.  

On this day, he was ready to go and determined.  I didn't look at the clock and time it but I would say it took about an hour.

 He is really getting good at his workbook pages. 

I did end up skipping reading during this morning of school.  This is something I have been doing more and more lately.  It is so nice in the afternoon to cuddle up on the couch with a book, it took me a while, but with the help of another homeschooling friend, it finally dawned on me that our "reading lesson" didn't have to be so rigid, at the table and lumped in with everything else.  More often then not Lachlan reads to me later, in the late afternoon or evening. 

We actually got out our Bob books again.  He was halfway through the first collection when we moved onto How to Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.  That book set the foundation for reading and it still has wonderful lessons.  But I think we were both getting a little board.  So instead of doing that everyday, I have been trying to mix it up.  He was so motivated to finish the first collection that he read 5 books in one day.  It was so cool!

One last little note on how these zebra art pieces keep coming up.  I stuck them to the side of the cabinet that they can see easily from the table.  Adam points to his art work quite frequently and I say "zebra" he tries to say it too.  He is always smiling when he points to it. 

Another conversation happened when Lachlan asked Peter what the orange thing on his drawing was.  "It's a lion attacking the zebra" says Peter.  I am so glad Lachlan asked because I thought it was the sun and just never looked any closer. 

It's interesting as I read through this post in my final edit.  I realized that sometimes our "school lessons" aren't the actual subjects we are studying but they are the Real Life Lessons like I titled this post.  For Peter it's learning how to focus on a task and finish it and for Lachlan it's learning how to work through frustration.  These real life lessons will be so vital to their success as grown up human beings.  Which is of course the goal.