A Week, Briefly (#18)
I just uploaded and edited all of this past week's pictures. There's not one photo of anything school related!
We had preschool Monday-Thursday this week. We danced to the Hallelujah Chorus, finished learning how to fingerspell the alphabet, began learning the song "I am Like a Star" and began making "All About Me" books.
The plan had been to learn "Little Jesus" and do a small nativity craft, but one morning during personal prayer the idea was clearly manifest that my preschoolers needed books about themselves to begin their personal histories. Ladybug has been asking questions--even trying to make up a past for herself--and though I can't get answers for her (tied up in confidential state records), I can help her document her history starting right now.
We drew pictures of ourselves, took photos of ourselves, weighed and measured ourselves, drew pictures of our family, documented our favorite colors, foods, and activities, and talked about how each of us is a beloved Child of God with individual gifts and talents.
It will take us another week to finish the books, and I think they will be treasures when they are done.
We continued singing "Picture a Christmas" and continued working on "The Fourth Article of Faith," too.
The 2 PreK kids, Mister Man and Ladybug, very much enjoyed finishing working on /p/ and beginning "C" (/k/). We're still using starfall.com and various youtube phonics videos for fun each day, and then we work on letter formation, sight words ("see" and "look" this week), and do some sound sorting activities. We're keeping it quite simple and joyful.
Ladybug has begun to identify sounds as she looks at books, and she's terribly, terribly proud of herself.
We had a crisis with Ladybug when she wanted to write the names of our whole family. I printed out a sheet with all of our names in large font that she could trace and/or imitate. She hit her waterloo about 3 names into the sheet. I tried to first offer encouragement and then, when I could see it wasn't working, give her an out but she fell apart when she couldn't make her letters look like the printed ones.
Her sense of failure was heartbreaking. The only thing I could do was hold her in my arms as she cried and then teach her the magic of "yet."
"You can't do it yet, but someday you will be able to."
"You don't know how yet, but someday you will."
You aren't a good writer yet, but you're learning each day."
(Thank you, thank you, dear blogger whose name I have forgotten, for teaching me this concept a few months ago, so that I would have it available when I needed it this week!)
Just yesterday Ladybug looked at me with stars in her eyes as she told me how she couldn't write our family names yet, but she was trying and learning.
For family school with the older girls we worked on history lessons about the Greeks. We had a few exceptionally joyful (at least for me) discussions about the value of women and the value of education. Their assigned essay was a personal response to Russell M. Nelson's conference talk, "A Plea to My Sisters."
We only managed to get to one Chemistry lesson this week--on the states of matter.
We finished our annual read aloud of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever; reading the end still made me cry.
I just love that book!
Other activities included Brother's weekly therapy appointment, daily PCIT practice for Mom and Dad with Ladybug, a well-child checkup and a passel of immunizations for Little Sister, an eye exam for Little Princess, a dermatology appointment for Nature Angel, Rose Red's final exam and class session for her dual enrollment class, a WIC recertification appointment for Little Sister, Belle's riding class, church youth night, and a failed attempt at having a visit with Jaybird (the older brother we are not adopting).
Oh, and we went to the zoo for our Friday outing.
Here is a picture or two just for fun:
We had preschool Monday-Thursday this week. We danced to the Hallelujah Chorus, finished learning how to fingerspell the alphabet, began learning the song "I am Like a Star" and began making "All About Me" books.
The plan had been to learn "Little Jesus" and do a small nativity craft, but one morning during personal prayer the idea was clearly manifest that my preschoolers needed books about themselves to begin their personal histories. Ladybug has been asking questions--even trying to make up a past for herself--and though I can't get answers for her (tied up in confidential state records), I can help her document her history starting right now.
We drew pictures of ourselves, took photos of ourselves, weighed and measured ourselves, drew pictures of our family, documented our favorite colors, foods, and activities, and talked about how each of us is a beloved Child of God with individual gifts and talents.
It will take us another week to finish the books, and I think they will be treasures when they are done.
We continued singing "Picture a Christmas" and continued working on "The Fourth Article of Faith," too.
The 2 PreK kids, Mister Man and Ladybug, very much enjoyed finishing working on /p/ and beginning "C" (/k/). We're still using starfall.com and various youtube phonics videos for fun each day, and then we work on letter formation, sight words ("see" and "look" this week), and do some sound sorting activities. We're keeping it quite simple and joyful.
Ladybug has begun to identify sounds as she looks at books, and she's terribly, terribly proud of herself.
We had a crisis with Ladybug when she wanted to write the names of our whole family. I printed out a sheet with all of our names in large font that she could trace and/or imitate. She hit her waterloo about 3 names into the sheet. I tried to first offer encouragement and then, when I could see it wasn't working, give her an out but she fell apart when she couldn't make her letters look like the printed ones.
Her sense of failure was heartbreaking. The only thing I could do was hold her in my arms as she cried and then teach her the magic of "yet."
"You can't do it yet, but someday you will be able to."
"You don't know how yet, but someday you will."
You aren't a good writer yet, but you're learning each day."
(Thank you, thank you, dear blogger whose name I have forgotten, for teaching me this concept a few months ago, so that I would have it available when I needed it this week!)
Just yesterday Ladybug looked at me with stars in her eyes as she told me how she couldn't write our family names yet, but she was trying and learning.
For family school with the older girls we worked on history lessons about the Greeks. We had a few exceptionally joyful (at least for me) discussions about the value of women and the value of education. Their assigned essay was a personal response to Russell M. Nelson's conference talk, "A Plea to My Sisters."
We only managed to get to one Chemistry lesson this week--on the states of matter.
We finished our annual read aloud of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever; reading the end still made me cry.
I just love that book!
Other activities included Brother's weekly therapy appointment, daily PCIT practice for Mom and Dad with Ladybug, a well-child checkup and a passel of immunizations for Little Sister, an eye exam for Little Princess, a dermatology appointment for Nature Angel, Rose Red's final exam and class session for her dual enrollment class, a WIC recertification appointment for Little Sister, Belle's riding class, church youth night, and a failed attempt at having a visit with Jaybird (the older brother we are not adopting).
Oh, and we went to the zoo for our Friday outing.
Here is a picture or two just for fun:
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| We made gingerbread houses (with graham crackers) last Sunday. |
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| Nature Angel has gotten rather good at back bends! Playing gymnastics has been all the rage this week. |
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| Our new Bilibo toys are awesome!!! This is Brother carefully balancing. |
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| And the sisters laugh together . . . a lot. |
I remember learning about the power of yet. A lovely friend gave a lesson one evening in Relief Society. It is rather hopeful to be able to sayI can't yet, but one day I will. High Fives to Ladybug as she practices all those names. A big goal.
ReplyDeleteI was taken aback by how much the two sisters in the last picture look alike!
ReplyDeleteDo your kids use the Bilibo very much? I seriously considered getting one last Christmas but mixed reviews made me hesitate. Most raved about it, but some said theirs just collected dust and their kids never used it.
ReplyDelete