This week and next week are both going to be more of review weeks. I also think that I'm going to introduce the letter Cc to Annabelle. She is showing interest in moving on from Aa and Bb, and since August if a 5 week month it would get really boring for her to sit here and have to do busy work for two weeks on something she is done with. So we are introducing the letter Cc this week.
Our Bible theme for the week is Jesus as a boy in the temple. It is always fun for me to think of our Saviour as a little 12 year old guy preaching in a temple full of Jewish theologians. Little did they know that He knows everything. :) It is also a great concept to introduce how little kids can be about God's work. You are never too young to grow God's kingdom. We will also be talking about how Annabelle is growing and doing some fun activities with that.
Also we'll be playing a fun shoe mix-up game. I'm going to pull out a lot of our shoes (which is a whole closet full!!), and then Annabelle and Asa will get to find matches. There are two shoes to every pair/match.
This is our new "Calendar" area. We discuss what day it is, what the weather is like outside, and we are keeping track of the weather as well. Just a quick 5 minute activity to start our day. The printouts for these are found here:
http://confessionsofahomeschooler.blogspot.com/2009/11/my-printables.html
Ok, so there is a lot more organization and tweaking that I have been doing this last week and a half. I've been introduced to workboxes, and we all LOVE them. It is a fun way to help Annabelle become more independent in some of her work, and to help her visualize her schedule for the day. It takes prep work most nights, but I find that we are actually getting more things accomplished and some of the things that I've been wanting to do we are actually doing (i.e. games, lapbooking more efficiently etc.). I could talk forever about how these work, but I will just include links to some fantastic blogs that will be able to explain it more efficiently than I ever could.
This first picture is more or less the order of our day. The numbers coincide with which box Annabelle is supposed to get in at that particular moment. The printouts for these can be found at the same website that I mentioned above and here: http://homeschoolcreations.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-were-using-workboxes.html
The second picture is of Annabelle's and Asa's boxes. When they complete a drawer they take the number off and put it into a small container I have designated for it. When I see that they have completed something (which is easy cause I'm generally standing right there) we remove it from our schedule and move on to the next thing.
This is Silas' little busy area. I plan on rotating these toys every week. This week we have plastic food, giant poms/giftbows, and wooden blocks. Just a little something to keep him entertained.
This is my other project I've been working on: the Sensory Table. We had this water table that we had never used. It's about a foot off the ground. This will be changed out every couple of weeks and filled with different sensory items. This is the Back to School theme. It is red shredded paper/foil paper, plastic apples, big erasers, paintbrushes, and pencils. My kids generally don't put these items in their mouths so I wasn't worried about the brushes and pencils. I already owned the pencils and brushes, and everything else was found at the Dollar Tree (my new favorite store!). They have fantastic preschool/toddler manipulatives there! I'm excited to bring this table out and see how my kids react to it. Note to self: Lay down a sheet. lol
To get other great sensory table ideas go here:
http://ourworldwideclassroom.blogspot.com/2010/02/sensory-tubs-ideas-list.html
So this is the new and tweaked plan. It is Tuesday, and so far it is going very well. I will use it for a while and then let you know how it works out. :) Happy blogging.
jess_hak
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