Little Helper

Today we did some serious cleaning in the house. We have lived in our new home for just over a year and I finally emptied that dreaded last box. The one that was shoved in a corner and hidden behind a chair to be kept out of sight when I was fed up with all the unpacking and cleaning that comes with moving. This was my home school box. It had all the extra "little things" that were helpful to have, but not a necessity. So it has sat there, for a year, having been open a handful of times, waiting to finally be unloaded.

When going through this box, I found our preschool calendar. I haven't felt an urge to break this out again since this year Babycake was away in Kindergarten, and Buddyboy didn't turn three until a couple months ago. Since Buddyboy is now working on many things preschool, I figured we might as well put up the calendar.

Babycake enjoyed going through all the old school things. She even helped organize, hang, and laminate the calendar for Buddyboy. I think she was more excited about the whole thing than Buddyboy was. She hunted for our special fourth of July date marker, and placed a Happy Birthday date marker for her cousin born just yesterday.

I'm very happy one of the kiddos is excited to use the calendar, I just wish it was the one who will be learning what a calendar is. ;-)

The new kid calendar station

Babycake's calendar set up at the old house.

New Season of Letter of the Week

I tried, and failed, to start preschool with Buddyboy this year while Babycake was at school. He was vaguely interested in learning shapes and counting, would do a craft if I laid it all out for him, but really he was happy to just run rampant.

This summer however, Babycake was provided some instruction to keep her counting, reading, and writing, sharp over summer, and suddenly Buddyboy is into learning as well! I wasn't too surprised to see him sit contentedly for 10 mins crafting and singing letter songs while across the table his sister is doing her own work. Whatever she does, he has to do as well.

So While I've been having Babycake work on her words and numbers each morning with breakfast, I've had Buddyboy practicing his letter sounds and making crafts to go with each letter. It has been such a success! So far Buddyboy knows most shapes at sight, can count on his own to 20 (mixing a number here or there), and knows A is for alligator and apple, and E is for elephant without any help. As far as colors go, everything is yellow, or blue. We're watching to see if he has some color blindness.

In the end, I couldn't be more pleased with his sudden interest in specified learning. We have read every day of his life, and we discuss how things do and don't work b/c he's asking, but I've not been able to sit down with him long enough to specifically point out a 'triangle has 3 sides.' I'm pumped and hope I have the stamina to keep this up once school starts back up and I switch back working mornings instead of evenings. I'd like to at least get 3 days in of preschool-esc education in a week, but wouldn't be surprised if it becomes once or twice a week. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Kindergarten Graduate

Well. Babycake did it! She made it through her first year of school. She LOVED it. I could not have asked for a better teacher. Mrs. B. was about as Montessori as you can get in a public school. Addison loved her, her class, the bus ride and driver... pretty much everything about school.

Not only did Babycake finish off her first year of school but she also finished her first year as a Girl Scout. One year of Daisies in the bag! Some how I got roped into helping lead the troop... Oh well. Babycake enjoyed the time I spent with her and her friends. That's what matters.

Month schedule of words and numbers for each day

Now we are half way through summer. Life is just flying past. Mrs. B. sent home a little practice binder with all of her 'Kinder friends' so the kiddos could continue their learning and stay fresh over break. Babycake and I are LOVING this! As we all know, Babycake is a bottomless pit when it comes to her desire to learn, so this was such a relief for me that we were provided a layout for education over the summer. The first week, Babycake was all about her dry erase binder work. Currently, she is all about Sciencefusion. She does it all, its just fun to see what each of her favorites are each week.

My schedule I adjusted for what was provided and fits in our schedule

Number of the Day

Word of the Day

Bright Beginngs Update

The holidays are over! Hooray! As fun as they are, I think everyone can agree the holiday season is also crazy busy and stressful. Now that it is over though I have a break to share some of the new things were trying and enjoying. I'm determined that we will have a more regular school schedule as well as daily routine. Obviously I have resolutions for the new year ;-)

There were a few months when it was difficult to find time to sit down with Babycake and go over our lessons. She was still regularly taking naps and they lined up with Buddyboy's. However, when they would both be awake, Buddyboy (who has no slow mode) couldn't be distracted in order to get in a 5-20 min lesson with Babycake. Now, Buddyboy still doesn't have a slow mode, but he can be content to sit and try painting, play-doh, stickers,or sorting shapes for 5-10 min giving Babycake and I enough time to go over together what the lesson for the day is and allows me to sit with them both and share in the excitement of discovery.

Babycake with her spelling puzzles
Buddyboy sorting shapes in no particular order

Babycake playing math game
Buddyboy with Play-Doh

As I've mentioned before in previous posts, Babycake became frustrated with furthering our Bob Books reading. So for x-mas she received some Leap Frog Tag books and a Tag pen. The pen will read the simple books to the child as well as define words and play games. This has been a real hit as she likes to be independent, and I get a break from needing to entertain while at the same time she's getting a little education. I wouldn't go so far as to say these books are teaching Babycake how to read, but they do show that to read you go from right to left, and she is able to recognize a few words after pointing to them and hearing  it read to her. 

I also received "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" as an x-mas gift which I hope will help in our reading goals. So far we've done the first two lessons and flew through them. Babycake was happy to do them because she received praise for doing well. Since they are the first to lessons, they are incredibly basic and she already knew the material. I'm hoping that as the lessons progress and build she won't realize the get slightly more difficult and she continues to enjoy them.

And finally Babycake received some games by The Learning Journey Company that we really enjoy. Last year she received the Math game and we've really enjoyed it for math lessons as well as a rainy or cold day activity. So she was very excited to receive more games. The games are simple enough that she can do them on her own yet she learns at the same time. I also like that they are games/puzzles so she will let me, or her dad play with her every once in a while.

So needless to say, I'm hoping that we can stick to our new routine and enjoy some new games, stories and education along the way. Wish us luck!

"You can be anything!"

The other day I was cleaning the play room and I was stopped by Babycake's dress-up clothes. A super-girl cape, princess dress, a construction worker's hat, and a doctor's outfit. Since the day Babycake was born we've told her she can be anything she wants. I was so touched by the realization that we not only tell her she can be anything, but we encourage it in play and life. At the age of two, she came up with a little song, all her own, about being anything you want. "You can be anything! You can be anything! You can be a doctor, or a nurse, or a teacher, or a prince or princess! You can fly in space like an astronaut too! You can be anything you want to be!" The occupations may change every other rendition, but the message is always the same.

My husband and I are not the type of parents who sugar coat the idea that simply because our child wants something, she will get it. We tell her that if you want something you must work for it, and sometime it can be hard. Of course this concept of working for want you want means very little at the moment when she can simply imagine flying, and to her, she is.

In a time when so many more parents are worried about the futures of their children due to recent events I will not mention more than say elections, I've found myself drawn into the worry as well. Will our daughters be told that they are not worthy of being great, that they should be in the kitchen, that they will never be anything but a pretty face?

No, our daughters will be fine. We parents are worried about these things because we care. Because we care, we will make sure to give our children every opportunity possible to achieve more than we. My dream for my children is that they become better people than me. I myself am a good person, but I want them to be great. I want them to be healthy in mind, body, and spirit. I want them to have the serenity to accept the things they can not change, the courage to change the things they can, and the wisdom to know the difference. I wish this for myself everyday but do not always succeed, I hope my children will be able to do this with ease.

My child's life in play- she can be anything.

Pre-K Here We Come

In the beginning of August we began working on reading skills with our Bob Books set. Babycake really took off with it and enjoyed it. We flew through the first five books, but then they became more and more difficult, as each new book built on top of previously learned words and sounds. By the time we were to start book eight, Babycake was finished. She has a hard time not "getting" it right away. She understands that learning means practice, but she thinks practice means going over something once, maybe twice, and then you're a master. She doesn't like to repeat something 10 times in order to fully comprehend the lesson. So. We have taken a hiatus from reading, though she did just read "Bears on Wheels" last night, because, you know, she wanted to so she did. (insert eye roll here) Babycake has always loved learning, so I don't want to force her to read if she doesn't want to. She's smart and will get it in her own time. Plus she's only four.

Anyway, since completing her Preschool workbooks, Babycake has really enjoyed working on her Kindergarten workbook and talking all about how ready she will be for Kindergarten next year. As with most workbooks, each page builds on the content learned on the previous page. She is enjoying the Math and Games sections of the workbook, but so far is finding the Language Arts section boring as it has her tracing letters. Babycake already knows her letters by sight, and can write most of them without aid. However, I still have her doing these pages as her letters are not perfect and half the time they are backwards. So far its been a good experience and she's enjoying it.




 Here we are enjoying some learning outside, tracing letters and doing a word search.

Preschool: Mission Completion!

Well I would say that as far as Preschool/Pre-K preparedness, we're finished! Last year when the new school year was beginning, and all the new school supplies came out for sale, I scooped up a couple Pre-K workbooks to use with Babycake. Buddyboy was only about 3 months old so we had been lacking in our learning time and I wanted an easy fix to that. As I've shared in other posts, Babycake LOVED these books. She thought it was so cool to do "school work" like big kids and would be happy to complete 20 pages a day if I let her.

Unfortunately for Babycake we never seemed to have a rhythm or schedule that lasted for a significant period of time during Buddyboy's first year so her education was sporadic at best. For a while we focused on learning a lot of safety topics- safety near water, safety around town, safety at home, where do we go when there's a fire?, where's the safe spot for a tornado?, etc. Babycake learned her whole name and address. Another span of time we were reading one Magic Tree House book per month and creating lessons to go with it. (this actually lasted 4.5 months) Thankfully she's such a curious child that we could turn anything into a lesson when there's no routine or schedule.

Our workbooks were the lessons I'd turn to after realizing we'd done nothing for a week or two. Thankfully Babycake's daddy was happy to help his little girl perfect her Pre-K maths and language arts if all he had to do was sit next to her and read directions. So.... After a year of on and off  working, we've finished! Babycake knows all her letters by sight, upper and lower case, as well as the sounds they make. She can count to 30 on her own and can continue to 100 with occasional assistance. She loves patterns, learning how to spell and write words, and enjoys walking around the house with a notebook and pencil "taking notes" on everything.














Babycake was so excited to finish one book that we had to immediately go to the next and get through the 10 pages that were left. Then she declared that she's ready for Kindergarten and I needed to get a Kindergarten workbook for us to start on. Most of Babycake's friends are 5 and started Kindergarten this year so she has been pretty bummed she didn't get to start school like them. The fact that she now has a Kindergarten book and is "learning the same things as all my friends" has helped ease that bit of resentment she had. (thank goodness! :D )

Rainy Day Learning

Rain rain go away! It seems to be monsoon season here in the Midwest. With all the rain, we have been stuck in doors and I'm finding it harder and harder to come up with distractions for the kids to keep them from driving each other, and me, crazy. When it's not raining, it's crazy hot and humid, and we only last about an hour before we're all drenched in sweat and happy to return indoors to air conditioning.

With this weather we have been getting plenty of time to work on Babycake's learning to read. Babycake has been doing really well. She has already progressed to reading Book 7, Jig and Mag, in our Bob Books. Like I've said multiple times, she is a self driven learner. She gets so excited after reading a whole book and it's so fun to celebrate her accomplishment with her. The downside to this self determination however is that she is easily flustered and frustrated if she can't read a word on the first or second try. I have to remind her that she is learning and that means you don't know everything right away and that means practice which means you have to go over it again and again and that's OK. I let her know that I am not frustrated that she doesn't know everything and that we have to practice. I will admit that there are days when we sit down to read and she goofs off, doesn't read, and I get frustrated. We are not perfect by any means in our learning system.

For more indoor activities, we pulled out her workbooks which I had honestly forgotten about. Babycake flew through about 10 pages in her Letters workbook. It was so fun to see how well she knows her letters, can write them, and spout off the sound each makes.

To keep Buddyboy occupied while I assisted Babycake with her workbook, I got out a scrap paper and some old stickers. Only in the last month has Buddyboy not instantly put everything he touches into his mouth so I figured this would be safe to do now. It was a great way for him to work on some motor skills picking up the stickers, unsticking them from his fingers, and getting them onto the paper. What a hit! He really enjoyed it and was happily occupied for about 20 mins.

Another School Year, Another Learning Curve

Well, another school year has begun. Social media is being flooded with "First Day" pictures. I know next year we'll be doing the same. This year though, Babycake is four, old enough to head to preschool or pre-K, but, I'm not going to pay for my child's "pre-education" when I can sit down for 20 min a day with her and go over English, Maths, Music, and Art.

Last August I found a little calendar set and that was our big learning goal- learn the days of the week and how a calendar works, if we were really lucky we'd master months. Well one year later, Babycake can tell you the days of the week off the top of her head, look at a calendar and tell you what day it is, and what day tomorrow will be. She hasn't quite figured out "yesterday" but hey, she's four. ;-) She can pick out what the weather is today and what it will be tomorrow. She can also count all the numbers up to 31 without messing up and tell you the date. We have not mastered months. By the end of each month she can tell you what month it is, but she does not know what month comes next, or which month was previous. For example, being August, she recently said last month was May. This year I will try to make more of an effort to clarify the months and when they are.

This year our big learning goal is reading! Crazy!!! Babycake has been reading and writing her name for a year now. She has learned how to read and write Buddyboy's name, as well as Mom and Dad. She loves to go everywhere with a pencil and note pad taking "notes" on everything. The pages are filled with letters, and the occasional number. I credit this love of note taking to our reading of The Magic Tree House series. She loves to explore like Jack and Annie. Since she has shown such a love of writing and has initiated reading I figured I might as well go along with it.

When looking up different early reading books and plans, I came across LOTS of different ideas and opinions. I really didn't know what we would do. We have a lot of Dr. Suess books so I thought maybe we would just go through those. One day however, when our family took a little trip to Half Price Books I came across the First Collection Set of Bob Books. I had seen this mentioned many times in my search of beginning reading ideas. Some people Love them, some very much dislike them. I figured getting this set for 1/2 price couldn't be beaten and we might as well give it a try.

So far it's been great! Babycake is doing really well. In one week she has consistently read the first three books. We have tried the fourth book a couple times and it is much trickier for her. Babycake is a self driven learner, but also LOVES rewards. So the stickers she gets after completely reading a book really helps her to settle down and read through a book or two.

I'm so proud of her. She's so smart and driven. Updates with our progress will be shared.

    

   

Positively Past Pirates

As you know we've been reading the Magic Tree House series. The fourth book is Pirates Past Noon. Babycake did not want to finish the book once we were about half way. She did not like how mean the pirates were to Jack and Annie. She has such a gental heart she can't handle the pirates that would be considered "light" in conparison to most any other chapter book with pirates. I love her so much.

Anyway, Babycake was past pirates before we were done, but I managed to convince her to finish the book, that Jack and Annie would make it home safe, and once we were done we could move on the the next story. So I didn't put too much effort into coming up with crafts and activities for this theme.


Babycake has been facinated with maps for over a year now, so she did enjoy learning that pirates use maps to find treasure. We made our own maps of the backyard and pretended to hunt for treasures like wild strawberries, pinecones, and acorns. We also made a little treasure chest by painting a strawberry container. Then I drew some amazing pictures of places around our house and hid them around the house. I gave her the first picture leading her to a location where she would find the nect picture clue. Once she found all the places she would discover the treasure chest with either a snack inside, or one of her toys. Buddyboy has a stacking tower that looks like a telescope so Babycake also had fun playing with that while "sailing" in a large delivery box we had gotten earlier that week.

Though Babycake did not enjoy Pirates Past Noon, nor was she really that interested in the Fact Tracker Magic Tree House companion book, she did enjoy all the other pirate books we read. These were much more tame stories that make pirates seem friendly. I've included images of some of her favorites. I have nothing against fun and friendly stories about pirates, but I think it was a bit disapointing for her to read these stories after having learned that pirates were/are not nice, that they are thieves who steal people's belongings, or even kidnap people.

Although I think it's important that Babycake learn the truth about all things, I want to protect her gental heart and keep her innocent as long as possible. Having always worked with children I knew there was a balance to this task, however I guess I didn't realize this tricky balance would be expanding so quickly.

Ancient Egypt, Mummies, & Pyramids

Well we've moved from dinosaurs, knights, and castles to ancient Egypt. I wasn't sure how Babycake would do with learning about mummies. So I decided to start our hands-on learning with some fun.

The other week we had a lot of fun excavating a dinosaur, so I went ahead and got more excavation kits that went with our ancient Egypt theme. This was again a great hit. Our first excavation was on a pyramid and the second was a mummy case. 

Again I tried to make a point that we were like explorers looking for treasure. We were like archaeologists excavating ancient pyramids hoping to find something new to learn about. Babycake thought it was great pretending to be these people. I doubt she could tell you what archaeologists and excavating means. 

The jewel that was discovered in our pyramid was later displayed on Babycake's Egyptian necklace we created. Sadly her bird that was excavated from the mummy case was "lost" before also being added to the masterpiece of jewelry. 

                                                                               

  From the books we've read, Egyptians had a good view of death and after life. The funeral procession and burial of the mummy (dead person) in the tombs or pyramids were both fascinating and a bit unnerving for Babycake.

Since she started making it clear she didn't want any of us in the family to die (a perfectly understandable statement when faced with death) I tried to quickly turn our lessons and discussions from death, to the lives of Egyptians and what they did and built.

For example, many Egyptians were farmers which was amazing since most of Egypt is desert, but thanks to the flood seasons of the Nile the soil of the banks were rich and plentiful. It was during the off seasons that the farmers would assist building the pyramids. (which were for anyone who could afford building one) The farmers were paid for their labor but also did this for spiritual security in the after life. I found this to be so interesting since I had been one of the many people who believed the pyramids were built by slaves for the pharaohs.










We had fun building pyramids out of legos. We made our pyramids to look like the step pyramids  we learned about in one of our books. (smooth sided pyramids were just not going to happen) Then of course Babycake remembered that the mummies were inside the pyramids, so we made some mummies out of paper people and strips of toilet paper. (sometimes I just can't fool miss smarty pants)