Week Two

Second week down, and already when I ask if Anna wants to do school she says no. Hmmm, maybe I'm going about this the wrong way!... During the middle of the week I stopped saying we're doing school and instead I would start something by myself relating to school (painting, play dough, sorting blocks, reading our little Bible) and more often then not she'd wonder what I was doing and want to join. She's still only 2 so of course she doesn't want to "do school", she just wants to play! And I definitely want to encourage that. I recently read an article (I read it from Facebook and now I forget who posted it so I can't link it up) about the differences between German children and American children. I loved it, and now I want to pack my family up and move to Germany. Not really, but I am ready to be different than what I've witnessed here in America. I had a friend tell me that her son's kindergarten teacher told her that school (and she's referring to kindergarten too) is for learning, home is for fun. I'm sorry--what?! I thought learning was supposed to be fun?! Shoot, I still have fun learning! In Germany the main purpose of kindergarten is to play and socialize. Everyday children are expected to play outdoors, rain or shine. One of the main reasons we're deciding to homeschool is because we want our children to find joy in learning. We both attended public school and feel like the joy of learning was stripped from us at an early age. I went to college for education and the schools I observed, did my practicums, and student taught in most days were spent teaching to test. Most of my fellow collegemates were encouraged and wanted to change what they saw. I greatly admire them for that, however, for me, I turned the other way and knew I didn't want my own children to attend schools where testing was the priority. So homeschooling is our only option at this point. Which I love so far--granted, we're only in week 2 of pre-K, ha! Ask me again in a few years ;)

Check out what we learned this week. We're following the ABC Jesus Loves Me Two Year Old curriculum.

The Bible Theme: God Made the World Around Me, Creation Day 3

This week we continued learning about how God made the world around us. We read about God creating the land and the plants on the third day. We read from The Beginner's Bible pages 9-12. We continued our Creation Day Book by making Day 3. We glued brown and green construction paper to make trees and plants, and Anna painted the water blue. We planted poppy seeds, sunflower seeds, and cilantro seeds and talked about how plants need sun, water, air, and dirt to grow. We've been watering our plants everyday. I glued uncooked curly pasta to construction paper to look like flowers and had Anna paint on the pasta. We're continuing to recite our creation fingerplay and have added "On Day 3, God created the land and the plants". I'm realizing if it's not with music it's harder for her to remember but if it is to music girl's got it down! So everything we're learning we're putting a beat behind it.

Starting to paint her water that turned into a snake. 

On Day 3 God created land and plants--and according to Anna, snakes.

My little flower girl planting her first flowers.

Verse: Genesis 1:1-In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 

Tune: Are You Sleeping? 

Same verse as last week. I love that she's already memorized a Bible verse! 

Song: The B-I-B-L-E

When I first introduced this song I was surprised to hear her pick it up so quickly. I asked if she'd ever heard that song before and she exclaimed "yes, at church!". We sing it together before we read our Bible story.

Color: Blue

We started the week with a color walk where we looked for blue objects. Anna found blue trash dumpsters, blue letters on license plates, blue cars, and my blue shirt. Anna knows her colors really well. This week it got to the point where I'd ask her to find the color blue somewhere and she'd just say "no". Stubborn much? 

Letter B

I printed out a block letter "B" and we dipped her thumb in yellow paint to make bumblebees on the "B". After the paint dried I added wings, stripes, and stingers with marker. We talked about how bumblebee starts with the letter B. Throughout the week we looked for the letter "B" around the house and while we were out. (I failed to mention last week that the two year old curriculum doesn't focus too heavily on letters. The objective is for the child to learn to say the letters of the alphabet correctly.)

Bumblebees start with "B"!

Information: First, Middle, and Last Name

We continued reciting Anna's full name plus Mommy, Daddy, and Theo's full names. 

Self Care and Manners: Say "Please"

Anna knows "please" really well. She knows that if she whines and doesn't say "please" we won't listen to it. However, this is something she definitely still needs to work on. I'm trying to get better at saying "Anna, I will be happy to listen to you when you say "please" first and in a big girl voice." 

Number: 1

We counted to 1 on our button counting card. I love how every time I ask how many buttons there are she says "just 1". She knows the number 1, she knows how to count to 1, and she knows how to find 1 object. Bring on the number 2!

Shape: Line

We made lines, er snakes ;) out of play dough. We put Anna's wooden blocks in a line. I drew vertical lines on a piece of paper using a highlighter. On one end of the line I added a green dot and the other I added a red dot. Then Anna traced each line starting at the green dot down to the red dot (this is prewriting activity). I glued uncooked spaghetti to a piece of paper and had Anna use blue (color the week) paint to trace down the spaghetti.

Book of the Week: When the Elephant Walks by Keiko Kasza

We would read this book in the morning, before nap, and at bedtime. It was an easy book for Anna to read along (recite) since there weren't a lot of sentences. We also made an elephant mask one day using a paper plate, cardstock paper, and paint. We didn't have gray paint so I mixed blue, brown, and white. I wasn't sure if it'd come out gray but I'd say I did a pretty good job guessing!

Motor Skills: 

Fine Motor: Sorting Activity
After borrowing this sorting toy from a friend I quickly realized that Anna has already got this motor skill down. She still enjoyed it but I wanted to give her more of a challenge so I switched our activity to one I found from a friend's blog (Katie's Chasing Vowels). I love that it's super simple to set up and with items we already had around the house (pipe cleaner, beads, and paper). The child strings the appropriate amount of beads onto each pipe cleaner. It was great for counting and for fine motor skills. It turned into Anna pouring the beads into a cup and less about the counting and stringing.

Gross Motor: Jump forward
While I played music each morning Anna worked on jumping like a frog, kangaroo, and "runny babbit"--she said this one day on accident and thought it was the funniest thing so we've continued calling it that. I love how she cracks herself up because she sure cracks me up!

Two weeks down and so far we're having a great time. I love seeing how fast and how much Anna's learning. My baby girl is officially a big girl now *sigh*