Homeschool: Week 2 Roundup

A little roundup of our activities this week.  We studied the first 7 days of creation, and the letter g {for garden, obviously}.  We did some practice cutting with scissors and counting with beans.

Get excited, folks - we're going in.

How Does a Garden Grow? I cut out all the pieces the night before (by the by, you don't have to feel intimidated by my mad paper flower-cutting skills.  What can I say?  There are just some things I excel at), and then Leah and I had a great conversation about what plants need to grow: Dirt, sunlight, water.  She glued each piece into place, and pretended to plant and water her seeds.  Then, we discussed the other parts of a flower (stem, leaves, flower.  We're not technical yet) and she put them all into place as she wanted.  I had intended to glue the pipe cleaner down, but it's really stinkin' hard to glue pipe cleaner using only a glue stick.  Enter: tape.  

Mr. Smiley.  I so wish I could take credit for this, because it's preschool genius.  Since it's our first time using scissors, Leah needed some prompting to help her remember to keep her thumb up.  I'd tried some simple reminding, but I needed something better.  Enter: Mr. Smiley.  I know.  Genius, right?  Instead of reminding/nagging, all I have to say is, "Can you see Mr. Smiley?" and she knows.  Awesome.  

Scissors Assessment.  I wanted to see how accurately Leah is able to use her scissors, so we did this little test.  I drew lines on a piece of paper and asked her to cut on the lines, ONLY on the lines and no further.  Interesting thing I'm discovering about my daughter: She's not great at the sticking to it thing.  As you can see, the first two lines - the ones where she was super focused, determined and willing to work hard - were pretty much perfect.  By line 3, she got a little bored and decided to improvise.  So, at age three and a half, that's her attention span: two lines.  I have my work cut out for me...

 Fine motor skills strengthening.  Another thing I know (besides the fact that this photo is out of focus) is that Leah needs some work on her fine motor skills.  She's amazing in so many areas of life, but this is one that is tough for her.  So, we set out to work on it.  Supplies: Colander and pipe cleaners cut in thirds.  Goal: Go to town threading pipe cleaners through the holes.  I told her it was worms in the garden.  Go Team Fine Motor Skills!

Creation book.  A fabulous idea that came from our curriculum where you use clear contact paper to build collages of the things God made on each of the first seven days.  This was activity day three (fish, birds, animals and people; not to be confused with day three of creation).  Other days not pictured on account of it took me three days to figure out the contact paper properly because I'm a little challenged in the fine motor skill department, too.  

Letter g on the chalkboard.  Self explanatory.  But can I brag ('cause I'm going to.  What?! Modesty is so overrated): she drew the capital letters on her own without any prompting or practice.  

Counting beans.  Another exercise in sticking to it.  We did 1-3 so she could get the hang of it, and I could tell that by the time we got to eight we were going to be in trouble.  Not because she couldn't do it, but because she could do it and was easily distracted.  So, we started jumping around and I let her select the next number she wanted to count to give her a little more buy in.  It took a lot of overenthusiastic celebrating and encouragement, but we made it.  Whew!

Workbook.  Go letter g.  

Ink pad flowers.  Her thumb pressed into a red ink pad, combined with a green crayon.  We added a few necessary things for a garden - worm, butterfly, bee, ladybug, the usual - and done and done!

We had a great second week, and g was so.much.easier for her than x, which pushed her super-linear, vertical/horizontal axis-only what'sadiagonal? boundaries.  We are looking forward to all the apples next week!

So... talk back: How'd it go for you?  What activities did you try this week?  Looking forward to hearing from you and have a blessed weekend!