Homeschool Preschool Week 10

L and E are 39 months old.  This week's preschool time was less organized than usual due to Halloween and the fact that I have a nasty head cold.  Rather than our typical math and reading lessons, we spent most of the week trying on different costumes and going on imaginary adventures, rediscovering games that have been sitting in the closet for a while, building things, and playing miscellaneous logic/memory games that I made up...

Math

Most of the math this week involved pulling out various manipulatives and just playing side-by-side trying out different things..

  

I made a conscious effort not to say "measure the length of this, or the area of that", but rather talk to myself and say "I wonder which one of these pieces is the longest, let's find out!" and the sense of curiosity became contagious and the girls started doing their own investigations with whatever we were playing with.

I didn't push the math agenda too much if they had other ideas.

For example, you might think from the photo above that the kids are doing a lesson on fractions, but they are really baking pies (in different flavors) and then splitting them equally among their stuffed animals.  Nope.. no learning going on here ;)

We did end up doing some activities to reinforce counting by 5s and 10s like this file folder game:

Reading & Writing

Most of our reading practice this week was via online games (Starfall, Reading Bear, and Giggle Bunny) so I don't have many pictures to share.  We did spend some time on pre-writing practice as well as writing letters.

I tried letting the girls practice their letters using trays with cornmeal, but unfortunately it ended up all over the floor and it happens to be the one food that the dogs will not eat.  We did get some good Montessori-style practical life practice with brooms and mops after this one.

 

We also tried writing on ziplock bags filled with a bit of green dishwashing liquid.  The girls enjoyed the way they felt, but I wasn't too impressed with the results.  I think we're going to go back to practicing letters with markers or chalk.

Both girls wrote "MOM" nicely on the chalkboard, but I forgot to capture a photo.  Here's a turtle that L drew by herself, along with the letter T for turtle.  It turned out totally cute!  I'll be coming up with more drawing games for the kids in the coming weeks.

We finished our read-aloud book The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark, and I'm sad to say that I enjoyed it more than the kids.  I think it was too slow-paced for them compared to the adventure books we've been reading aloud.  Now we're reading an abridged version of the classic Gulliver's Travels, which is a lot of fun.  We reenacted the shipwreck, and the girls think the Lilliputians are hilarious - especially when one pokes Gulliver in the nose with his spear and Gulliver's sneeze sends him flying through the air!

Building and Fine Motor Skills

Decorating playdough cakes:

Making a playdough porcupine:

Lots of building this week..

 

  

It was fun to have a low-key week where I didn't have to plan out too much (and the kids still learned a ton). 

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Also linking to Weekly Wrap-Up at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers, and Preschool and Kindergarten Corner at Homeschool Creations and Learn and Link at Mom to 4 Blessings and Tot School at 1+1+1=1