Homeschool Preschool - Week 12

L and E are 39 months old.  This was a great week for early learning - we're really clicking into a rhythm and my girls are eager to learn new things and work patiently on their projects.  Here are some of this week's highlights..

This is what our kitchen table looked like most of the week!  The kids were constantly building different structures using magna-tiles, mega bloks, or traditional wooden blocks.

I took out a bunch of old boardgames and card games.  My 3-year-olds are just starting to enjoy playing games by the rules.  We played the Cranium Playground Board Game (pictured), Dora the Explorer version of Chutes and Ladders, Zingo, Go Fish, Blink card game, and Dominoes.  I had a really good time and dreamed up more board games that I could introduce the kids to (or make myself).

 

An unexpected hail storm was fun for some impromptu science exploration.  We discussed how hail is formed, and the observed how it melts when we bring it inside.

 

We continued reading and spelling.  L especially liked writing words (with my assistance) using alphabet stickers and then illustrating them.  She even made up some of her own words with random letters and tried to sound them out.

I made up a variety of reading activities using paper and pen or printable file folder games that we already had around.  E also asked for Reading Bear (free website) all week.  She likes to keep a bowl of snacks (goldfish crackers, yogurt melts) nearby and reward herself for every word she reads.. cute!

 

There were daily free art experiences.  I bought some plastic caddies from Target last summer for the kids' art supplies, but I only got around to filling them this week.  The girls enjoyed making their own "activities" with a variety of mediums.

 

 

I never understood how Montessori kids were able to pick one activity, work on it, and then put it away independently - I've been trying to get my kids to do that since they were less than 2 years old.  Now finally, at just over 3-years-old, it's clicking.  We have a desk upstairs in Baby H's room where the kids love working on their activities (which I place at kid-height in the closet).  E has especially been interested this week in pulling out one activity at a time, completing it, and putting it back on the shelf when she's done.  Her sister has caught on as well.  Baby H enjoys watching his sisters working from his crib. I think the key has been to provide activities that the kids have already mastered, because then they can complete them independently and it has really built up their self confidence.  The twins have spent at least an hour each day doing these easier tasks on their own (matching, sorting, threading, etc..), and occasionally I throw in a more challenging activity (like the logic games I've been creating for the kids lately) which I can help them with.

We've also been spending a lot of time with the abacus solving math word problems this week (sorry, no pictures).  We've been spending time downstairs dancing and practicing gymnastics every day, as well.  I'd love to get the girls a balance beam and a bar (pull-up bar that goes in a door frame) for the girls to practice on, but I can just hear the lecture from my husband now about how we have enough 'junk' and not enough place to put it...

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Linking to Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers and 1+1+1=1