Homeschool Preschool: Weeks 21 & 22

L and E are 3.5 years old.  I've been busy working on some new educational games lately, and the girls have been having such a great time inventing all sorts of dramatic-play adventures for themselves (they always say "we're too busy playing stories" when I ask them if they want to do activities), so we're back to a more unstructured homeschool approach.  On days when they decide that they do want to do 'activities', we work together for hours and they concentrate and work hard on their tasks.  On the days when they just want to go camping in the living room or build an airplane out of the dining room chairs, that's fine too.  Here's a little glimpse into some of our homeschool time..

Legend of the Golden Snail: Sailboat Craft for Kids

The Legend of the Golden Snail by Graeme Base is one of our favorite picture books - the adventure story is wonderful (with a good moral), but the illustrations have so much gorgeous detail that the girls (3.5 years old) and I spend a lot of time looking over them carefully.  The other day we read the book and decided to make a little sailing ship (or "snailing ship") craft to go along with it.  Here's what we did...

Montessori Monday: Child-Led Learning

I've noticed recently that L and E (3.5 years old) are starting to take the lead in making up educational activities for themselves.  I love watching them as they make observations and invent new experiments and activities.  I'm getting much better at sitting back and following their lead rather than getting too enthusiastic and trying to dictate the process.  Here are three examples of child-led learning that I remembered to take photos of...