{Books We Read}

Our Ready-Made Preschool book this week was A House for Hermit Crab by Eric Carle. We read lots of ocean themed books that we already had in our home library. These were our favorites.

{Activities We Did}

Little Bug’s craft this week was to make a hermit crab shell using a paper bowl. She decorated it as she wanted using markers and paint (pink, of course). Later in the week we used her hermit crab to make a Story Prop for her to be to able to retell the story to someone else. She retold the story to Grams, who was in the kitchen chopping up some chicken for dinner that night. My mom happened to snap that picture of us reading the story together. Little Bug is eating and I told her, “You know, something special about homeschool is if you are hungry and want a snack in the middle of school, you don’t have to wait to eat, you can just go and get yourself a snack!”

{Concepts We Learned}

Our letter of the week this week was the Letter Hh! Writing the letter Hh in the shaving cream when much better this week. I didn’t squirt out near as much as I had the first time and we worked at the kitchen table instead of on a cookie sheet outside. And, we had a one finger rule during our writing time. After she wrote letters in the shaving cream I told her she could put her hands all in it and play. She kept the mess contained and even cleaned it all up afterwards all by herself! Every day there is a letter activity to do. Little Bug enjoys them all. She was especially proud of her play-doh Hh’s that she made all by herself and even went and interrupted Gramp’s nap to show him! Oh, the Letter h craft this week was to glue hair onto the h. Little Bug thought the hair included was gross and would not touch it! She decorated her own way instead.

Our Bible time this week was spent reading the story of Abraham, Sarah and Isaac. We learned that God kept his promise to Abraham and nothing is impossible for God because Sarah had a baby when she was very, very old. In our hermit crab story, the crab meets a new friend every month. Little Bug already knew the days of the week from preschool last year, but this week she learned the months of the year from a song that we would sing every day to the tune of “Ten Little Indians”. She changed out our calendar for the month of October. Little Bug made a house from popcycle sticks because the crab had to find himself a new shell because his house was getting too small for him. As she made the house, we talked about addresses. She was to start learning her address this week but she had it memorized that first day! (And it isn’t short!) Science was integrated into this week’s lessons as we learned about animal habitats. She had four pictures and four animals and she had to match the animal to its habitat. (Ready-Made Preschool has the child drawing the habitats but Grams printed some pictures out for Little Bug because I knew she wouldn’t be in to drawing.)

{Science Experiments}

Grams sent me a text telling me the girls needed their bathing suits for science that day because they were going to get messy! They did the experiment called I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles from Mudpies to Magnets. They made a solution and then, using a straw, they were to blow into the cup to make bubbles. Then the got a big bucket of the solution and a large bubble maker Grams had found and they blew humongous bubbles. This experiment was a huge hit and Grams saved the solution for more bubble fun in the future.

Little Bug’s work from this week. She loves pinning her work up to our board!

{Hands-On Thinking Skills}

We’ve been doing Hands-On Thinking Skills 1-2 days each week. We’ve been working on the first three concepts covered in the book: Matching Shapes, Shapes That Do Not Match and Combining Shapes. We are going to work on these concepts one more week and then move on to the next concept which is Finding Shapes. Little Bug enjoys these lessons and says they make her smart!

{Sweet Pea}

My main focus with Sweet Pea recently has been just simply reading to her. I spent TONS of time reading to Little Bug when she was my only child. I have read to Sweet Pea from birth, but her attention span for books was just nowhere near her sister’s at age two and I want to change that. I know it is simply an issue of just not reading to her for literally an hour straight like I would do with Little Bug at this age. (Life changes with two kids in the mix!!) So my number one goal with her during her “Learning Time” has been to just READ to her. And….it’s WORKING! She is sitting with us more for Bible stories in the morning and actually looking at the Bible and paying attention to the story. At the beginning of this school year, she would start out sitting with us on the couch to read, but not 2-3 minutes into the story, she would squirm down and I’d let her. The week we were reading Apple themed books a lot, she would join us and read too and actually be engaged in the entire story. Her Grandma and Grandpa are helping in this endeavor too as they have told me that she will bring them books to read to her for 30 minutes when they are keeping her on Wednesday nights. I am very excited to see this progress and all from just intentionally reading to her 30 minutes a day (two 15 minute sessions – one during her 15 minute “Learning Time” and one during the 15 minutes before she lays down for nap). Sweet Pea is also very much into puzzles and she is very good at them! Reading books and doing puzzles will stay her main “Learning Time” focus for now.

- Elaine