Here We Go!

 

Welcome to my homeschooling blog!

 

Before this week, I was still nervous and a bit unsure of our decision to bring Emma home from preschool.  But it has gone better than I could have ever imagined.

 

Emma is 3.5 years old. 

Very eager to learn anything you are willing to take the time to explain to her. 

 

And when the preschool we were sending her to told us that she was sitting in the 1st grade class room for lessons because she's bored in the preschool room, we knew we needed to do something different.  We would hate for her to lose her passion for learning.  And since she has really responded to the Montessori style of teaching the preschool used. I am going to do my best to continue that here at home.

 

Wish me luck.  I'm pretty much just going on a wing and a prayer!  And following other wonderful homeschooling blogs and Pinterest gurus.

 

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Speaking of Pinterest.  I found this "CHORE CHART" and decided that was the first thing I needed to establish for our new *daily routine*

Emma is very methodical.  She does better if she knows what expectations are set for her and then can track/see her progress. 

Every morning, she reads her chores, and makes sure she moves the right clip from the "to do" side over to the "done" side when that chore has been completed.

Then every night before bed, she moves all the clips back to the "to do" side so it's ready to go the next morning.

 

I really like this exercise.  It not only teaches her responsibility and gets her in a good habit of doing chores, but it's an independent accountability system that she can carry throughout her life.  Making lists and checking things off.

 ***

 Being concerned about her missing her preschool friends and that socialization, I checked our local Barnes & Noble for kid events. 

Every Tuesday Ms. Marie reads a story, sings songs, and provides a coloring page for the kids.

(Emma is in the pink shirt and overalls)

 

Emma loved this!  Was not shy at all about getting right up there with these new kids.

She was however VERY interested in this tree on the wallpaper behind Ms. Marie.  LOL.

***

 Each day I've been trying to come up with just one activity that will work on her eye hand coordination, fine motor skills, logical thinking, or creativity.  And most of these activities are made from items we have around the house!

 

PIPE CLEANERS and a COLANDER

I love this activity!  Not only does it slow her down and make her focus, but it keeps her busy for a good 20 minutes. 

 

 

FRUIT LOOPS and GLUE

This is a great way to build up those "handwriting" muscles.  Well, it would be if she would GLUE more than EAT the fruit loops.  I swear she would glue 1 and eat 5.  Silly girl.

SQUIGGLY LINES and SCISSORS 

I just draw lines across the paper and have her cut along the lines as best she can.  She has shown a LOT of improvement with this one.  The first couple of times we did this, it was not pretty. Almost lost a finger trying to hold the paper while she held the scissors!  bawhhahah - I don't recommend that approach.

 

HOMEMADE GEOBOARD

Found the idea from this great blogger over at Mama Jenn

Super easy and had most of the supplies already.  Emma likes to make patterns as well as shapes, which I figured as long as she's putting those hair bands around the push pins, she working those muscles in her hands. 

 

CONTROL OF MOTION 

The preschool actually gave me this idea.  They said Emma loves to play "walk the line" and told me how to create this at home.  Basically just blue painter's tape and an open space on the carpet.  I like to make this a fun activity by stopping/starting music and having her only walk when she hears music.  We also play "red light/green light" with it.  And I even gave her a spoon with a marble on it to see how well her balance and control was.  I also had her walk like different animals: elephant, dog, trot like a horse, slither like a snake, swim like a crocodile along the tape.  She thinks it silly and pretty much just giggles the whole time.  But it's really great for teaching her to listen and follow instructions.

 

MATCH the LID with the CONTAINER 

She's always intrigued by how a lid goes on something, so I figured I would test her logical thinking by placing a bunch of containers with their lids in front of her and see if she could match them up correctly.  She did with no problem at all.  I think I need to make this more challenging and will blind fold her next time around.

 

ZOO ANIMAL LAPBOOKS 

 

We have a trip to the zoo planned for this upcoming week and I had seen these lapbooks on several other homeschool sites.  I absolutely love the idea.  Basically for our lapbooks, I had Emma pick 4 different animals that she wanted to visit at the zoo.  Then I gave her 4 folders, stickers, glue, scissors, felt, googly eyes, crayons, and markers.  She is working on the TIGER lapbook above.  She's already completed the ELEPHANT one and will do a MONKEY and a LION lapbook before our trip.  Then I was going to have her bring her lapbooks with us so she could draw a picture of the animal while we are there. 

 

I love how focused and serious she takes these assignments.  So cute!

***

Today we were back at B&N to meet Curious George!

 

She was so excited to meet him finally and was even more delighted when he gave her a cookie!

*** 

This week we mainly focused on transitioning Emma from going to preschool everyday to being homeschooled by Mommy.  And she has YET to even ask about preschool.  So I think we made the right decision.  I really feel that way in my heart.  And I don't think I realized just how much I missed her during the day when she was gone.  I have had so much fun trying to come up with new things to do with her during the day.

 

I hope to start adding tiny toddler activities to this blog soon. As Brooklyn is getting to a really fun stage at 6 months old. She has great eye contact and has started to really grasp/reach for objects.  She's definitely ready for more engaging activities besides "peek a boo" and "patty cake".

 

Gonna wrap this up.  Looking forward to having a front row seat of watching our girls grow, learn, discover, create, imagine, explore and just have fun!