Let It Snow

The best thing about homeschooling is incorporating learning into our everyday play. It's definitely how my kiddos learn best. This week we are talking about snow. (Which is fitting given where we live)

We read books, talked about how snow forms, and tomorrow are making borax snowflakes for our weekly science. Like I said turning easy, everyday activities into learning opportunities. Easy peasy!!!

Emmy Lu and Tanner LOVE outside. Harriet has yet to develop her appreciation for the great, winters outdoors.

Week in Review- Preschool Unit: Spring

Last week marked out first week of mini school.  I chose the very fitting topic of spring since it is just beginning here in the northland.  We are still working on our daily routine but this past week, we’ve been starting our school time at 9:00 am with a circle time.  That seems to be best.  We tried, 8 am but that was just a little too early to have every up, fed and dressed before we began.  We did lots of activities from painting pet rocks, to looking for worms, to dancing to some new spring songs, to reading about the seasons, to playing “slap a letter” on our new alphabet board from dollar tree.  As part of my weekly goals, I like to do activities that cultivate different types of learning.  This week we did math, science, art, reading/writing along,  and creativity/music movement.  The kids seemed to love it and we were able to fill our mornings with “school work” and afternoons with adventures related to our topic. (We were even able to cut out TV or screen time on a majority of our days).

I used some  spring printables from 3 Dinosaurs.  There are LOADS of free printable activities.  I just picked and chose what I thought we would use. It is an AWESOME resource. Check them out if you are looking for some free preschool and tot  themed printables.

 

Here’s is our first week of school in pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since I have a major volunteer commitment this week with our local ECFE fundraiser, school is going to be a little lighter this week.  We are continuing along the lines of spring and doing a Gardening Unit. We kicked off this area of learning with a visit to a local green house on Saturday and planting some of my planters for the front of our house. This week will be picking a new letter of the week, planting seeds, and talking about how plants grow.  My little nature lovers will hopefully love it!!

 

Spring Flowers Craft

This week the kids and I started mini school.  What is “mini school” you ask??  Well, I wanted a way to ease the kids into a new routine and get a feel to where they were at developmentally.  So before jumping into the deep end of homeschooling this fall, we are getting our feet wet with themed learning each week.  This week’s unit is “Spring has Sprung” (which by the way is totally debatable here in the Northwoods.  I still have a snow bank in my yard!!). 

I’ll give an entire week in review on Friday but I wanted to share a quick craft with you; foam flowers.

I picked up some foam sheets at my favorite dollar store, Dollar Tree.  Seriously, this is like the mecca for awesome homeschool supplies for CHEAP!!

 

Here’s a run down of what I did:

I drew some leaf, petal and center stencils on cardboard, then traced them onto the foam.  I then cut them all out.  Both Emmy and Tanner, enjoyed making combinations of flowers and creating their little foam gardens.  Super easy, super cheap and it seemed like the kids enjoyed it.  We will definitely be playing with these again this week and possibly gluing them down on Friday to make some flower foam art to hang on our fridge.  It is a great quiet time activity that requires them to use fine motor, representation and symbolic thinking, and learning and problem solving.  Who knew you could get all that for $1.00?!?!?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aren’t they cute?

This was mine.  Of course, I forgot to snap pictures while the kids were playing with them.  I’ll try to get some tomorrow.