New Beginnings

Well, here I am again!  This Blog is beginning to be more of a tracking of tidbits of my life rather than any sort of consistent, valuable something!!!  I'm now in London, Ontario, teaching Grade 3 (and part-time Grade 4) at another Christian school... which I love!! But I still follow the homeschool movement closely and want to be a blessing there somehow.  I'm just not sure how to do that!!! But as always, God gives wisdom!  More to follow!  I have to go think some ideas through before I post them!

New Year, New Goals

I suppose that calling a February 18 post a "New Year" post just goes to show how behind I am already this year!  Oh well, moving on!  Does anybody else struggle with sticking to a project until it is complete?  I tend to begin projects with enthusiasm, then I get a pretty good feel for how it's going to turn out and then I lose steam.  For me, the best part of a project is definitely the excitement of beginning something new.  I need to train myself to value the sense of accomplishment that comes with completing a project more than the initial high of starting out!

Well!  That said, I am about to begin a new project!! (Hooray!)  I look at homeschool history curriculum resources like The Story of the World and The Mystery of History and I'm so impressed with their content and scope, however, it is unfortunate that there is not more of a Canadian focus.  Also, while I totally subscribe to Susan Wise Bauer's Classical Education Model (as outlined in The Well Trained Mind), I'm not convinced her Logic stage outlining requirement is engaging enough for Grade 5-8 students (although I do plan on including one outlining assignment per week in history next year).  So... my new project is to develop a Grade 5-8 Classical History Curriculum with engaging readings and strong Canadian content (which will be difficult to do while studying Ancient Times or the Medieval Period!).  This 36-week curriculum will be divided into 4 years, each with 3 12-week terms.  The scope and sequence of the project is as follows:

Year 1: Ancient Times
Term 1: Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt
Term 2: Ancient Greece
Term 3: Ancient Rome

Year 2: The Middle Ages
Term 1: The Early Middle Ages
Term 2: The High Middle Ages
Term 3: The Late Middle Ages

Year 3: Early Modern Times
Term 1: 17th Century
Term 2: 18th Century
Term 3: 19th Century

Year 4: Late Modern Times
Term 1: The World to World War 1
Term 2: The World to the 1960s
Term 3: The World: 1960s to Present

I will be using this blog to organize resources and assignments for each period.  In each term students will complete 2 historical fiction readings (6 books per year).  They will be assigned a weekly outlining assignment from The Kingfisher History Encyclopedia, a weekly mapwork assignment, and other readings, videos, and projects as appropriate.

Finally!  We are still somewhat behind in our Plants Unit Study... that seems to be the perpetual state in teaching!  We went on our Bush Field Trip on Thursday, September 27.  It was so much fun! Thank you so much to the parents who were able to accompany us and provide rides!  I apologize again for the extra learning that took place surrounding the chicken butchering apparatus set up on the front yard.  That was an unexpected part of our field trip!  Oh well, such is life! 

This week (October 1 - 5) we will be completing Lesson 2 and introducing our Unit Bible Verse (Genesis 1:11) as well as discussing seed dispersal and making peanut butter.  Our seed coat experiment went really well last week and we saw how the water softened the seed coat and allowed the little sprout inside the seed to pop out.  So hopefully by the end of this week we will be completed up to lesson 4. 

Plants: Lesson 3

How Seeds are Dispersed

Read the Parable of the Sower (Mark 4:1-9)

How do seeds get spread around?

1)      People plant them

2)      The wind carries them (Anemochory)

3)      Animals move them around (Zoochory)

4)      They are carried away by water (Hydrochory)

5)      Exploding seed pods (Autochory)

Ask Students to come up with ways that seeds travel in nature, without the help of man.

As they get stuck, give them examples of different seeds and ask them how they think the seeds travel around.

Ex. Dandelion – the wind blows them; Acorns – squirrels forget them;

Give out the worksheet (How Seeds Travel) and complete together.  For each box, students should write what the word means and draw an example of a type of seed that is dispersed using this method. 

Materials:

How Seeds Travel worksheet

Coconut

Touch me not plant

Burdock, choke cherries

Milkweed Pod

 

Plants: Lesson 4

Field Trip to the Bush!!

Itinerary

Leave the school at 11:30.

Arrive at Don and Gwen’s by 11:45

Picnic Lunch on the hill at Don and Gwen’s

Outside Games 12:30 – 1:00

Bathroom Break 1:00

Walk to Bush, explain assignment, collect samples 1:00 – 2:45

Walk back and leave Don and Gwen’s 3:00

Arrive back to school 3:15

 

Intro

Review all parts of a plant (seeds, leaves, stem, roots).  Pass out field trip guides and explain to kids what they need to do. 

 

Assignment

Have students pick one plant in the bush and draw its picture.  Miss Edwards will also take a photograph of your plant.  Take a rubbing of its leaf.  Dig it up and take a look at its roots, if possible.  For trees, take a rubbing of its bark.  Does it have visible seeds?  How do you think the seeds might be dispersed?  Do you know what this plant is called?  If not, look it up I a field guide.  Miss Edwards can help you. 

 

Materials:

Bush Field Trip Guide

Pencils

Clipboards

 

 

Plant Unit Study - Week 1

Plant Unit Study

This is some of the work that I've put together for my Grade 1-3 science class at Emmanuel Christian Academy.  I have 9 students, 4 of whom are homeschooled part time, so partly, this blog is for them to keep up with what the rest of the class is doing.  Also, I only have 2 months at 45 minutes 2 times a week to complete this unit, so it's not as complete as I would do if I were following a Classical Education schedule!  Also, in a homeschool setting, I would use the Answers in Genesis "God's Design for Science" series, but this is my cheaper take on that!  Excuses, excuses!!

Plants: Lesson 1

What do we need plants for? 
Have your child(ren) brainstorm a list of as many uses as they can think of for plants.  Here is a list a 7-year old friend of mine came up with:
- food for animals
- for beautiful smells
- trees give us oxygen
- maple trees give us syrup
- food for people (cucumbers, carrots, pumpkin, corn on the cob, apple, potato)
- we build houses and boats out of wood
- trees can be homes for different animals
- plants can be for shade
- we can use sticks for fires to keep us warm
- we get paper from trees (when asked how we get paper, she responded, "I forget.  I don't know."... This will be a learning objective for this unit!)

Know, Want to Know, Learn
Complete a 3-fold chart of What I Know about Plants, What I Want to Know about Plants, What I learned About Plants.  Have your child list what they already know (you might be surprised!) and come up with 3 questions (minimum) about what they want to learn about plants.
My 7-year old friend helped me out again!
What I Know About Plants
- some plants are poisonous
- plants have different names
- plants need sun to grow
- some plants are really big
- some plants cause big trouble (prickly bushes, plants in stories grow so big they cause problems :) ...)

Plant Unit Title Page
Have kids design a title page for their unit showing as many uses for plants as they can think of.   Use letter stickers to spell out PLANTS across the top of the page. 

These activities are all designed as intro activities to get kids thinking about plants and what we use them for. 

Lesson 1 - Materials
white computer paper for title page
letter stickers (or magazines / flyers to cut letters from)
pencil crayons
KWL (Know, Want to know, Learned) trifold - KWL Trifold
Brainstorming sheet - could use a graphic organizer of a tree and glue on green leaf shapes, one for each use for a plant!... Actually, I made one... here it is! Uses for Plants Graphic Organizer

Plants: Lesson 2

Parts of a Plant: SEEDS

Read section on Seeds in Abeka Science Reader Grade 3
Optional additional reading:
Read: A Little Seed by Eric Carl
Read: The Carrot Seed by Crockett Johnson
Read: The Magic School Bus Plants Seeds
Online Book: Sid the Seed

Talk about the seed coat and how it protects the seed until the seed is ready to sprout.  Conduct lima bean experiment from Abeka Science Reader

Unit Memory Verse:
Genesis 1:11
Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth”; and it was so.

Memory Verse Sheet for student binder
Experiment: Breaking the Seed Coat

Experiment Sheet

Read experiment instructions in Abeka Science Reader and complete experiment sheet for binder.
Experiment 2: Growing Seeds

Project Sheet

List materials and draw procedure on experiment sheet. 
Plant bean seeds in clear plastic cups.  Plant them close to the edge of the cup so you can see the roots start to grow.  Set the cups in sunlight and check them daily.  Record observations daily on experiment sheet.

Demonstration: Uses for seeds

Obtain a flour grinder or mortar and pestle.  Grind white blossoms to make flour.  Grind up peanuts in a blender to make peanut butter.  Enjoy on bread or crackers for a yummy snack!

Here is a link for a recipe for Homemade Peanut Butter.

Lesson 2 - Materials
lima bean seeds
paper towel
cup of water
soil
clear plastic cups
bean seeds
flour grinder
wheat blossoms
peanuts in the shell
vegetable or peanut oil
small amounts of sugar and salt
blender
spatula
air tight container
crackers
knife

So that seems like a lot of material for 2 classes!!  Don`t worry if you don`t get everything done!  I`m not even sure yet if I can get a flour grinder, so that experiment might be out the window!  I hope that one of the moms will come in to do the planting piece with us and talk about how deep to plant the seeds and what they need in order to sprout, etc.  Another fun activity might be to have a seed snack - sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, peanuts, cucumbers (with seeds), tomatoes, coconut, etc...)

Parents, let me know if this system is working for you!  I just installed Google Drive, so it makes my documents super easy to upload.  Alternatively, you each could simply keep track of what you have read and what plant related activities you completed!  We`re planning a field trip to the bush for the end of the unit, but I`ll keep you posted!

Thanks!

Jennifer

Classical Grade 1 Bible Planning

My current project (for the past 3 years or so) is to create a Classical curriculum schedule based on Susan Wise Bauer's The Well Trained Mind.  After losing the schedule on my hard drive twice, I had to restart the planning, but not actually doing this for children yet, I still have time!  Beginning with Grade 1 Bible, I decided to use the Arch Books as my main spine books and try to get an overview of the entire Bible over the course of the year.  To buy 40 books at $2.49 each totals $100, but many of these books are available at my church library.  The books I have scheduled to do over the course of the grade 1 year include:
Term 1
Week 1 - The World God Made
Week 2 - A Garden and a Promise
Week 3 - Cain and Abel
Week 4 - The Story of Noah's Ark
Week 5 - The Tower of Babel
Week 6 - Abraham, Sarah, and the Promised Son
Week 7 - Joseph and His Brothers
Week 8 - The Princess and the Baby
Week 9 - Moses and the 10 Plagues
Week 10 - The Exodus
Week 11 - When God Laid Down the Law
Week 12 - The Walls Came Tumbling Down
Week 13 - The Baby Born in a Stable
Week 14 - The Night the Angels Sang

Term 2
Week 15 - Samson
Week 16  - God's Gift Baby
Week 17 - Samuel and the Wake-Up Call
Week 18 - David and Goliath
Week 19 - King Solomon's Dream
Week 20 - The Day God Made it Rain
Week 21 - The Boy Who Came Back to Life
Week 22 - The Man Caught by a Fish
Week 23 - Three Men in the Fiery Furnace
Week 24 - Daniel in the Lion's Den
Week 25 - The Queen Who Saved Her People

Term 3
Week 26 - Young Jesus in the Temple
Week 27 - John the Baptist
Week 28 - The Temptation of Jesus
Week 29 - The Lame Man Who Walked Again
Week 30 - The Boy Who Gave His Lunch Away
Week 31 - Zaccheus
Week 32 - The Good Samaritan
Week 33 - The Raising of Jairus' Daughter
Week 34 - Jesus Rides Into Jerusalem
Week 35 - Good Friday
Week 36 - Easter Day Surprise
Week 37 - Jesus Forgives Peter
Week 38 - The Coming of the Holy Spirit
Week 39 - Paul Believes in Jesus
Week 40 - Peter Set Free

I thought about setting aside two weeks in Term 2 or early Term 3 for Easter, but I figured that we'd spend extra time during Easter to look at the story anyway!  With each story, we'll read the Arch book, read the corresponding passage in the Golden Children's Bible, represent the story using Hands On Godly Play (see here), and memorize a Bible verse related to the story. 

Also, as part of our Biblical studies, we will memorize a Christian song or hymn each month.  Our Hymn memorization list is as follows:
September: All Things Bright And Beautiful
October: Books of the Bible Song
November: We Gather Together
December: The First Noel
January: Amazing Grace
February: Fairest Lord Jesus
March: Dare to Be a Daniel
April: He Lives
May: Saviour, Like a Shepherd Lead Us
June: Seek Ye First
July: When the Roll is Called Up Yonder

Tomorrow, I'll post the Grade 1 Spelling, Grammar, Reading, and Writing plan and possibly the Math plan.  Eventually, I'll post the full year schedule for Grade 1 and then move on to Grade 2. 

Hopefully, posting this for you by sections will help me get it finished more quickly!!

Blessings!

Jennifer

I'm Back... For Now!!

Well, a lot has changed in my life since the last post in April 2011!  I'm no longer operating a home preschool, but I'm still as interested as ever in education.  I'm teaching at a small Christian School of 20 students in Central Ontario and I absolutely love it!  I teach a class of 9 JK - Grade 2 students for Language, Science, Social Studies, Art, and French as well as Math for 9 Grade 5 - 8 students.  The way God opened up this opportunity for me in September was clearly His amazing provision and I am so thrilled to be here!!

So, I am still interested in uploading resources for teaching preschool and kindergarten students, and I will try to keep that up on a partially regular basis.  Although we know how well I do at writing regularly!!

So, I hope that anything I post is helpful for you all!  Thanks for reading!

Jennifer

How Not to Rush a Toddler

I'm slowly learning the importance of allowing toddlers to explore materials and learning activities at their own pace.  As a highly Type-A personality, this is highly difficult for me!  As I type, Sweet Pea is supposed to be sorting the Teddy Bear Counters by colour.  Some of them are going in the correct bowl, however, a lot of time is spent making the Teddy Bears dance in their boxes and having them visit the bear families of other colours.  However, as I am consistent about praising the ones that go into the correct bowl, she is showing me that she understands colours and the concept of sorting!  I think we can move on to patterning now, but I still need to remember that we'll need to take a long time to play along the way.  I read somewhere that the surest way to kill a toddler's interest in school is to force them to do it like a drill seargeant.  If I allow these children to "work" (and it is work, at this age!) at their own pace, they will continue to amaze me with what they understand, and how much they can teach themselves (and me!).  Have a blessed day!

Jennifer

Star Theme!!

Last week, we completed our Star Theme!  I really enjoyed this unit, it was a fun one!!  Here are some of the highlights!

Our Learning Poster:

Our vocabulary word for the week was "Twinkle", we learned / reviewed the Star Shape, worked on the letter T, the number 20 (or recognizing the number 2 and the number 0) and the poem Star Light, Star Bright.  We sang Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star every day!

Our Read Alouds:

Our Stars and the Big Dipper (Let's Read and Find Out Science) were especially good!  Goodnight Moon is always a classic, and Berenstain Bears On the Moon seemed to hold their attention really well!!  The Magic School Bus books have so much information in them, I feel like I only skim the surface with them!! 

Amazon Links for the Read Alouds:



Our Craft Projects:

Create your own Star Picture

Glitter Stars (I especially liked Sweet Pea's glitter stars in the above picture!)

We also hauled out a bunch of gems, buttons, stick on jewels, and more and decorated star templates cut out of light blue card stock.  Princess is doing a great job developing her scissors skills!! 

Another "craft" project that we did this week was creating a picture of the Big Dipper by printing out the template at this site and sticking on a star sticker on every dot.  This was a great activity for Honey Bee and she did a pretty good job following directions, once she understood what she needed to do!

Letter T Activities

We created pages for their letter books that have Large Outline Letter Ts glued on construction paper stamped with a Teddy Bear stamp.  We stuck teddy bear stickers on the letter T to remember that T says /t/ /t/ /t/ like Teddy Bear! 

Princess is starting to grasp the concept that words are made up of sounds.  When I first asked her, what sound do we hear at the beginning of the word Tree, she would say "Tree" "Tree" "Tree"!  Now 2 out of 5 times, she gets the right sound, without saying the entire word!! I count this as a major victory!!  Hopefully, the letter activities we're doing should expose the others to the idea that words are made up of sounds pretty early so  it shouldn't be a problem!!

Fun (& Funny) Moments of the Week

Sweet Pea decided one day that we would play library!  She set out all of the Board Books on the floor, and we "signed some books out" and read 1 or 2 of them, but she wouldn't let me read all of them because the needed to go right back to the library!!

Another Sweet Pea moment: we were working on sorting some stickers by shape and when she started to get bored, she told me that she couldn't do anymore because, "Her elbows were tired!"... Ahh... excuses, excuses!!  Needless to say, we moved on to another activity (however excuse didn't hold water when it was time for clean up!!)

A final Sweet Pea memory:  at one time during the day, I caught her singing to herself, "This is the day that the Lord has made for me because I'm special!"  Too right you are, Sweet Pea!!

That was a brief look at our week! Princess, Sweet Pea and I spent some time reviewing circles, squares, and triangles using Lick and Stick shape seals from Roylco (but I just found a great recipe at I Can Teach My Child for make your own lick and stick stickers!)  Hope you enjoyed hearing about our week!!  

Jennifer 

Amazing!! It Worked!!

Well, I'm feeling quite technologically adept!! I got the Amazon Associates book link to post, and it only took me 2 attempts!!  (I didn't read the instructions carefully enough to realize that I needed to post the Amazon link into the HTML code, instead of just onto the blog!)  Following instructions has never been my strong suit!! Here are the links to the rest of the L.M. Montgomery journals!

The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery Volume II (1910 - 1921)



The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery Volume III (1921 - 1929)



The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery Volume IV (1929- 1935)



The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery Volume V (1935 - 1942)


There, I must say, I'm quite proud of myself!!  Now that I've figured this out, I'm sure you'll see A LOT more book recommendations on this blog!!    I should be posting a bit later today, after we wrap up our Star Theme week... wow, 3 posts in 1 day!  I'm turning into a blogaholic!! Have a wonderful day!

Jennifer

An Experiment

So, I signed up a long time ago for Amazon Associates, a program where I get a percentage of every item purchased through my link.  I've never actually posted anything anywhere, but I wanted to start, so I figured that I'd use this blog (and my website... coming soon) to start trying to generate some Amazon.ca sales... Anyway, here a a couple of links to the L.M. Montgomery Journals I was talking about in a previous post.

The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery Volume I (1889 - 1910)



Okay, as this is just a test, I'll only do one for now... the rest will come in the next post (if this works!!)

Jennifer

Latest Reading List Update

Well, I've been in a bit of a funk in my readings lately.  I had 5 books out of the library for 3 weeks and renewed them for an additional 3 weeks and still only managed to read 3 of them.  The first one I read was called Touchstone by Laurie R. King which was supposed to be a gripping FBI investigation story, but which I could not really get into.  The second book was called Beyond the Blue by Andrea MacPherson.  This is the story of a woman and her 2 daughters living in Scotland during WWI and working in the mills.  It was unimportant, though poignant, fluff.  The last book I read was Return to Harmony by Janette Oke and T. Davis Bunn.  Speaking of fluff... but this was such a delightful 2 hr read about friendship and forgiveness.  I made sure that my best friend got her hands on a copy in our church library, because I thought of her all through this book.  After all this fluffery, I wanted something more meaningful, so I picked up a copy of Volume 2 of L.M. Montgomery's journals that I had on my shelves since the library book sale last year.  These journals cover the period from 1910 - 1921, so tie in nicely to my WWI readings.  During this time of her life Maud got married, had a son, lost her second son during childbirth, had another son, agonized over WWI, recovered from Spanish flu, lost her only dear friend to pneumonia, and suffered through her husband's mental illness.  The strength of this woman!  I like to think that she could have counted me as one of the "race that knows Joseph", but maybe I would have been relegated to the ranks of the uninteresting chuch women her status as minister's wife forced her to visit, much to her annoyance!  I laughed and cried my way through her books and am now off to re-read the Emily series, although these are not my favourite of L.M. Montgomery's works.  I've added Volumes 1, 3, 4, & 5 of her journals to my wish list for future reading.  A remarkable woman writing during a remarkable season of Canada's history.  I just wanted to write and update my own readings, so you'd know that I didn't spend ALL my time reading Goodnight Moon and Runaway Bunny... which I also love to do!

Jennifer

Snow Theme (from last week)

Well, last week was our Snow theme... but I think for next year, if I'm on the Letter S at the end of March, I'll do a Spring theme.  That would correspond better to the weather, I think!!!  I only had munchkins on Monday, Thursday, and Friday this week and I was supply teaching on Tuesday and Wednesday.  A new little person has started at Precepts Academy.  I'm going to call her Honey Bee.  She is four years old, but because of complications due to an illness when she was born, she's roughly at a two year old development level.  Honey Bee was here by herself for her first day, and I think that was a good thing because it gave her a chance to get used to some of the rules here.  One of her favourite activities was matching up coloured plastic Easter Eggs and opening them to find the foam snowflake I had hidden inside.  Another activity that we did that was great for fine motor skills was Stickers!!  I peeled all the extra paper off the sheet and left just the stickers, then she peeled off the stickers and stuck them to a page.  This took quite a bit of focus. 

I cut out the circles and she helped me to arrange them from biggest to smallest to make the snowman.  

We did some Brain Gym activities to get both brain hemispheres working together.  Later, I did some research on developmental delay, and many articles said that spinning is also good for children in this regard.  Currently, Honey Bee doesn't always recognize that I am asking her a question and want to hear her answer, and she'll just repeat the question.  I'm working on having her say "My name is...." when I ask "What's your name?"  We'll get there!!

Princess came on Thursday and Friday morning, and stayed for Lunch on Thursday.  (I thought this would give us some extra activity time, but I ALWAYS forget how slow children eat!!!  Snack is never finished according to my timeline for the day!!  Ahh well, we just cut a few minutes out of playdough time, and it all evens out!!)  We read "I am Snow" and "The Snowy Day" and we worked on learning the poem Snowflakes by Leroy Jackson.  I'm also trying to teach the kids to say "A Child's Prayer for Morning" each day during our Calendar time.  It goes like this:

Now, before I run to play,
Let me not forget to pray
To God who kept me through the night
And waked me with the morning light.
Help me, Lord, to love Thee more
Than I ever loved before,
In my work and in my play
Please be with me through the day.
Amen.

This will take a couple of weeks because I don't have each child every day! 

For our snow crafts, we did some snowflake stamping, using some foam stamps I have.  Added to this, we also glued some white foam snow flakes to our page to make a snow scene, and added some paper punch out snowflakes from a scrapbook punch I have.  The scrapbook punch snowflakes was a great activity, because Princess had to use a lot of strength to punch it all the way through the paper.  Friday's craft was the traditional cutting paper snowflakes.  I folded the paper across the corner to make a square shape and drew as straight line to show where the bottom needed to be cut off and Princess cut across the line with scissors.  Later that day we did some shape cutting activities.  Princess uses scissors all the time, but she is not often required to cut along a line to make a specific shape.  Her favourite cutting activity was this simple Frog Craft from DLTK. 

Our shape for the Snow theme was the Hexagon because it has 6 sides and a snowflake has 6 points.  We started a shape unit for "Math" and Princess is working on consistently recognizing circle, square, and triangle without hints!!  Recognizing circle and square came up on a 2 year old skill checklist that I was researching, and Princess knows them, but can't (or won't) always remember the word "square".  I made up a booklet for her with worksheets and pictures made up of circles, squares, and triangles and she really enjoyed this (mainly because when she finished each sheet she got to put a smelly apple sticker on her page!)  The sheets I used came from Kids Learning Station and KidZone.  Princess especially enjoyed the pictures on the KidZone pages and got to take 1 worksheet home per day (the others are in her folder).  This week, we'll review circle, square, and triangle and add rectangle (and possibly oval, depending on how she's doing!).  Another shape activity that we did was sorting buttons by shape.  This took a bit of explaining, but once she got it it went very quickly!  I used these great new boxes I found at the dollar store, but it was tricky because I didn't have a triangle shape box, so we were putting triangle buttons in the hexagon box... I think this might have confused her.  Anyway, she did great and I finally got her to start saying which shape each button was as she was putting it in the right box.  We used a bowl for all the other buttons, and we didn't use the heart box, because it would have distracted her too much!!!

Anyways, we did some other snow activities and shape activities- dancing like a snowflake, shape sticker sorting and the like, but I did a really bad job of documenting last week!!  I'll try to get more detail about what we are doing this week for our Star Theme.  Hope you enjoyed the post!

Jennifer

Rabbit Week!

We're wrapping up Rabbit Week!  Sweet Pea was here 4 days this week, and Princess (who's 4) was here 2 days.  I also had some other little munchkins wander in during the week, but the primary teaching time was done with these girls. 
Here are some of the read-alouds we did this week:

We also read about rabbits and hares in the Kingfisher First Animal Encyclopedia. 

For Rabbit Week, we learned the word "Whisker" and made rabbit noses by sewing elastic cord onto felt (I did the sewing, but Sweet Pea picked the thread and learned about needles... thankfully not through experience!!)  When they were done, she only wanted to wear hers as a necklace, not as on her nose, so this was the only picture I captured. 

I also hot glued whiskers on the one for me, and that really helped her get a visual for the vocabulary word.  Here's mine... picture courtesy of Sweet Pea!

We also made rabbit ear headbands, a cut paper rabbit, and really cute rabbit in the grass puppets with a toilet paper tube and a smaller tube made of cardstock for the rabbit. 

We were learning the shape "Parallelogram", but Sweet Pea just started at Precepts Academy so we did a lot of reviewing circles and triangles.  During all of our free time crafts she would ask me to cut her out circles of various sizes.  So we did learn a shape!!  I printed these amazing Pattern Block Picture Cards from Kelly's Kindergarten, and Sweet Pea had a good time matching the right block to the shapes in the picture.  So now I have six cards with pictures on both sides to use with the pattern blocks as a Tot Tray in the future! 

(sorry about the picture quality... my camera does a bad job of focussing!)

Our letter for the week was the letter R, and Princess did a great job coloring in an outline of the Letter R and creating a Letter R mini-book from First-School.  I asked her to tell me what letter it was on each page of the book and that provided just the right amount of review for her.  She also enjoyed cutting out the pictures and gluing them in the book herself.  Sweet Pea and I talked about the letter R and she traced it with her finger a few times, but quickly lost interest.  No problem!!  My goal at her age is exposure only!! 

Our number for the week was 18, but Sweet Pea and I focused on recognizing the number 1.  She does a great job counting and 1:1 matching, so now it's time to start putting the symbol with the number!  I may add some number cards to our tot trays for next week... we'll see! 

Finally, as I already mentioned, we learned the nursery rhyme "Jack be Nimble" and the kids practiced jumping over a candlestick!  That was a really fun way for them to memorize the nursery rhyme!!

Other fun moments of the week...

My funniest moment:
I'm in the kitchen getting snack ready and Sweet Pea is playing (albeit somewhat unsupervised) literally 4 feet away in my line of sight with the Rice Pouring Tot Tray.  Do you remember that in a previous post I mentioned that this tray required a LOT of supervision!! All of a sudden I hear rice scattering everywhere (not on the tray!!) and Sweet Pea pipes up, "Oh no!  Somebody made a big ME-ESS!!" (Read in a sing-song voice and you'll come close to her tone!)  Then we learned about vacuum cleaners!! So Funny!

Other fun moments:
- Playing store with pennies and items from the play food and dishes drawer
- Playing cowboy by tying a string around the stuffed puppy and buffalo's necks and dragging them around
- Playing dominoes and matching the next colour to make the train
- Playing with the Disney Checker Game... not sure why she loved this one so much, but we got it out every day!!  She would line up the blue checkers on the faces on one side and the red checkers on the faces on the other side.  We eould also stack them up to make a patterned tower (blue, red, blue, red) and then she'd flip the board over and set them all up on the squares for the tic-tac-toe board! 
- Having tea parties - everytime I turned around I was handed a cup of tea!!
- Having puppet shows with our rabbit in the grass puppets. 

That's a pretty good overview of our Rabbit Week!  Tune in next week to hear what we're learning about Snow and the letter S!

Thanks for reading!

Jennifer

Tot Trays!

I read about Tot Trays over at Carisa's 1+1+1=1 Blog and have been following rabbit trails all over the internet trying to garner more amazing ideas!!  (I also really enjoyed the Spinner's End Nursery School posts.)  Anyways, here are some of the tot trays we've been using this week. 

1) Sorting Pom Poms - I included a pair of tweezers with this activity, but they are a tad too small for Sweet Pea to grip... I'm looking for a plastic pair of tongs, I just havent' found a good set yet.  We tried this activity with a spoon yesterday for transferring, and she seemed to enjoy that way a lot more!

2) Lacing Cards - She has figured out how to put the string in one hole and up the next one, but after that, it basically gets whipped around her head like a sling shot!  She really likes it though, so ... almost a success!!

3) Rice - This is an amazing activity for pouring skills.  You should see the number of play dishes that were added to this tray!!  The challenge with this one is to keep the rice on the tray.  It requires pretty close supervision (but it's fun for me to play with too!).  Sweet Pea and I dyed the rice ourselves with food colouring.  I measured out the rice and food coloring into a tupperware container, and she shook it like crazy!!

4) Pom Poms - we used this one for sorting and patterning.  This was (surprisingly, for me!) Sweet Pea's favourite tray!  She requested it a couple of times during the week.  She loved lining them up in rows and was actually quite amazing at creating the pattern (for a not yet three year old!)...  I'm sure we'll use this one lots in the future, which is great because I can coordinate the pom pom colours to fit the theme!!  Next week we're doing snow... blue and white, perhaps!!

Tomorrow, I'll give you a rundown on our Rabbit Theme week and the books and activities we did!

Thanks for reading!

Jennifer

Up and Running!!

Well, the Precepts Academy Preschool is up and running!!  I have my first almost full-time little person!  Sweet Pea is not quite 3 and she loves imaginative play and "paperwork"!  We have had so much fun this week learning about rabbits!  Here is our learning poster for the week:

We haven't done a lot of talking about Parallelograms yet... hmm... maybe I need to get the pattern blocks out tomorrow!!  You can see our calendar beside the learning poster.  We put a shamrock sticker on every day in March and we sing the Days of the Week song every day.  Sweet Pea loves to sing and almost has this one down in less than a week!! We also usually sing This is the Day that the Lord has Made during calendar time.  For Jack be Nimble, I set out a Votive candle on the floor (unlit... duh...) and the kids jumped over it as we recited Jack be Nimble.  They loved saying "Jack jumped over the candlestick!" as they jumped over the candle.  

Here are some photos of our school room set up:

 On the shelves are Stuffed Animals, Mr. Potato Head, Barbies, and My Little Ponies.  In the clear plastic drawer are play food and dishes, dolls and doll clothes, and puppets.

 Behind the chairs is the 100s chart.  Behind the table is the ABC poster.  On the shelves are Lincoln logs, Bus, Lock & Key toy, Animals bin, K'nex, and People bin.  On the white shelves are puzzles, lego, buttons, and misc. games that wouldn't fit in the game cupboard! 

I adore these book shelves!! The first one is all Kids' fiction arranged alphabetically by author.  The 2nd and 3rd shelf are non-fiction loosely arranged according to the Dewey Decimal system.  The bottom middle shelf is coloring books.  The top shelf on the right is CDs.  On the other side of the white shelf are Preschool teaching resource books and arts and crafts books... as well as a miscellaneous sampling of homeschool books that I reference frequently!!

These shelves are the best thing about the whole room!!  They were built to hide the back of the wall oven (which takes up the entire middle shelf on the right hand side), but they hold basically all the craft supplies etc. that we use everyday!  Such as:



Math and Language Manipulatives and Games

Dishes, Preschool Towels, and Tot Tray Supplies

Paints, Perler Beads, Nature Box (Shells, Pinecones, etc.)

Playdough, Pipecleaners, Stickers, Tissue Paper, Fabric & Felt, Yarn, Paint Cups, Foamies, Wood Pieces (Popsicle sticks, skewers, clothes pins), Googly eyes & styrofoam, and Pom Poms!  Whew!

So that is the preschool... next time I'll show you the quiet room and kids bathroom, as well as some of the tot tray ideas we've been using this week!!  I'm having a blast, and I love that I'm able to do what I love out of my own home!  If I can't homeschool my own kids, this is the next best thing!!

Thanks for reading!!

Jennifer

A Salute to Moms

Yesterday was an amazing day!  I had one of my favourite preschooler friends over for a lesson in the morning and we got to talking as we were completing a paint with water (and watercolours!) picture. 
"Who's your mom?" queried my little friend.
"My mom is Mrs. Edwards who teaches you about Jesus in Children's Church, " I replied.
"And my mom teaches me and [brother] and [sister] at home," she said.
"That's right.  And my mom used to teach me and my brother and two sisters about Jesus at my home when we were little.  Now, she doesn't have any little people living at her house, so she teaches you about Jesus in Children's Church."
"This paint is white, just like the colour Jesus made my heart," she remarked, moving on.  I just treasured this little snippet of conversation because it shows what a difference moms are making.  I praise God for a mother who raised me to know Jesus, who taught me to spend time in God's Word and in prayer everyday by setting me the example of doing this herself.  Sometimes I don't always see eye to eye with my mom about everything, but I respect her opinions because she has lived out her life demonstrating faithfulness in all she does.  She taught me to obey not because she was right (which she was), but because in obeying her, I showed my love and obedience for Jesus.  (This early teaching, by the way, saved her a lot of grief when it came to the teenage years!)  I remember her reading Little Pilgrim's Progress to us as well as countless children's books, poems, and Bible stories, not because they catered to her interests, but because she wanted to instill in us a love of literature.  It is a direct result of this early influence that I was reading at 4 and have a library of over 2000 books today, including a treasured copy of Little Pilgrim's Progress (as well as the original) which I found a couple of years ago in a thrift store rummage!

Anyways, all that is just to say that I love moms and I think they need a lot more encouragement than they get some days.  So if you're reading this, and you're feeling guilty because you didn't have time to construct the Great Pyramid out of sugar cubes this week amid running the eight year old to hockey, dance, soccer, swimming, and guitar lessons and making fresh play dough for the 4 year old while hearing her recite the alphabet and feeding the baby and getting meals and making sure the house runs smoothly, please remember that the choices you are making for your kids now have a lasting impact and above all, stay close to Jesus.  "Apart from me you can do nothing." John 15.  Have a blessed week!

Jennifer

Still Praying

Well, I'm still looking for full-time preschool / day care kids.  This has certainly been an exercise in trusting God.  I do not consider myself to be entrepreneurial by nature, so starting my own business and not having a regular paycheck can tend to cause slight panic attacks until I remember that I'm not in this on my own.  God has given me a passion for this little corner of Northern Ontario and a passion for educating children to high, Christian standards.  There are so few teaching jobs available in the Public or Catholic boards, and we don't have a local Christian school... yet. 
What does a Christian preschool mean?  It means that every morning, we start the day off with prayer, trusting God to lead us into the learnings He has for us that day.  We thank Him for the weather, whatever it may be, knowing that by the "word of His power" He is "upholding all things" (Hebrews 1:3).  We thank Him for daily providing for our needs - our snack, our lunch, the roof over our heads, our families.  We read Bible stories that tie into our theme - Jonah for Oceans, Noah for Rainbows, Joseph for Clothes...  We listen to music that honours God and reminds us of who He is and what Jesus has done for us - Jesus Loves Me, For God so Loved the World, He's Able...  It means that we look at all of our science experiments through the lens of God's Intelligent Design of the world - monkeys climb because God made them that way, ice melts because God knew we wouldn't want it to be winter all the time, God gave whales blubber to keep them warm in the cold water... In everything we do, we want to "remember our Creator in the days of our youth" (Ecclesiastes 12:1).  It is not my job to force kids to make a profession of faith.  It's not even my job to lead them through that process.  It is God's job to capture their hearts and lead them to Himself through the work of His Holy Spirit.  It is their parent's job to daily live out their faith at home, to answer their kids' questions about God, and to lead them in prayer when the time comes.  If I can keep on praying for them and encouraging them to see God's hand at work in their lives and in the world around them, to live their lives for His honour and glory, I will have produced much fruit!
This entry may have turned out to be more mission statement-y than I originally intended, but it was good for me to stop and consider why it is still so important for me to advertise as a Christian preschool, when that "label" may turn some people off.  I am a Christian and this is the only way I know how to live.  God honours faithfulness to Him.  Jesus, let me be faithful. 

Jennifer

Back Online!

Well, I finally have internet access again after my move!  This is very exciting, but does not necessarily guarantee that I'll be writing any more frequently!!!  My self-education journey continues to progress.  Here is a list of my 2011 Reads so far:
Anne of Green Gables series (all 8 books, a yearly reading selection since I've been 12 years old!  I still cry in every book!)
Voyage of the Dawn Treader (C.S. Lewis - I had to read it before I saw the movie!)
Gullivers Travels (only Lilliput & Brobdingnag - again, I just watched the movie! Aside: Jack Black is hilarious!)
Brothers Far From Home: The WWI Diary of Eliza Bates (I'm on a bit of a WWI kick right now - it started with Rilla of Ingleside)
The Wingless Bird, Catherine Cookson
Sinners and Shadows, Catrin Collier
Danny Boy, Anne Bennett
(The last three were recommendations from our local librarian... I don't think she quite understood what I was looking for... they were basically romances about women not about the actual events of WWI... oh well, the last one, Danny Boy, I actually quite enjoyed.  It is the story of a woman and her husband who had to leave Ireland to get away from the IRA and their search for employment in England, among other touching events.)
Megiddo's Shadow - excellent about Cdn. Yeomanry trooper sent to the Dardanelles
If I Die Before I Wake: The Flu Epidemic Diary of Fiona MacGregor, Toronto, 1918 (Jean Little)... amazing read - I finished it in one afternoon and I cried buckets!
Currently, I'm reading All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Remarque which is written from a German protagonist's perspective and is exceptionally interesting. 
I'm also attempting to get through Confessions by St. Augustine, but it's a pretty hard row to hoe!  If I can get a couple of Books done per month, I count myself as doing well!
In addition, I'm doing tons of reading from the Old Fashioned Education grade 3 reading list relating to Ancient History.  She does have some excellent selections and the Science Readers by William J. Long are amazing... they make me want to become a naturalist!!  (http://www.oldfashionededucation.com/)
I'll try to be back soon with more of an update on the preschool program, but wanted to get these readings recorded while they were still fresh in my mind!
Happy life-long learning!

Jennifer

Poetry... the stuff of life!

So as part of my journey to self-education, I adore reading and copying poetry.  Having begun a study on the 17th century (simply because other than some American history, I don't know that much about it), I came across the Puritan writer Anne Bradford and her poem "By Night When Others Soundly Slept".  I have copied it here for your enjoyment. 

By night when others soundly slept
And hath at once both ease and Rest,
My waking eyes were open kept
And so to lie I found it best.


I sought him whom my Soul did Love,
With tears I sought him earnestly.
He bow'd his ear down from Above.
In vain I did not seek or cry.


My hungry Soul he fill'd with Good;
He in his Bottle put my tears,
My smarting wounds washt in his blood,
And banisht thence my Doubts and fears.


What to my Saviour shall I give
Who freely hath done this for me?
I'll serve him here whilst I shall live
And Love him to Eternity.

Being of the type to stay up at night and pour out my heart to God, I felt a decided kinship with this poem.  I'm now headed off to copy it into my poetry journal.  Poems do not have the same effect unless they are copied out by hand!   

Leadership and Vision

Yet another entry that has nothing at all to do with preschool or homeschool!  God, in His infinite wisdom had ordained that tonight at church we would have a guest pastor conducting the last in a session of leadership seminars that he has been leading over the past year.  It was definitely very challenging!  Especially the part where he was talking about how leaders see in advance where God is moving and working and plan for it.  It reminds me of one of my favourite verses Galatians 5:25 "If we walk in the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit."... So this is what I'm working towards, but the challenge is having enough confidence that God will not allow your foot to be moved as you move along the straight and narrow way in following Him.  I am finding my current phase of life (supply teaching, tutoring, and babysitting when I'm not busy) to be not extremely conducive to living a life that is planned with a purpose.  Things are too up in the air for me to say, "This is my goal for the week and this is how I am going to live and what I am going to do to achieve my goal."  I guess the perpetual challenge is to set aside a purposeful time each day to re-examine your priorities in the light of how God is moving and working in those around you.  My prayer for this week is that I would spend some time each day renewing my mind in God's Word and investing in the relationships which God has allowed me to build with others. 

On a completely unrelated note, Christmas time is coming and it's time to start thinking about our church's Bethlehem Walk outreach ministry.  (Every year we act out the Christmas story for our friends and neighbours in the community and collect food to be given to our local food bank or to families who we know of through the church who could use some encouragement.)  I have the amazing privilege of writing the script for this ministry and this week, when I couldn't sleep at 4:00 in the morning, I planned out all of the sites for this year.  Our focus for this year will be Jesus is the Son of God and we will be looking at the life of Christ through the eyes of the "beloved" disciple, John.  I'm so excited to present this to the church at our business meeting tomorrow night!

May you be encouraged in the knowledge that God is completing the work He began in you and He has graciously ordained the days of your life.  You can trust God's plans today because He loves you and He knows what tomorrow holds. 

Blessings!

Jennifer