It's a Smooth Road to London Town

For some unknown reason, I started singing "It's a Smooth Road to London Town" on the way back from Rachel's gymnastics class.  Then, she wanted to learn it.  We haven't sung it in at least a a year and a half.  So, we sang it several times so she could learn all the words.

When we got home, we started playing with the plastic bears that are part of her balance kit.  We sorted them, made shapes out of them, and then....I suggested with make a map with roads on it that the bears could move around on.  Then, of course we had to build London out of Lego.  Then, we added a train and a train station. Then, a zoo appeared and a safari area with dinosaurs.  Of course, we needed more train cars and a much bigger London.  Oh, and of course a race car.

And here are the pics....

No Structure this Week or Next

We're taking two weeks off for the holidays.  Basically this means that MOM is not planning new games and stuff for this week or next.

End of Week Reflections

This week went well, but we didn't get everything done I had hoped for.

With Christmas coming up, I've been too busy to blog.

Learning Happens in So Many Ways

Today, Rachel traced her name three times, played with her mosaic tiles and did two dot-to-dot activities.  She's never done dot-to-dots before and wasn't entirely sure about them.

She also started dismantling her easel, put bells on her ankles and marched around the house, and turned her bear chair over and used it for acrobatics.

She is currently trying to put her inflatable raft on top of a box and sit in it.  And....moving on to Lego.

Slow Week, but then She Surprises Me

This week has been slow.  We've all been tired.  David is working long hours and Rachel hasn't been sleeping well, so neither have I.

Needless to say, we've still done some fun activities.

We played Concentration with the images from the Corduroy book.  She quickly decided that a linear search was more efficient then turning over two at a time to see if they matched.  She would turn one over and then, holding it in one hand, flip the rest over looking for the match. :)  I think her parents are programmers and have rubbed off on her.

We also finally got around four days ago to coloring the pattern bears.  I colored the words on the first two bears and then she had to pattern match the words to figure out what color the other three bears on a line should be.

Today, we actually made a map using the images from last week's book, We're Going on a Bear Hunt.   After we made the first one, she wanted to make another map, so I drew pictures of our favorite places at the mall.  She drew lines between the different stores as I told her where we were going next.

I also succumbed to letting her have the flat mosaic tiles I had bought her for Christmas.  She has way too much coming for Christmas, so I'm going to space some of them out a bit.

She did a couple of the mosaic patterns, matching the tiles to the shapes, and then wanted me to play with her.  We took turns ("sharing" as she says).  However, she got bored with the patterns and started playing with the shapes and making her own patterns.  Fine by me.  The only thing I think she can still gain from the printed patterns is combining basic shapes to make more complex shapes.  (Which she figured out tonight after dinner and then told David, "You're good at this game" after he successfully combined two tiles to form a larger shape.)

Sitara, one of her playschool teachers, gave me a copy of a "Early Learning for Every Child Today: A Framework for Ontario Early Childhood Settings" today.  It is supposed to be the basis of all preschools by 2012.  It outlines, in a very detailed manner, all the skills they look for at specific levels.  It is like the milestones you find on dozens of websites, but much more detailed and lists indicators of the skill.  After I review the document, she will sit down with me and we'll go through it and do some assessments of Rachel.  She thinks Rachel is advanced in some areas and this should help me figure out what types of activities would be both helpful and fun for her.

Then, the surprise of the day.  At dinner tonight, she was messing around because she was tired.  She kept taking her carrots and breaking them in half.  So, if she wasn't going to eat them, we played counting games with them.  Then, we did the basic math problems:
1 + 1 = 2
1 + 2  = 3
3 + 1 = 4
6 + 1 = 7 (She came up with this one. Not my idea.)
2 + 2 = 4

We'd make pile of carrots and then count them.  When we were done, she took the pen and paper and started playing "math" explaining how to add things to someone that I couldn't see.

Then, she ate them all.  Yay for eating vegetables.

December 4 - 10 Corduroy

We're doing Corduroy this week because, well, I've also got the Corduroy's Christmas Surprise book and it is that time of the year.

Books
Corduroy by Don Freeman
Corduroy's Christmas Surprise by Don Freeman


Activities

Writing
Working on writing her name and stick in pocket like Corduroy

Language Arts
Using the letters in "CORDUROY", we'll search for words in the book that begin with each of the letters of his name.

Math
Counting and adding buttons (which should work well given how much she likes to play in my button box)
Make "beds in a department store" cards with numbers and hide Corduroy
Sorting and Patterns
Sorting buttons
Completing patterns using buttons
Sorting coins and naming them

Science
Play with flashlight and make shadows on the wall

Memory
Concentration (from Delight website)...make bear cards

Life Skills
She will work on buttoning her own clothes
Make a bear bank to collect money during December.  She can then give it to a charity of her choice from  (thanks Kelly)

Fine Motor
Cutting out buttons from strips

Art
Make papier mache bank
Color Corduroy coloring sheet
Make puppets? (to re-enact story?)

Real Life Adventures
Take a trip to The Bay

Credits for some of the material
Bank idea came from Delightful Learning
Coloring sheet from Homeschoolshare

End of Week Reflections

We did a LOT of work this week.  Time-wise, it probably amounted to three hours over the course of five days.

Most of the activities worked well. Tracing was too simple, so we moved on to advanced patterns and letters.  The map activity was beyond her, so we dropped it.

Some activities morphed, like using the images from the book that I printed out to retell the story in sequence.

All-in-all it was a good week and there wasn't much I would have changed.

Sleep

Today, Rachel and I watched 15 minutes of National Geographic's Really Wild Animals.  Specifically, we watched the one on polar animals.  She was sitting comfortably in my lap, just feet from the fireplace.  She was quietly watching, then I realized she was waaay too still.  I looked at her face and sure enough, she was sound asleep. She took a three-hour nap today in my arms.  I think my little girl needed some cuddle time with mom. :)  I know I enjoyed it. These times are going to be gone way too soon.

Lots of Games

Rachel spent over an hour straight this afternoon playing "games" with me.  We repeated some of the games that she liked from earlier in the week.  Then, we did a couple of new ones.

We played a matching game of bears to habitats.  She LOVED correcting me when I made a mistake and put the polar bear in a bamboo forest.

We took pictures from the Bear Hunt story and put them in order, retelling the story.

She figured out, by sound, what the first letters were of about half the images.

She did some new tracing pages based on a suggestion from her teacher, Patti.  And she traced all her uppercase letters.

Then she wanted to hide a bear under a cave.  She was getting pretty tired, so we just did the first 12 numbers.  I actually tried to get her to just go play with her toys, but she was insistent.

Then we pulled out the Cuisenaire blocks.  She made a train out of some.  I played next to her comparing blocks sizes.  At one point I tried to figure out which block was the same length as three of the "1" size blocks.  She helped with that.  I really need to buy the workbook.

 

We also read a new book today that had nothing to do with bears. She chose it at the library this week.  The Prairie Train was a bit beyond her, so the first reading I just chose one or two sentences per page to tell the story.  After three readings, she seems to be handling almost all the sentences now.  I find that introducing harder books in passes, helps.

David and I talked about all these "games".  Part of the draw for her is that she and I are actively engaged.  It's not that I don't play with her in other ways, but David is much better at freeplay than I am.  I've never enjoyed it....even as a child.  David hates structured play.  It's a good balance.  

Counting and Bears

Yesterday Rachel started exploring the new games in her games drawer.

First she put the different sized bears in order.  As she said, "Easy, peasy"

Then, we hid a bear under a numbered cave.  I then told her the number (say, 17) and she had to find the bear.  This was popular. :)

Then, we did a symbol matching game, which she again declared "Easy, peasy".  So, I shifted the game to a pattern completion game.  Two green triangles, one green triangle, two blue circles...what comes next?  No problem...and no thought.  I think I'll look at some more complicated pattern completion activities.  I assumed this was beyond her still.

What was nice is that the games were good starting points, but evolved based on what she was doing or interested in at the moment.  While I was at a meeting, she convinced Daddy to play "Hide the Bear", but instead of a paper bear, she grabbed a stuffed animal and hid it in various locations.  Dad thanked me for teaching her the game. :)  I had planned on playing the game with her later in the week, but it was a natural extension from the paper bears, and she initiated it.

Tracing and Letters

So, I again under-estimated her.  I gave her two sheets of tracing paths thinking it would keep her busy for awhile.  Wrong.  Two minutes later they were done.  We've moved on to tracing letters now.

Week of November 27 - December 3 - We're Going on a Bear Hunt

We took last week off due to colds and an ear infection.  However, while we still have the cold-from-hell-that-will-not-end, we are starting a new book.   This week, we'll do "We're Going on a Bear Hunt".  Why?  Well, because mom is still sick and it is a book Rachel likes and it has lots of possibilities for activities to do, many of which I've blatantly borrowed from other home schooling sites.  I will try to give credit for things later in the week, but right now I'm just too busy planning and blowing my nose.  

Books:

We're Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen
The Biggest Bear by Adam Relf
Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson
Bear Wants More by Karma Wilson
Thank you Bear by Greg Foley
I Love You as Big as the World by David Van Buren





Math:
1. Counting games using bear crackers.  Although, she is really bored with counting at this point.  She needs a bit more work on 11-20, but she is showing some interest in basic addition, so we may try that.
2. We're using these pattern matching pages.  She hasn't done anything like this before, so I thought it would be fun to have her try.  I suspect they will be very easy for her, but it will be new, so she should try it a couple of times before she gets bored with it.
3. Hide-the-bear under a number game.  20 numbered caves...bear goes under one.  Mommy says a number and Rachel finds the bear, if she knows the number.

Map Skills:
1. She is still pretty young for learning about maps, but she really likes them.  So, we will start with a very simple map of our living room and kitchen.  If she can show me the places I point to on the map, then we'll play a hiding game where I'll hide her stuffed bears and show her on the "map" where they are.

Language Arts:
1. Matching words with pictures from the book. 
2. We'll work on prepositions this week: under, over, through, in, on...everywhere a bear can go. :)
3. I've got a new game where the letters are printed on a bear.  We'll play "find the letter" and then find the corresponding upper/lower case letter.
4. Our plans for a Goodnight Moon book last week failed.  She just wasn't interested the times I attempted to get her to take photos of her room.  So, this week, we will try instead to tell a story about going on a different kind of hunt.  She can choose what we are hunting and what we have to go through to find it.  We might try to make a book.  Might.


Science:
1. We'll investigate different kinds of bears: photos of bears, what they eat and where they live (Polar bears in cold areas...etc.)   It will probably become a matching game.  However, she is into puzzles now, so I think I'll print some photos of bears on cardstock and then make puzzles out of them.  We have started making use of National Geographic - KIDS online.
2.Stars and Ursa Major/Minor....The Biggest Bear book


Feelings:
1. We'll revisit her emotion cards/pictures.  Since the family is scared, we'll talk about things that scare us and what to do when we're afraid.

Art:
1. Coloring Bear Hunt images
2. Make a paper bear and paint it  (We're still working on primary and secondary colors.)


Fine Motor:
1. I've got some tracing patterns for her this week.  (Which were completed in 2 minutes on Sunday afternoon.  I then started printing letters for her to trace.)

End of Week Reflections

Rachel had an ear infection all week, but given that, she still was very active.

The sensory game of digging for treasure in a roasting pan full of beans was a favorite.  It evolved into Rachel sitting in the beans one day.  I still have a lot of beans to clean up.

We flew through finding the images in the book Goodnight Moon. We sorted lots of stuff.  All in all, a good week.  We hung up mittens.  That was a bit advanced at first, but she got it after a few tries.

"New Games!"

I honestly thought I was making waaay too many learning activities up for Rachel.  This was supposed to be about providing merely supplemental material to her play activities.  However, yesterday afternoon I said, "Rachel, mommy put some new games in your game drawer.  Shall we play one?"

"YAY! NEW GAMES!"  She dashed over to the little plastic storage bin I'm using for her art supplies and "games" and we took out the game I had made in which she pulls out a little slip of paper with an image on it and then finds it in the book Goodnight Moon.  Well, this was popular.  We did six or seven of them, and then I suggested we save some for the next day.  "Ok, ...'nuther new game?" she said as she started rummaging around in the drawer.

She pulled out the little clock I made (with only the hour hand on it) and started turning the little arrow-hand and shouting out the numbers.  I slowed her down a bit and asked questions like, "What do we do at 7:00 in the morning?"  (wake up)  etc.  We went through a dozen questions like that and then got interrupted by something.

When David got home from the office in the late afternoon, he and she went downstairs to play.  However, she immediately suggested they play new games and said, "Be right back..."  and went up two flights of stairs, retrieved all the new games we had played, and brought them down for David to see.

David asked her to teach him how to play.  So, she dumped out all the little slips of paper with images on them and explained that we sort them.  Eh?  Ok, she started combining games we had played to create a new one.  David told me later she sorted them by color and by art style.  She would put all the clip art that was of a certain style together.  THEN, David suggested they play a new game.  He dealt the slips into two piles and then started a story by drawing one from his pile.  They proceeded to tell a story by adding slips of paper with clipart on them.  This is EXACTLY what I had envisioned happening with these activities.  They are merely a starting place and transform based on her leading and interest.

However, I am going to be challenged to come up with enough material. :)

I had planned to teach her "Hey Diddle, Diddle" this week.  She learned it yesterday....in addition to picking up half of a longer poem that was an accident.  Then, she sang Hot Cross Buns to me after only having heard it in the car two or three times last week.  (WTF??)

Yeah, public school is going to work so well for her.  (Please note sarcasm.)

Room Done!

In a feat that surprised even me, I managed to get the basement cleaned and re-organized, her art drawers in the living room cleaned out and organized and her room straightened.

I would like to purchase two small, cheap bookcases.  One will go in the basement and the other in the living room.  Right now I have her books in a bin, but she won't pull books out very often.  She pulls books of her shelves in her room every day.  I'm not sure what the difference is, but bookcases are cheap.

We watched the Magic School bus DVD I checked out from the library.  It has three episodes about space and stars.  We watched the first two last night.  As she awoke this morning she grinned at me and giggled, saying, "That magic bus silly."  It would seem it was a hit.

I will have to check out some the books as well to see if they are age appropriate.  We struggle with age appropriateness.  Most of the books she likes are on a second grade reading level.  She is starting to spell three letter words in the iPad game she plays with.  She pretends to read all the time.  Here's my prediction.  By this time next year, she will be reading beginner books.

November 13 - 19: Goodnight Moon

Although Rachel knows Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd by heart, I'm going to use it this week as the "rowing" book.  We'll read it everyday.

Supplementary Books: 
*Goldilocks
*Runaway Bunny
*Grandpa Takes Me to THE MOON by Timothy R. Gaffney
*The Way Back Home by Oliver Jeffers
Stars by Steve Tomecek
Earth by Dana Meachen Rau
Maple Moon by Connie Brummel Crook and Scott Cameron  (too advanced, so I'll need to re-tell it)
The Stars by Cynthia Pratt Nicolson
Once Upon a Starry Night by Jacqueline Mitton and Christina Balit
Sun by Steve Tomecek
The Moon by Seymour Simon
*Goodnight Moon 123 based on Goodnight Moon

Again, many of the books were included for the photographs.  The ones with asterisks are the one's we will actually read.

Art:
1. Coloring page with the nursery rhyme "Hey Diddle, Diddle" printed on it.  She loves learning poems, so this will be fun for her.
2. We will continue playing with her crayons: sorting into groups by color and discussing primary and secondary colors.  Paint using cardboard and pom-poms for fun.
3. Make a mobile out of moon and stars made out of Sculpt-it clay.  She likes playing with the clay and cutting things out, so we'll do that, let them dry, and then paint it.  I need to buy some glow in the dark paint as a surprise for her.
4. She has learned how to use my digital camera in the "point and shoot" mode.  She can frame what she wants in the picture and knows how to hold the camera without getting her fingers in front of the lens or sensor.  So, she'll get to use my camera this week to take pictures in her room of things to include in her version of the book "Goodnight Moon".

Math:
1. I saw this: Sensory Bin  I think I'll make one. She should enjoy digging and finding things. Then, we can count them and play some basic addition games.
2. I'll cut out some felt mittens and let her practice hanging them on a clothes rack (like in the book).  We can practice counting.  Need to buy different colored felt at fabric store.

Science:
1. We'll try looking at a coloring sheet of the different phases of the moon, but I think it will be too much for her.  We'll definitely look at photos of the moon in books and online.
2. I'd like to look through a telescope at the moon, but I'm not inclined to buy one.  I've posted a request on freecycle to see if someone wants to get rid of an old one, or will let us borrow one. We might try David's binoculars.

Language Arts:
1. Have her tell the Goodnight Moon story using her own room and things.  I created a template that matches the page of the book and left blanks in the places she can choose what she wants to say goodnight to next.  We'll add some photos of her room.
2. Learn the Hey Diddle, Diddle nursery rhyme/song
3. Learn "I See the Moon"


Pretend/Recreating Book Experiences:
1. Make oatmeal for breakfast one day (bowl full of mush)
2. Hanging up mittens on a drying rack (see Math section)
3. Look at the Runaway Bunny book and find the matching image in the Goodnight Moon book

In the bigger picture, I need to clean out her toys this week.  Some need to be archived for later retrieval.  Some need to be pitched/goodwilled/freecycled.  I'd like to rearrange her playspace in the basement as well.

End of Week Reflections

We spent the week exploring the world of animals: wild and farm.  We ended up using the book "For You are a Kenyan Child" as the "rowed" book for the week.  We read it daily, sometimes twice at Rachel's request.  At first it was a bit over her head, but by the end of the week, she had absorbed it and started pointing out things in the pictures that I had missed.  We all (Dad included), ended up learning what a Bush Baby was.  It appears on virtually every page of the book and I had paid it no attention, focusing on larger comprehension issues.

Last night, I was playing with Rachel using our alphabet cards that have an animal on every card, along with its name and its starting letter.  Some of the cards are landscape and some portrait.  The animals are sometimes askew on the cards.

We sorted them into fish, birds, mammels and bugs. We'd never done this before, so I wasn't sure she could do it.  No problem.

So, then, I remembered rivka had her son sort a deck according to landscape or portrait orientation.  Ok, let's see if she can get the hang of it.  I showed her an example of landscape and an example of portrait.  Then, I handed her the deck.  She sorted the deck, no problem.  What weirded me out was that no matter how the card was turned in her hand, she got it in the right pile without physically turning the card to see how it compared to the example.  I have no idea what she was keying off of.  She didn't take any time thinking about it or turning her head.

Things that worked well this week:
1. The visit to the fair
2. Cleaning out her art and "puzzle" drawers upstairs.  She ended up playing with a couple of things she hadn't looked at in ages.

Things that didn't work so well this week:
1. Comparing crayon colors to those those colors found in a picture
2. Looking at where grandma was on a daily basis.  It was just too abstract.

Royal Winter Fair

We spent the day at the Royal Winter Fair looking at and feeding farm animals.  She fed a goat and a llama, had a chance to pet a bunny, saw cows, horses, sheep, ducks, chickens and pigs.  She also got to watch a cow being milked, which led to a discussion about how the milk we drink comes from cows.

Rachel feeding a goat.

Canadian Wildlife and Kenyan Huts

Today we spent time looking through the library books about Canadian wildlife: deer, otters, beaver, bear.  She spent time sharing the book on deer with her dolls and stuffed animals.

Later, we built a hut in the basement like the hut that the little boy lived in the "You are a Child of Kenya".  (Yeah, I know....not exactly a grass hut, but it was fun.)

We also looked at pictures of where Grandma is today -  Sarova Shaba Lodge

National Geographic: Cool Cats

I downloaded a video from National Geographic Kids about cats.  They covered some of the cats that can be found in Africa.  We mainly just looked at the images.  I pointed out things like leopards have spots.  Lions live in families. Stuff like that.

She watched half of it earlier in the week. We may try to watch the rest on Saturday.

For You are a Kenyan Child

Today we read For You are a Kenyan Child.  It is a bit beyond her in terms of vocabulary, but we spent time looking at the pictures and talking about what the little boy did during his day. I think we'll read this one everyday this week.  We also reread Play With Me by Janice Maynard.  It is a lovely story of a little girl interacting with the wild animals in the meadow.

We talked about Grandma having gotten to Kenya today and looked at pictures of animals she might see while there.  We also looked at a map and I pointed out the big blue area and said that Grandma had flown over an ocean.  Rachel responded with "very fast in a jet....vrooom".  I think she is more impressed with a fast plane then a foreign culture. :)

Week Plan: November 6 - 12, Topic: Animals

We are starting Before Five in a Row this week. I have played with it off and on over the last year, but Rachel is now to the point of needing some additional enrichment activities. Technically, we are starting with "The Little Bunny" because the week will about animals.  However, she has read that one a lot already, so we are going to be reading through several of the books we have about animals, in addition to the supplemental ones from the library.

Her grandmother is going to Kenya for two weeks, so we will follow her trip online. She is going on safari. Also we are going to the Royal Winter Fair this coming week. There will be lots of opportunities to look at animals and talk about the difference between domesticated animals (specifically farm animals), and wild animals. 

Books:
(books she has already read, but we will revisit again)
A Big Treasury of Little Animals by Phoebe Dunn (which includes The Little Bunny)
Play with Me by Marie Hall Ets
Animals, Animals All Around by Catherine and Laurenc Anholt
A to Z of Animals illustrated by Peter David Scott
Biscuit Visits the Farm by Alyssa Capucilli

(new books from the library...all but the last two are mainly just for the photos of the animals)
All About...Canadian Animals: Beavers by Barb McDermott and Gail McKeown
All About...Canadian Animals: Whitetailed Deer by Barb McDermott and Gail McKeown
Giraffes by Barbara Parker
Endangered Elephants by Bobbie Kalman
Otters by Emilie Lepthien
Grizzlies by Lynn Stone
Chipmunk Family by Lois Brunner Bastian
Discover Kenya by Chris Ward

Owen and Mzee: The Language of Friendship by Isabella Hatkoff, Craig Hatkoff and Dr. Paula Kahumbu
For You are a Kenyan Child by Kelly Cunnane


Art:
Sorting colors in crayon box in different ways
Matching crayon colors to colors of animals in books
Make finger print animals

Language Arts:
Game of "Which letter does animal name start with?
Encourage her to continue making up stories about her toys (specifically her stuffed animals)  For the last three days she has been pretending she is Lenny from Wonder Pets and making up stories.

Fine Motor Skills:
Tracing games involving animals going to barn or jungle

Geography:
She is still too young to grasp globes and maps to any large degree, however we will talk every day about "where is Grandma today" and look it up online. Thankfully all the places she is going have websites.

Science:
Field trip to Royal Winter Fair

Music:
We continue to learn new songs on the way to playschool.  (It keeps the car ride from getting too boring.)

In addition, she has play school three mornings a week, a 15 minute swimming lesson once a week, and gymnastics once a week for an hour.

Believe it or not, she still has several hours each day during which she simply plays. None of the planned activities takes more than a few minutes with the exception of going to the fair....which is just fun!  We typically do the tracing games, which she calls puzzles, while I am cooking dinner.  We do music both in the car and spontaneously around the house.  Luckily, that comes easily.  We sing and dance daily.  She has also asked to watch her yoga cd some more and likes to try all the positions.