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.)