Week in review and a little something extra

Another week has come and gone and all in all, I must say that it was a fantastic one.

We did our first official row to Good Night Moon and J loved it so much that she said, "Good night heater." Even Baby C joined in a few times for the reading. For our rowing activities I used printables from two different sites (www.homeschoolshare.com and http://homeschoolcreations.com).
 
We did hand-painting for her mittens, put together a clock, coloured pictures balloons and learnt the nursery rhyme Hey Diddle Diddle. J even did an interpretive drawing and allowed me to label the items that she drew so that I could understand her art.

We placed all her crafts along with her story summary in her Reading Binder, along with a picture of the book we completed. Our next row will be to The Runaway Bunny.

Math this week was a whirlwind as J was doing 2 lessons per session of Math U See Primer and I had to be the one to stop her. Its a good thing we only J-school 4 days a week She now calls her Math sessions, "doing Mr Demme" ( from the mouths of babes).

Language we continued with Foundations A and we resumed Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading (OPGTR) for some extra practice at CVC words.

Now for the extra:

After much frustration with trying to find the perfect planner and not willing to pay the price for the planner that I had liked the most, I decided to create my own. I posted it to my Facebook group and people were begging to pay for it. I was shocked but obliged by charging $2.50 via Paypal.

And here is a sample of my planner that I created in Excel. It is 100% editable and can be adjusted for multiple students and its cheap. Simply click here to get your copy.

J-school Week in review

We had a successful week at J-school this week. We did our very first literature study as a test run prior to us starting BFIAR ( Before Five In a Row). The book of the week was Brown Bear, Brown Bear and J loved it. Our week pretty much followed my intro to J-school blog but as of next week there will be a few changes.


1. We will be adding Math-U-See Primer to the lineup. J watched the introductory video with me today and immediately asked, "Mommy, who's that?" I told her it was Mr Demme. She nodded and said "Oh" as if she knew who he was.

2. Because we are adding BFIAR ( I really wanted to do more classic preschool books so that she can still enjoy being a toddler and it's a good foundation for the Trivium) we will be doing 1 lesson for 2 days of Foundations A. At this rate she should be starting Foundations B at the end of June.

3. We are adding BFIAR. I will be placing all her completed work in a binder so that we can look back at it when we are finished 'rowing'

4. We will be doing more painting and play doh activities because J has been requesting it.

5. Also planning on getting a CD player in order to further expose her to music ( something she seems to have a passion for- she was very upset this week when she asked for a tuba and I said we do not have one)

Well  that's all  for now.

Primed and ready to go.

Our Math curriculum has arrived and it was Christmas in April for everyone. Well, me to be honest and hubby seemed to do a little smile. After much research and one sleepless night courtesy of worrying if I made the right decision, I purchased Math-U-See Primer to add to J-school.

I wanted to give her a better feel for Math. Sure we count everything we come across, but I am the type of person who likes to know that at the end of the day I have not missed anything. My hubby and friends call me a perfectionist, as for me I call it not wanting to leave anything to chance.

The plan is to simply get her used to the new manipulatives ( not sure what she will think seeing that she LOVES her Counting Bears) and slowly add a worksheet per day. She can already count but Primer does more than counting.

I will be doing a review on how it's going in a few weeks. Did I mention that I am soo excited?

J-School...because we are awesome like that!

Today we had another successful session of what I will now call J-school. We stacked blocks as she read the words written on the whiteboard, we worked on our fine motor skills by using her childproof scissors and we read Brown Bear, Brown Bear - our book of the week.

I chose to redo Lessons 21-25 with Jay just to ensure that she actually was understanding what was required of her and to do more of the games from Foundations A.

Here is a quick recap of what J-school looked like today.

- We pray prior to starting and our prayer is as follows, " Dear Lord bless this tot school and help Jay  to learn. Please also give Mommy the patience while Jay learns. "
- Next, we sing our national anthem. I will admit that sometimes I forget and J has to remind me by saying, "Mommy, O Canada?"

 - Language Arts was the first subject. I wrote a word on the white board and if she read it correctly, she would get a block to stack. She ended up with 8 blocks ( 8 words correct out of 9. The ninth one was a challenge word 'quit' and she almost got it as she simply read it as qu-it but there is no such thing as a half of a block)

- We then moved on to Math. We did our counting bear mats and she kept asking for more so we did 2 mats instead of one today.

- Next came fine motor skills using Let's Cut Paper by Kumon.

- Then we did a pattern block mat of a dog

- Lastly she did animal matching with 9 pairs of cards. The animals were the ones mentioned in the book of the week.

All in all a successful session of J-school and we finished a few minutes prior to Baby C waking up. 

"Snap your fingers, do a step, you can do it all by yourself.."

Happy Dance

Today we created our Happy Dance. It was silly little tune with the lyrics saying touch the floor, clap your hands, jump up, touch your nose and shake your head. Why were we so happy you may ask? Today my 2 year old (27 months old) understood ending sounds. Woo hoo! (evidently i am still a little excited) The joy of seeing my child understand what is required of her is almost immeasurable.

This week has just been fantastic. She is understanding how words are formed and she has read a few words since this week as well. Kindly note that when I say read, I am not referring to sight words but applying phonics and deciphering the letters given to her.

My little one has been working her way through the Logic of English Foundations A since the end of February with a break due to a visit from the Flu for two weeks. This program targets 4 to 7 year olds and provides a fun and solid foundation while teaching your child to read and spell. We initially did one lesson every day for five days (Tues- Sat) but lately we have started doing one lesson every day including weekends. We do not do the writing portions because my 2 year old is only 27 months and her fine motor skills are not advanced enough and the scenario could be likened to giving a 5 year old the keys to a shiny new car and telling him to take it for a spin. The result: disaster. Hence instead of writing we use letter tiles.

I can clearly remember the dread of wondering if my child would understand blending or segmenting or even worse be able to do them herself. I asked myself if I was crazy because I am TRYING to keep up with her little mind. She thirsts for more, she craves information. Let me give an example of today's lesson.

Today we did Lesson 24, which has a 5 new words as well as an exercise to practice identifying ending sounds. Once we were finished with our words, she kept asking for more. "Write 'box, Mommy. Mommy, write 'bag'. Needless to say, Mommy willingly obliged. When she had enough, she simply said, no more tot school Mommy.

She also showed her grandparents and dad that she has a few words to the spelling compartment of her knowledge bank. I had left the words on her white board and she read them for her dad when he entered her room. Her dad was so excited that he wrote the words on a piece of paper and asked her to read it for her grandparents.

Once again, thank you so much Denise Eide and your fantastic program that is opening my little ones eyes to the world around her. You have created the manual that allows me to further facilitate her love of books and learning and for that I will forever be grateful.

"Thank you Lord ...Many are the blessings that You've given to me..."

How I love being a mommy. Certainly didn't think I would ever be saying those words out loud let alone think it. People from my past also stated that they could never see me as a mommy. Well, look at me now!

It's amazing the feeling that builds up inside ( No I am not referring to milk let-down) once you look at your child. When you stare at them as they sleep while hoping they don't wake up or in the case of Toddler J having to march into her room at midnight to put her Pj's back on because she insists on being free. 

 

The heart-melting moment when your child tells you that they love you, when she wants to share everything with you ( even that wet cookie) or wants you to participate in everything she does. Then there is the earth shattering moment of Baby C simply looking at you and smiling or reaching for you in comfort. 

Sure the diaper counts have increased twofold, the noises in the house have increased exponentially but at the end of a crazy day and the kids are asleep all I can do is smile or tear up ( those hormones tend to linger I tell you ) and thank God for them. 

Toddler J, the sponge

I have been trying to fill Toddler J's mind with as much as she will take with Tot School ( a phrase coined by Carissa) Let me first clarify that it is not school per say but structured play so that I can expose her to whatever skills she may need in the future. This blog serves as a summary of what Toddler J is proficient or has mastered as of today December 17, 2013.

Math

- counts ( I do mean actual counting not memorization) 1-5. At least that's what we have seen so far

- counts in German 1-10

- knows the basic shapes (circle square triangle and a few more )

-identifies numerals ( so far I have only heard her say a few as she sees them. I am not fully aware of how much she knows)

- sorts by using a common attribute (eg colour)

Motor Skills

Her gross motor skills are off the chart so I will not get into details. She can walk (started at 8months), run, jump, climb etc

Alphabet

-recite alphabet

-knows her uppercase letters

-knows most of the lowercase letters

- knows the phonetic alphabet

- starting to sound out words 

Writing and Talking

- I have noticed that she is attempting to write. She wrote the letter 'e' a few days ago and I actually knew it was an 'e'

- pretty sure her language explosion started earlier than the norm. Her doctor did say she was extremely advanced. Points to note: she uses the appropriate pronouns and refers to herself as I, constructs sentences,asks for help etc. 

Music

- she bangs on whatever she can find and calls it a drum

- loves playing with her wooden xylophone ( a gift from someone at church)

- loves dancing and is picking up songs when she heard them. 

- favourite songs: One Thing Remains ( the version by David Wesley or uncle David to her), Written in the Word ( learnt it at Kidz Klub), I Love Learning Baby Sign, Deep and Wide and that's all I can remember at this moment.

Fine Motor

-zips, snaps, 

-stacks blocks ( highest count that I have seen is 12, pretty sure it will get taller as she grows)

-holds crayon and pens ( unfortunately my favourite pens) correctly

 

Being a Toddler

- succeeds at this stage with flying colours

- loves playing and assigning objects different uses ( who knew a box could be so fun) 

-wears her heart on her sleeve

-love to play( did I mention that already) 

- has a deep love affair with books as well as Caillou ( we let her watch it in German) and Leapfrog.

-loves her baby brother Baby C to pieces 

- funniest word to date: 'louding' the process of increasing the volume on TV.