Over the past few months I have been struggling with schooling for the littles in our house. Rose will be 5 next month and Mowgli will be 3 shortly there after. Up until this point I have been trying to do worksheet type activities with Rose and some days it works and some days it doesn’t. More days than not she just wants to do the “cutting pages” and Mowgli gets mad if he doesn’t get included as well. I remember talking with a friend about how much they love Five in a Row. So, I decided maybe it is time to try something new. Last week we started with the book The Salamander Room. The kids loved it! I read the story and then we did activities each day that related to the story. We talked about family relationships, animal classifications, habitats, weather, did colors and counting and lots of art. While the kids were doing their art project each day I just read from other books about salamanders and showed them pictures. They were having so much fun that Sunshine has decided that she needs to join the little kids for their art project each day.
So for now I am going to try using Five in a Row with the little kids. We will continue to do our daily board and Letter of the Week, which we all love. I have a list of things I want to accomlish, but I want to make sure I am making it more FUN and less SCHOOL for them at this point. If that means we dont get everything done that I had planned but they had great learning experiences with what we did get done, Im okay with that. (Okay, Im trying to be okay with that.)
Today I also found this really cool cookbook from the 70’s at a thrift shop. It called ABC Cookery and is written by Sunny Courington Stephens. For each letter there is a simple recipe to make. The best part is there are a lot of sensory activities included with each one. For instance one recipe calls for oil, the book suggests having the child rub some oil between his fingers and describe to you how it feels. I”m really excited to add this to our Letter of the week activities. It will be another activity we can all do together. Plus you have got to love the great 70’s era pictures. (Disclaimer***I did notice that, many of the recipes call for margarine or squeezable margarine….ewwww! We will be modifying some of the recipes)
This week we are reading, Climbing Kansas Mountain by George Shannon. Ill let you know how it goes.
Hello, April, new friend! I saw you linked up your site on the Deep Roots at Home page, and I am so glad to ‘meet’ you. I love what you are doing here on your blog and hope we can follow each other to be a mutual blessing in the Lord ~ It is so much fun and encouraging to get to ‘know’ new like-minded gals! Grace and peace…
I pray that your mother’s and teacher’s heart is steadfast in your wonderful role. I remember all too well, but as they years rolled by, I could really see the Lord’s leadings bearing fruit…it just doesn’t show so much at your stage. Hang in there, dearie!