Everyday starts off with Calendar/Weather time and then some chores. After that on most days we have 'blanket' time where we'll pick one or two good books from our literature wall to read. This helps me read more to him during the day, something I know we've been slacking on lately since the baby has arrived. Then on Mondays we will work on learning Spanish by watching Salsa videos. After that we will play with musical instruments (something we really need to do more of). Then it is free play, lunch, and hopefully after lunch we'll take a walk and go to the playground.
Tuesdays after blanket time we'll work on our new letter of the week doing the coloring, dot painting, magnets, or whatever else I may have planned for that week. Then we'll do math which varies depending on our moods. This week we worked on patterns. I made him some pattern sheets (ABAB, and ABCABC) and had him repeat the patterns beneath it with pompoms of the same colors. Then I pulled out our number cards (1-4) and had him put the appropriate number of pompoms on each number. After math is copywork although at this stage I won't have him actually copying any letters. This is meant to be forming the letters in playdough and, when I get around to making them, foam pieces like the wooden pieces from Handwriting without Tears. After that is lunch and then the walk to the playground.
Wednesday is our park day where we go to visit our friends. This week was Kids Market however and it was a lot of fun. Kid's market is when all the homeschool children in the area sell their old toys, books, crafts, clothes that they no longer want or need. The children do all the pricing, setup, selling, haggling, and even buying. It was a great experience to see. I gave Malcolm a baggy of coins, $2 worth, and he bought a remote controlled (wired) walking robot, and then haggled a boy down for a magnadoodle. But there were so many great things so I pulled out my change from my wallet (and Grandma came up with some change as well) and the grownups bought Malcolm a duplo fire engine, Little People farm blocks, and a little Einstein's rocket (with all the kids) for an additional $3.50. We were supposed to do art and poetry after we got back but I just didn't happen. I made sure we read poetry during breakfast on Thursday and Friday to make up for not doing it on Wednesday.
Thursday is our nature study day which you can read about in the previous post, Fullerton Arboretum. Since baby sister was sick, we ended up leaving nature study a little early and so we did our nature journals once we got home. I pulled out the watercolors and let him paint what we saw today. He painted for a LONG time and finally announced that he painted "a butterfly, bird, bamboo, turtles, and Zoe!" I think it's really cute he included one of our dogs in his painting. We were also supposed to work on our letters a little today but since we didn't start our new schedule until Tuesday and did our letters on Monday, we didn't do it this day.
Friday was a bust this week. We didn't get to blanket time. And, out of order but at least accomplished we managed to read poetry during breakfast, go to playground before lunch (collecting pine cones along the way), and we did an art project mainly to focus on fine motor skills. I gave him a page of stickers, a piece of paper, and some markers and let him go. He did this type of activity a lot in his old preschool so he knew just what to do with no direction from me whatsoever. Malcolm peeled a couple of Cars stickers and then colors over the whole page with a purple marker. He informed me he was drawing 'zeros' and then 'Mommy's name'. Of course, it just looks like a bunch of circles spiraling around but I thought it was really cute.
We had a lot of fun this week. I didn't take any pictures this week besides what I got on my camera phone during nature study. So I'll leave you all with a cute picture of Allie who is starting to get the knack of putting things into her mouth.
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| Allie - 3 months old |
