Learning With Style!!!!

Pumpkin Patch Field trip

2011-10-25T16:29:00.000-07:00

I got there late so I didn't find Farah and the rest till we were about to leave. I have pics and hopefully Farah will put pics up here too.

We had fun walking around, getting potatoes, riding the hay ride, eating ice-cream, walking among the pumpkins trying to find the biggest, and seeing the baby cows.

F stuff on Thursday

2011-10-21T00:38:00.000-07:00

Vanessa had a stuffy nose and cough today so Leilah did not come over. We studies F anyway and sat in a circle with Christy. We sang songs and read Fairy Tales. I drew a tree for Vanessa so she could use the apple stamp that I cut into a maple leaf for her. She got to paint a family tree picture frame Farah brought over. She also worked on her letter F booklet. It was a packed day, but she still managed to get in some good playing with her sisters. We chose pictures of her family for her to cut out tomorrow and glue onto the tree.

F is for Field Trips

2011-10-21T00:33:00.000-07:00

Monday I took the girls on two field trips. One in the morning to visit a woman Helen helps out. We visited Laguna Farm, Fircrest, did Yoga, and the girls worked their imaginations playing with Felix the cat the Rufus the Lion. In the afternoon we went to Peter Pumpkin Patch in Petaluma. There the girls got to see week old calves, climb a hay pyramid, milk a cow, go on a tractor ride, dig potatoes, and eat the best ice-cream in the world! And of course sweat buckets full! It was so stinkin' hot! On Tuesday Farah and Family went to the Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. Hopefully she'll put stuff on here about that soon!

Envelopes

2011-10-21T00:21:00.000-07:00

I don't remember what else I did with the girls when Leilah came on Thursday, but I did take a picture of them writing letters and putting them in envelopes. Leilah did wonderful writing her letter to her cousin and Vanessa tried her best to get the letters write that I had written for her to copy from. Vanessa wrote to her daddy.

E Week

2011-10-21T00:18:00.000-07:00

We went to Farah's house Tuesday as usual and she went over the letter E and what begins with E. Oh, and the calendar. Then she let the girls play with magna-tiles while she got the Elephant ready! She cut holes out of the middle of a paper plate and had big ears ready. So the girls painted the ears and head with grey metallic paint. After that she had them put glitter on the ears and glue googly eyes to the head. The girls paraded their elephants outside so they could dry.

D Week

2011-10-21T00:14:00.000-07:00

D Week we didn't get pics on the day we went to Farah's house. I don't remember why not. Maybe we didn't go! So on Thursday at my house we sat in our circle to sing our songs and talk about the letter of the week. Then it was time to Drum! We sang and worked on rhythms. The girls did great following instructions. Then the girls cut daisy petals out and pasted them in their notebooks and wrote the word Daisy next to it. I realized I had daisy's in my flower garden so we went outside to pick some and tie a ribbon around them to keep them together.

Air Museum Field Trip

2011-10-21T00:07:00.000-07:00

We went to the Air Museum on the free museum day the Smithsonian puts on. We had a blast. The airplane that responded to the Twin Tower tragedy first was there. Very impressive display. There was a troupe of boy scouts there and as we were walking through the planes one of them was looking at the same plane we were. Lorien asked how the pilot got in and the boy thought he should explain so one of the pics is of this boy talking to the girls about the plane. It was really cute!

C Week take two

2011-10-21T00:02:00.000-07:00

Thursday the girls got together at my(Anne's) house. I put together a ton of stuff for them to do. We sat in a circle to sing our morning songs and talk about the letter of the week and words that start with C. Then we went to the counter to cook! Really it was baking, but since it was C week, I called it cooking. The girls helped me measure and watched and listened as I beat the eggs. They were each given the opportunity to pour the batter in the muffin pans. They were very careful about not letting the batter get all over the tin. Then while the muffins baked the girls colored circles based on the number to make a caterpillar, and then painted egg cartons to look like a caterpillar. After that was all over they ate their muffins and went to Vanessa's room to play. Of course they got the makeup out and I don't know who decided to use it to "paint" toe nails!

C Week

2011-10-20T23:54:00.000-07:00

We went to Farah's house on Tuesday for the first lesson on C. She talked about the letter and drew it along with words that started with C. The girls got to work on a C craft that I forget! And then they colored on aluminum foil on a hot griddle. They had fun watching the wax melt. They started work on their C books and then went outside for lunch. Of course there was lots of playing in between activites:)

Field Trip: Hike at Shiloh Park

2011-10-20T23:48:00.000-07:00

So we all went on a hike to Shiloh Park. Peter led the hike and talked about deer, trees and what to watch for when hiking before we started. He gave the kids some Oak tree leaves and told them to look around the picnic area for trees with that type of leaves. They found different types of leaves and discussed the textures. Then he showed them the leader's staff. He let one of the kids lead the hike. Then every 10 minutes or so he would pick a new leader. On the way, Christy decided to have a fit. So a few of the other homeschooling moms helped me out. Farah ended up carrying her towards the end. We stopped at the pond where Peter gave the kids a net to share. They took turns gathering things from the pond. The popular "thing" found were tad pols. The kids found frogs too. Then Peter showed them the bird box. He had to unlock it. He took the nest out and a ton of feathers, explained what type of bird made that kind of nest and let the kids touch the egg that was left over in it. We ate a bit of lunch then started off home. Christy did much better on the hike back. We talked about trees and how silent they were until the wind blew through the leaves. We made up stories about the trees talking to each other and wondering about us crashing through their forest. When we got home Lorien decided to draw a picture of what we saw there. She especially liked the pond creatures.

Preschool Letter B

2011-09-20T10:07:00.000-07:00

We all met at Farah's on 9-12-11 to have preschool. It was B week.
We started off by talking about the calendar and the letter of the week. Then we listed words that start with B.

Summer (Tree with green leaves)

Painting

Smile girls:)

Beautiful Butterfly

All Done!

The girls decorated their notebooks. Farah prepared the first page with B's for them to copy and write. Vanessa and Leilah were not excited to write letters right then so we went on to the Asymmetrical Butterfly activity. We folded paper in half and then painted one half with a butterfly wing. After we globbed paint on then we unfolded the paper and folded it towards the paint. The girls loved putting so much paint on the paper! I think us adults had fun too!

1ST WEEK!

2011-08-31T12:39:00.000-07:00

So I've started school with Lorien and Vaness. It's not very structured yet since I'm running around like a chicken with it's head cut off. I plan to get it all under way by Tuesday the 6th of September. We are so excited! Ok, mostly I'm excited. Yesterday we went to a homeschool game day. Lorien brought her totally gross science game. She played it with a couple friends who thought it was funny. Then today we started off by waking up late and having breakfast at 10am! Then we did poems and singing. Vanessa worked on big A and little a while Lorien worked on math. Lorien is going to a friend's house later today, and Vanessa and Christy are taking a nap. I think this school year will be wonderful!

Last Day of School

2009-05-30T10:11:00.000-07:00

Hey, Farah, I wanted to get this posted. I don't know when you were going to do it, but you can do one too! You've got pics for this day that I don't have. So anyhoo, here it goes:

We met at the Library because Cyrus had a talent show Farah wanted to see. The library was awesome and we all plan on signing up for the summer book reading program. We invited Jair to come to our end of the school year party. When we got their, we set up while the kids played outside. When Farah was ready she had the kids make Granola bars! They were sooooooo yummy. There was no corn syrup in it. It was all healthy, except for the marshmallows and the m&m's. Then while we waited to that to be set up we got going on our craft. I had the kids paint a border for a picture of themselves and then glue the picture on the page. Then I had them pick shells out to go around the pictures. They turned out great. I hope we can all find frames for the pics and hang them on our walls at home. The picture below is Lorien's last day of school picture. Darius has one too, but Farah will have to post that one.

May 22nd

2009-05-30T10:05:00.000-07:00

My last day teaching! WAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Since we had to go to the library, we had our normal morning routine and then did a couple pages I had printed out. We finished talking about short vowel sounds. I gave them some pages for homework. Then we talked about the air around us. How do we know it's there? Darius said because the leaves blow. We made parachutes. The "man" or "woman" was an empty spool of thread. We tied fabric to it and threw them high into the air. The kids had fun throwing them up in the air. Their parachutes didn't catch as soon as I was hoping for, but they worked well enough. Then we went to the library, and as always, they had a blast!

May 20th

2009-05-30T09:51:00.000-07:00

We started off with our Hello song and the Pledge of Allegiance. Then we did the calendar. Talked about weather a little bit. Then we talked about the TH sounds some more and thought of more words to write on the big TH poster. I gave them a packet to complete. It was mainly about Vowels. We had talked about them on Monday and I was surprized at how well they remembered the letters. They worked on the short sounds of A, E, I , and O. The last page was assigned as homework. Then we looked at the egg. It was awesome! The kids held it in their hands. The egg shell was completely gone. It was all rubbery. We wanted to see how far this rubbery surface went, so I asked Darius to break it. So he put it on the ground and stomped on it. It squirted everywhere! So it was a very thin "cooked" part. The science/cooking part of preschool was to learn about solar cooking. We got a bowl, covered it with Aluminum foil and put marshmallows in it. While they were cooking, Lorien and Darius wrote the steps of solar cooking down on paper. Their handwritting has certainly improved since the beginning. For snack time we got our food out. (Lorien shared with Darius since his mom was with Cyrus.) They got 1/2 an apple each, one cheese stick. We talked about fractions. I instructed them to cut the cheese in half. Then in 4ths, then in 8ths and then in 16ths. They had a lot of fun cutting. I think Darius even cut his in to 32nds. I helped them cut their apples into 4ths and then 8ths.

In The End

2009-05-30T09:36:00.000-07:00

Spring Break was in April. We took a two week vacation. Lorien was sick so we hadn't done preschool the two weeks before that. When we got back, Lorien and I got sick with the flu. Then we had to go back out to UT for my dad's wedding. Finally life settled and we could have somewhat of a real preschool. Then Farah told me the end was fast approaching, like within a week! I was very sad, but we pressed forward. I did the week of 5-18 to 5-22
and Farah did 5-27 and 5-29.

I forgot my camera for May 18th, but we talked about the TH sound. We did our normal routine. We sat in a circle and sang our opening song and said the Pledge of Allegiance, and completed the calendar for the month of May up to that point. The words of the day were The, This, That, Three. I brought activity pages from a book Farah let me borrow. They wrote the words down and read the sentence that they had to put the word into. Then I cut paper into shapes and I did a pattern and asked Lorien and Darius to finish the pattern. They also had a turn at doing a pattern and having me complete it. They got a bit too complicated for me! Our Science project was with an egg and Vinegar. We talked about bones and what they are made of and how important they are to us. I asked them what could make our bones go away? They said things like oil. I told them that those liquids are very soft. Then I had them smell the Vinegar. Ew yuk! It was strong. So I asked if it could disolve (make dissapear) bone. They didn't think so. So I put an egg in the cup. We talked about the shell being made of Calcium and that's what our bones are made out of. Then they poured the Vinegar into the cup. We made our guesses, or hypothesis, about what would happen to the egg. Darius said it would crack, Lorien said nothing would happen to it, and I said the shell would dissapear. Darius kept wanting to check the egg, but I told him it would take two days for it to be ready. Then we read two TH books.

Gap in Photos

2009-05-30T09:25:00.000-07:00

After Feb 4th I only have a few pictures in March. So let me explain Feb first. We had a Valentines party. Farah taught the kids to do If You're Happy and You Know it, but instead of clap your hands she had them say and do things like, blow a kiss, and give a hug. It was very sweet. Lorien and Darius also had made "plaster" items to give to someone special that day. So Lorien invited her Grandma Stevens and gave her the presant and Darius invited his Auntie Shana to give his to. Lorien also invited her Aunt Jair to come too since Jaden would love the activities. The kids got to decorate sugar cookies, dance and hand out candy. They really did enjoy themselves.

After that, I just can't remember what happened in Feb. Lorien probably got sick again.

In March when Lorien was sick I had a lesson about the old saying "In like a Lion out like a Lamb." We talked about wheather and what it had been like at the beginning of March and what we thought it would be at the end. Then Lorien painted the head of a lion onto a paper plate. She liked that craft a lot, so it's hanging on our living room wall still.

A long Time Ago. . .

2009-05-30T09:01:00.001-07:00

So a while ago we stopped posting. I don't know if it was because we got too busy, or that we were all getting sick and it was a very long while inbetween classes. I'm just going to share some tidbits on the months of Feb-March. It will probably take a couple posts to get it done, but then you'll be filled in and won't have to worry about our sudden hault in progress. There are other pictures that come before these ones that I forgot about. I'll put them in the next post. ~Anne~

On 1-26 the kids were illustrators of a book they created. They sewed the pages together themselves and glued the words in order, then drew pictures to go with the words.

On 1-28 Lorien was sick, so we stayed home. We worked on the color wheel and drew a picture from the colors we had mixed. We only used the primary colors. Darius did this project as well and his color wheel is still hanging on his living room wall.We also did an expreiment to see if we could split the colors of a pen up on a paper towel in a cup of water. I forget what that's called. Anyone?

On 2-4 Lorien was still sick. We stayed home and studied colors made by light. We talked about the rainbow and then drew one.

Jan 16th 2009 Winter

2009-01-22T15:56:00.000-08:00

Wow! Darius and Lorien found something!

Are you sure?!?

Since Dinosaur bones are so old, Darius has to use a brush to get the last bits of sand off.

Yeah! They found a Dinosaur!

Just having fun!

Circle Time: We're at the park! So it has been absolutely gorgeous here lately. So we decided to go to the park. We sang our "Good Morning" song. Then we talked about what day it was. We didn't have a calendar, so we just had to remember. Then we said our Pledge of Allegiance without a flag. And I even had a new word for them, Permission. It was a very important word for them to learn.

Free Craft: So since we were at the park I didn't have any coloring things with us. So I brought puzzles for them to put together. There was an Arthur puzzle and a Winnie the Pooh puzzle. Both puzzles had 24 pieces. We did really well putting them both together. It takes a lot of team work to get a puzzle of that size put together.

History: I also brought a few pages of a wooded book Lorien has. It has wooden dinosaur magnets on them with their names. We talked about how Paleontologists dig in the ground and find bones. Then they put them together and sometimes they turn out to be dinosaurs! They liked that idea. So we dug in the sand, we pretended to be paleontologists, and found a dinosaur there! We think it was a Velociraptor. But I asked Lorien and Darius a couple questions about that type of work, and they decided that it takes a long time, is dirty and hard work. We can now appreciate the work Paleontologists do.

Reading: I didn't have any Dinosaur books so we read, The Incredible Painting of Feliz Clousseau by Jon Agee, and The Warrior and the Wise Man by David Wisniewski, which was chosen for it's beautiful pictures since I didn't have another book that had a "p" word in it's title.

Snack and Closing: Since we were at the park we sat on a bench to eat, and Lorien and Darius got to play, mostly on the swings.

Jan 14th 2009

2009-01-22T15:16:00.000-08:00

Today we had soooo much fun!

Circle time: We started by singing our "Good Morning Song" then finding the date and saying the days of the week in English and Spanish. Then we went outside and said the Pledge of Allegiance. Our Word of the Day was patient. I asked them if they already knew what it meant and Lorien said "It means to hold your horses!" How cute was that! So I gave them the right deffinition. The Spanish word was Pensar which means To Think. It was much harder to get them to remember that one. They still remember Paloma. Then I had them go get their show and tell items. Darius showed us his Pen, it was huge! Lorien showed us a pacifier we found in the car. We forgot to bring her puppy! She told us that she used to suck on a pacifier and Vanessa just plays with pacifiers.

Reading and Writing: They read and wrote the words, Peel, Pen, Pest, Pet, Petal, Pig, and Pink. And for homework I gave them, Plant, Play, Plus, Polar, Pray and Press. Lorien did it as soon as we got home. I forgot to ask Darius if he had finished his!

Free Art: I got out the paints, paper, siccors, glue and markers. Lorien wanted to paint (I left her painting at Farah's house!) Darius made a baby and mommy picture that he cut out and glued together (which was left on the back of the sink!). Then I cut out some Pentagons and we talked about themf or a while. I asked them if they would like to make a pentagon neighborhood. Lorien dicided she wanted to, but Darius wanted to look at the Hermies and play the balance thingy (Digger). Lorien made one of her houses her Grandma's and one her Cousin Jaden's house.

Math: I gathered up the square and triangle magna blocks and asked them to each make piles of certain numbers and we sould count them together. Some equations include, 4 plus 3, 9 plus 7, 2 plus 3, 5 plus 5, and so on. Darius loved it! Lorien thought it would be hard until she realized we were just counting them all up after making the piles. She hasn't grasped the concept of counting in her head. Darius can count in his head quite proficiently.

Craft: We made puppets today! I brought socks for them and they picked out hair (yarn) and eyes (buttons). I sewed them on for them and glued in cardboard for the mouth. They tried them out.

Science: I went online and opened an e-mail I had recieved with pictures from National Geographic. We talked about all the cool things on our Planet Earth. The animals, the trees, the Ocean (Especially the Pacific) and the Volcanoes. There was so much more we could have talked about! We'll talk more about it when we get into Solar Systems! Yeah!

Reading: Phantom of the Prairie, Year of the Black-footed Ferret by Jonathan London Illustrated by Barbara Bash (Had some hard truths that could have been a little disturbing, but went over the kids heads, that or they understand that animals kill each other in the wilderness to eat!), Widget and the Puppy by Lyn Rossiter McFarland pictures by Jim McFarland, The Bears' Picnic by Stan and Jan Berenstain.

Closing Circle: We had our puppet show. We didn't plan anything so Darius' puppet decided to eat Lorien's puppet. They told us their names and had fun just goofing off on the "stage". We'll have to explore puppet shows in more detail later. . .

Jan 12th 2009

2009-01-22T10:01:00.000-08:00

Opening: Sing "Good Morning", Pledge of Allegiance, Calendar, Letter of the Week: P, Word of the Day: Pledge, Spanish Word of the Day: Paloma (Dove).

History: Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard. He was a pirate who was greatly feared. He would put Hemp in his beard and light the ends on fire so it looked like his beard was smoking. He did this during battle to intimidate his enemies.

English: Reading and Writing the following words, Pack, Pal, Pan, Pant, Park, Party, Pass, Pasta. Study poetry and try to write our own.

Science: Learn the different parts of a plant, Leaf, Petal, Node, Stem, Axil, Branch, Flower Stalk.

Reading:Pie Rats Ahoy! by Richard Scarry and Edward and the Pirates by David McPhail

Snack and Closing circle time: Play balance thingy, (we called it a foot puzzle). Play the piano. Sing favorite songs.

We had a lot of fun today! They always have a good time reading and writing the words. Lorien and Darius were especially impressed with how Blackbeard put rope in his beard and lit it on fire to scare people! We talked about poems and rhyming words. Then I had a bunch of words cut out that they could paste onto paper to make a "poem". It was pretty hard. So we ended up just making sentences. I thought it was a great activity that helped them read as well as think about how the words should fit together. Then I gave them each a paper with a diagram of a flower with the names of different parts of a plant written on them. I read a few of them allowed, then we went outside to find plants and the parts we had talked about. Darius found a part that we hadn't discussed, it was a bud. Since it isn't Spring yet we couldn't identify any flower petals. The balance thingy is called the Digger. It has five sides with different colors on each side and you play it like Simon Says. They each got a turn to play it. Of course it was the highlight of their day! I also showed them the piano and taught them how to make a thunder storm on it. Lorien was already accustomed to the piano and helped with the thunder. I showed Darius how to do the rain, but he didn't want to participate. After that Lorien pretended she was a Photographer and took Pictures of Darius, who tried not to be in the pictures.

Friday, January 9th

2009-01-14T12:55:00.000-08:00

Today was our short class day (Library day), so we spent most of the time painting our sculptures. Their works of art turned out great! We are going to bring in some gift wrap so we can have them wrap them up for gifts. At the library, they had a great time as our favorite storyteller was back after her knee surgery!
Afterwards the childen had fun perusing the childrens books, and of course Darius checked out a Pokemon book & Lorien looked at the special Princess book held behind the librarian's desk.

Wednesday, January 7th

2009-01-14T12:50:00.000-08:00

Letter of the week “0”
Word of the day: Obliterate (English)
Oreja (Spanish)
9:30-9:45 Opening Circle time. Opening song (“Good Morning/Buenos Dias”). Calendar time. Words of the day. Sharing time.
9:45-10:15 Center exploration: Letter of the week- coloring/writing letter. “I can read/write”. Making octagons.
10:15-11:00 Special project: Making & Baking (clay)
11:00-11:15 Story time
11:15-11:50 Wash hands/Snack time/Free Play
11:50-12:00 Closing circle time

I need to find my camera so I can add the pics from this day!
We sure had a lot of fun today- lots to do! After our usual routine, we made our own home made clay out of flour, water & salt. The chilren made their own sculptures & I baked them to dry them out. Making the clay was not easy! It took a lot of muscle, time and endurance! Thank goodness Darius & Lorien work out!

Monday, January 5th 2009!

2009-01-14T12:38:00.000-08:00

Happy Birthday, Lorien!

Lorien, cutting her octopus tenticles

Darius, showing us his tenticles

Cyrus, our star student of the day :)

The crew, looking at the separationg of lighter &heavier liquids

Letter of the week “0”
Word of the day: Obsolete (English)
Oso (Spanish)
9:30-9:45 Opening Circle time. Opening song (“Good Morning/Buenos Dias”). Calendar time. New Year! Resolutions. Words of the day.
9:45-10:15 Center exploration: Letter of the week- coloring/writing letter. “I can read/write”. Octopus mini-windsock
10:15-11:00 Special project: Level of Liquids
11:00-11:15 Story time
11:15-11:50 Wash hands/Snack time/Free Play
11:50-12:00 Closing circle time

Today was a great first day back after a long, extended Christmas break! The week previous to Christmas break, my Uncle, Iraj Azarvand, passed away, so we were busy all that week with funeral arrangements & such.

Cyrus had the opportunity to join us this day and was a big help!

We spent a lot of time learning about the Octopus! In addition to making our windsocks, we were able to use the computer to view various videos & pictures of the Octopus. The adults seemed to be just as intrigued as the children!

We also talked about our New Years resolutions, Darius said his resolution is to play more Pokemon!? Lorien wants to play more. At least they aren't setting themselves up for failure, I'm pretty sure they will accomplish their resolutions!

For science, we learned about the weights of liquids & were able to see the weight difference through a glass. We used water, oil, vinegar & corn syrup.

December 12th

2008-12-12T22:36:00.001-08:00

Circle time: Pledge of Allegiance, Good Morning Song, Calendar, went over N words of the the day. Talked briefly about the History of Christmas (I'm sure Farah will go into greater detail next week. . .)

Craft Time: We laced stockings, bells, snowflakes and tree shapes. Lorien and Darius decorated them by painting and cutting and gluing fabric and adding bells. Lorien worked really hard on her craft, while Darius finished his fast and went inside to put the United states puzzle together again. He really likes that puzzle!

Snack Time: Wash hands, eat, free play time.

Library Time: Vanessa and Leila (I always forget how to spell her name!) stayed home with Farah, while I took Lorien and Darius to the Library. They read Christmas books, and sang Christmas songs. After story time Darius went to look for his Pokemon book and it was there! Yeah! Lorien looked at her princess primer book. Gotta keep up on royal etiquette!

December 10th

2008-12-12T22:28:00.000-08:00

Circle Time: Pledge of Allegiance, Good Morning Song, Calendar, English word of the day (that's really french): Noel, Spanish word of the day: Nada (the kids had fun with that one, Lorien quized me when we got home by asking me what was on the table and in my hand.)

Reading and Writing: The kids read and wrote the following words: nest, net, new, news, newt, next, nick, ninja.

Craft Time: I had them made a night time snow scene. We folded paper and cut out triangles to make snow flakes. The little triangle pieces were used as tiny snow and we cut sparkly fabric for the stars. Lorien went to town making snowflakes, while Darius lost intrest very quickly. (I realized that I should have found a science project for them to do instead!) Darius decided to do the huge United States of America puzzle. When Lorien was finished with her craft, she decided to play with the Magni-tiles. She build a giant tower. It was pretty amazing.

Math: Darius has been showing a great intrest in math. He's been doing quite difficult problems adding a single digit to a double digit. So I made cards with numbers on them and made a plus and minus sign out of paper. Then they got to make their own equation up and figure it out. Darius figured the answers out in his head, while Lorien and I counted on our fingers. I'll be working on Math with Lorien at home.

Reading: Eyes, Nose, Fingers, and Toes by Judy Hindley illustrated by Brita Granstrom, The Whole Night Through by David Frampton.

Closing Circle: We had to do Jack be Nimble about 5 times. We jumped over the imaginary candle. Darius didn't want to stop! It was fun. Lorien suggested we stretched. So we reached to the sky and to our toes and made butterflies with our leggs. It was a good closing time. Lorien did not want to go!

Dec 8th

2008-12-12T22:18:00.000-08:00

Ok, so since I was gone last week, and Lorien didn't get to do work, I decided to do N. Darius already had a couple days of N, but now he knows N really well! We've got our morning schedule down pretty good now:

Circle Time: Good Morning Song, Pledge of Allegiance, Calendar, Letter of the week: N, English word of the day: Nation, Spanish word: Nariz (nose). Nursery Rhymes, Winkin, Blinkin and Nod, Jack be Nimble, Never Smile at a Crocodile. Lorien and Darius LOVED to do Jack be Nimble. Lorien and I were humming Never Smile at a Crocodile the rest of the day!

Reading and Writing: They read and wrote the following words: nag, nap, navy, nay, neck, need, neon, nerd.

Science: The kids were a bit dissapointed that we didn't do an experiment. The topic was the Northern Lights. It held their interest. After we talked about how it is formed (Benjamin Franklin first brought attention to the "mystery of the Northern Lights." He theorized the shifting lights to a concentration of electrical charges in the polar regions intensified by the snow and other moisture.) Lorien and Darius painted the "Northern Lights". They had a great time trying to get the colors to run together. I had them take white crayon to draw stars and they were trying really hard to paint over all their crayon markings to see what they drew.

Reading: Noodle by Munro Leaf pictures by Ludwig Bemelmans, Nikolai, The Only Bear by Barbara Joosse Illustrated by Renata Liwska.

Snack Time: Wash hands, eat, free play time.

Closing Circle: Sang The More we get Together.

(Farah, I need pics from you!)

Solo week! Monday, December 1st

2008-12-11T19:37:00.000-08:00

Leilah showing Darius how to write his letters...hahaha:)
Evaporation!

Matching spanish words to pictures wreath & a home made cloud

Leilah joined in with our opening circle time song

Condensation!

Letter of the week “N”
Word of the day: Nuisance (English)

Naranja (Spanish)

9:30-9:45 Opening Circle time. Opening song (“Good Morning/Buenos Dias”). Calendar time. Words of the day. Talk about the new month & special days this month.
9:45-10:00 Center exploration: Letter of the week- coloring/writing letter. “I can read/write” .

10:00-11:00 Special project: The Weather System

11:00-11:15 Story time, special weather cycle story, "Drippy the Raindrop"
11:15-11:50 Wash hands/Snack time/Free Play
11:50-12:00 Closing circle time

This week it was just Darius and I as Anne was in Arizona with her family for a family funeral. Our condolences go out for Anne, Jimmy, and their family.

Preschool was a bit more quiet with half the class absent:) I took advantage of this time to concentrate on things that Darius was really interested in, like the weather! We went over the different steps of the the weather system (i.e., evaporation,condensation, precipitation, collection), and I demonstrated each individual step in our own kitchen (i.e., boiling water to show evaporation, putting the lid on to demonstrate condensation, etc...). Darius was just beside himself & seemed to grasp the concepts well :)

We did have a special guest in class, none other than the infamous, Leilah-Louise "Cutie Pie" Cuenca! She had fun for a second in circle time, and tried to do some 'class work' with Darius!

Wednesday, November 26th- (mini) Thanksgiving party!

2008-11-27T14:36:00.001-08:00

Mixing the gingerbread dough
Playdough men

rolling out the dough

look at their walls!

Yum!

Today I planned a Thanksgiving class party, but the other half of our party (Anne, Lorien & Vanessa) wasn’t able to attend as they came down with pink eye!
We still had preschool, this time we were joined by Cyrus, Darius’s older brother, as he had the day off of school. After we went through the morning routine, we decided to still have our ‘class party’ by making gingerbread walls to be used to make gingerbread houses tomorrow after Thanksgiving dinner.
The boys had a great time rolling out the dough and cutting the walls- and with the leftovers they were able to make gingerbread men- or in Cyrus’s case a bat! It was a lot like using play dough for them- but it tasted soooo much better!
Afterwards, they continued the fun by playing with play dough & making more gingerbread men!

Monday, November 24th

2008-11-27T14:01:00.000-08:00

Look as the north & south poles are attracted to each other:)
Darius is repelling the magnets by placing 2 of the same magnetic poles together.

Which color should I choose to decorate my hands?

Seriously Sister Cuenca, another picture?

Letter of the week “M”
Word of the day: Moat (English)

Mesa (table)

9:30-9:45 Opening Circle time. Opening song (“Good Morning/Buenos Dias”). Calendar time. Words of the day. Talk about Thanksgiving, being grateful.

9:45-10:15 Center exploration: Letter of the week- coloring/writing letter. “I can read/write” Thanksgiving place mats.
10:15-11:00 Special project: Magnets!
11:00-11:15 Story time
11:15-11:50 Wash hands/Snack time/Free Play
11:50-12:00 Closing circle time

Today we had a fun time learning about magnets! Darius & Lorien really caught on fast and surprised me at how much they really comprehended. I gave them each 2 magnets and they were given a variety of things to see if their magnets would pick them up- things like a pencil, fork, key chain, keys, etc...

The magnets would not pick up the keys, but could pick up the key chain, I asked them why this was & Darius was quick to reply, "because the keys to do not have iron in them and the key chain does!" It's nice to know they were paying attention:)

We also made Thanksgiving Place mats today! They traced their hands and used them as leaves on their "Thankful Tree", then we laminated the trees to use as place mats for the Holidays.

When we were at closing circle time, Darius demonstrated some dance moves he's been working on. Lorien joined in & Anne just enjoyed the show! Lorien has some crazy dance legs going on, they both of them are having a blast!

Library Day Nov 21

2008-11-26T15:44:00.000-08:00

Circle Time: We sang our "Goodmorning song" and went out to say the Pledge of Allegiance. Then we came back in to figure out the date and review our words of the week.

Reading and Writing: The words we worked on were: Levy, Lick, Lid, Lie, Lift, Lily, Limp, Lion, Lip, Lisp, List, Lit, Lock, Loft, Log, Logo.

Free Craft time: Painting, coloring, cutting, play dough. I think they just painted. (We were a bit tired since we went to see Twilight at midnight that morning!)

Snack Time: Wash hands, eat, play.

Library Time: As always they had a blast listening to the stories, singing songs, and finding books to take home. One of the activites the Librarian had the kids do was to make a felt Turkey. They had lots of fun.

Lorien and Darius in front of the Bee's garden and their Hives.

Bee on Farah. Sorry Farah, this one was just too good to pass up!

Field Trip!

2008-11-26T15:12:00.000-08:00

The Lady closed the door to the hive and they were all trying to get back in. It was cold!

Darius did a great job! What a cute Blue Lamb.

We started out with opening Circle time. We figured out the date, looked at our new words: English: Liberty, Spanish: La Leche. Then we went outside to say the Pledge of Allegiance.

Words to read and write were: Leek, Left, Leg, Lend, Lens, Lend, Less, Let. They are doing so well sounding out the words and writing the letters.

Free Craft Time: Lorien and Darius painted. They were very creative. Darius painted Journey to the Center of the Earth. And Lorien drew a map to get to the Giants, and the Purple Place.

Field Trip! Yeah, it was finally time to leave! We all piled in our cars and headed out to Bear Foot Honey Farm. There was nobody in the parking lot. We went into the sparce room and the Owners mom came out in curlers and said "Just a minute!" When we all got settled inside we gathered round her and she told us about Bees. She had huge pictures to show us upclose what Bees look like. We learned that the Bees are mostly female. There are only a few male Bees. They are called Drones, they don't sting. And the woman's kids used to take them to school as pets and the teachers would get upset that they would put all the others in danger like that! I think I had more fun learning about all that then the kids! We looked at the machine they use to shake the Honey out. We tried honey right from the honey comb. We had to chew the wax and suck out the Honey and spit the wax out. Then we went outside to see the Beehives. We got to see a starter hive up close! Lorien and Darius were a bit scared in the beginning, but the lady in charge (I don't remember her name) was just so relaxed and at peace near the Bees we couldn't help but feel the same way. Some Bee's landed on us and we got to see the other Beehives out in the garden area. They plant gardens for the Bees and then let their customers pick whatever they wants. She had tomatoes at the time. We didn't need any, though. Oh, we had so much fun! We went inside and tasted honey after that. There was cinnimon, Mint Thistle, Orange Blossom and so many others! There was Honey from Texas and somewhere over Seas, I can't remember. Of course we bought some. There were honey sticks for the kids. Then we had out snack in the parking lot. (They need picknic benches) Everyone had a great time. And I don't think anyone is scared of Bees anymore. The pics we got were amazing! I'll probably have to do two posts for this one!

They leave honey out for them to gather in the Winter.

November 17th

2008-11-26T14:53:00.002-08:00

Circle Time: Sang Good morning song. Put the date on the calendar. Said the Pledge of Allegiance. Introduced letter of the week as L. Laugh was the word of the day and Leer, which means to read in Spanish. We also talked about the Mayflower coming to America and their first Thanksgiving. I brought pictures I found online so Lorien and Darius listened intently while studying them.

Reading and Writing: Practiced writing the letter L and colored a picture of a Lamb. I had the kids read and write the following words: Lab, Lad, Lady, Lag, Lap, Lay, Lamp, Land. And for homework I gave them the following words: Lard, Lass, Last, Lava, Law, Lazy, Led, Lee. Darius had so much fun getting his homework out at the library at Cyrus' school the next day.

Free Craft time: Hermit Crab observation, Painting, playdough was put out. I also had a craft for them to do. Since Thanksgiving is next week we made Turkey Lurkey. He was made out of big feathers cut out of 12x12 paper. Lorien and Darius both told me what they were greatful for (mainly their families) and I wrote it down on the feathers they cut out. Then they decorated with macaroni, glitter and stickers. Darius helped made the body, which we glued onto a milk carton. He also helped cut out feet and a beek and a gobbler. He glued them on and put googly eyes on as well. The finished product was awesome! They really had fun with this one.

Snack Time: They were getting hungry so we decided to do snack early. They only had a couple minutes for free play time.

Reading Time: Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert, The Best Beekeeper of Lalibela by Cristina Kessler illustrated by Leonard Jenkins.

Science: We studied fire. We talked about how to put out a fire. Just a regular one, not a greace fire. So I lit the candle and they blew it out. That was one way. Then I lit it again and put the lid on it. And it went out! They learned that fire needs air to "live" just like plants and humans need air. Lorien and Darius both took turns putting the lid on the candle. Oh, and we also learned that if you see smoke coming out of a bedroom that has it's door closed, you aren't supposed to open it. That would give the smoke air, which would make the fire ignite and could hurt you really bad.

Closing Circle: We finished up the Nursery rhymes

Monday, November 10th

2008-11-10T17:00:00.000-08:00

Leilah&Vanessa just chillin' in the USA
Lorien rolling out the dough

Darius steam rolling

Lorien mixing our secret recipe!

Darius mixing w/Cyrus supervising

Letter of the week “K”
Word of the day: Kindle (English)
9:30-9:45 Opening Circle time. Opening song (“Good Morning/Buenos Dias”). Calendar time. How was your weekend? Word of the day.
What is “Thanksgiving”?
9:45-10:15 Center exploration: Letter of the week- Trace/color. “I can read and write”, Painting. Shape picture puzzles.
10:15-11:00 Special project: Making Play dough w/glitter
11:00-11:15 Story time, “The Man Who Kept His Heart in a Bucket”
by Sonia Levinton
11:15-11:50 Wash hands/Snack time/Free Play
11:50-12:00 Closing circle time

Today was a good day. I had written a lot more today, then Cyrus, my older son decided to close out the window, so everything was lost! Maybe I'll write more later if I get in the mood again. What a bummer!!!!!

Here are the words to the Thanksgiving song we learned today:

I have a turkey, big and fat.
(Make a fist with one hand-thumb Out for turkey's head)
He spreads his tail and walks like that.
(Attach "tail" by spreading Out fingers of other hand and join together)
His daily corn he would not miss.
(Poke with thumb at floor)
And when he talks, it sounds like this:
Gobble Gobble Gobble

Zap! Zing! Jellyfish!

2008-11-07T13:11:00.000-08:00

11-7-08

9:30am, Opening Circle: Sang "Buenos Dias". Said the Pledge of Allegiance. Went over J words and reviewed Monday's and Wednesday's words of the day. Talked about being a journalist. Then we made Newspapers. I used the One Paper Book folding method that my sister Julia gave me. They started writing an article in it right away. Both Darius and Lorien drew lines and started writing "words". I taught them how to write "News" for Newspaper. We talked about it meaning North, South, East and West, like the compass they made.

9:50am, Reading and Writing: They wrote in their journals, and both decided to draw pictures of Jellyfish. They also did a great job sounding out and writing the following words: jog, jolt, joy, jump, jut, just. As always they were very eager to write the words as fast as possible. Their handwriting is improving every time we do this project.

10:00am, Free Craft/Science: So I had a craft for them to do. I had printed out pictures of Jellyfish. We talked about how big they can be. From one inch to 200 ft! It was amazing, Lorien and Darius were enraptured by the pics and the info I found. They learned that the tenticals can be very dangerous and if you get stung by the Sea Nettle, you could die! So we made our own jellyfish! Lorien and darius tried to make a cirlce out of a square piece of paper. Then they tried to punch holes in the cardstock. I helped them a lot. Then they had to tie yarn in the wholes. That was hard. Farah tried to take over Darius' project, but I wouldn't let her! So I think they both learned how to tie a knot. I helped a lot with that too. They had a lot of fun lacing the yarn through the holes. But be carefull! Those tenticles sting!

10:30am, Snack: Wash hands, eat, get ready to go to the library. . .

11:00am, Library: Barnyard was the theme today. Darius wanted to hold one of the puppet animals, Lorien got to hold the horse? I think. After story time, they rushed to find their most favorite books! Darius finally got his Pokemon book and Lorien asked for The Princess Primer book. They behaved so well today!

Jingle Jangle

2008-11-06T14:53:00.000-08:00

(So Lorien got sick on Tuesday and I got sick on Wednesday. We rescheduled preschool for Thursday.)

11-6-08

9:30am, Opening Circle: We found the date first and I was about to go on when I remembered we needed to sing! So we sang "Good Morning", Darius said he'd write me a note to help me remember to sing the song! Then we said the Pledge of Allegiance. We reviewed old J words then went over the new ones. Juego (which means games, as in board and card games) was the Spanish word, and Journalism was our English word. We are going to be Journalists on Friday. I asked them to get their sharing things. Darius brought his car that was named Jack, he says he plays with it with Cyrus. Cyrus has his own car too that looks similar. Lorien brought her Jack-in-the-Box. She let Darius try it. He went as fast as he could.

9:50am, Reading and Writing:We practiced writing J and colored the picture of the Jellyfish. Darius asked a lot of questions about Jellyfish, so we will probably talk more about them on Friday. I had the kids read and write the following words: Jelly, Jerk, Jest, Jet, Jig and Job. They did a great job sounding out the words.

10:15am, Free Craft: Again I had something for them to do. We made wind chimes out of hangers and metal that I found at a thrift store. They turned out very beautiful. When Farah came home Darius said "You won't believe this!"

Lorien was excited to hang hers up when we got home but was dissapointed to find out we had to hang it up with the spider webs. She said "It's too pretty to hang with the spiders!"

11:00am, Snack Time: Wash hands, eat, free play time (which they spent battling pokemon cards).

11:30am, Science: We talked about North, South, East and West. We drew our own "Compas" on paper. Then we faced in each direction and talked about what things were in what direction. For instance, Santa Claus lives in the North, Utah is in the East (Lorien was excited about that 'cause Grandpa Stolp lived there), Ocean is in the West and Penguins live in the South. We also talked about the path of the Sun. We'll go into that in more detail later. Afterwards Darius was quick to get his real compas. He was excited to find that the pointer always pointed North.

11:45am, Reading: Jake the Philharmonic Dog by Karen LeFrak Illustrations by Marcin Baranski, and Jingle the Brass by Patricia Newman pictures by Michael Chesworth.

12:00pm, Closing Circle: We sang Jolly Old St Nicolas, Jingle Bells, and Jack and Jill. Closing prayer by Lorien. Library tomorrow!

J Week!

2008-11-06T14:22:00.000-08:00

11-3-08

9:35am, Opening Circle: We sang our opening circle song "Good Morning". Said the Pledge of Allegiance. Figured out the date. Went over letter of the week, J, word of the day, Journey, Spanish word of the day, Jugetes (which means toys). We also found a lot of J words to write on the J poster.

9:50am, History: We also talked about the first President of the United States, George Washington. Then we talked about the Election that would happen the next day. Darius was very quick to let us know that Barak Obama and John McCain were the candidates. They both had heard a lot about Prop 8 and were hoping it would pass as well, since their Mommies and Daddies had been talking so much about it.

10:05am, Reading and Writing: Since it had been raining so much we decided to stay inside and do our coloring on the kitchen table. They drew their letter J's and colored their pictures. Then I gave them the following words to read and write: Jab, Jam, Jar, Jay, Jazz, Jeep. Darius did very well reading his words. Lorien spent a little more time trying to get the right sounds. Lorien wrote her words very neatly.

10:30am, Free Craft: They didn't want to do any of the other crafting things I had out, so I had them do the project I prepared for them. They made a rainy day picture. They sprinkled water on their papers to be the rain. They were supposed to outline the drops with ink, but the ink just kept running into the water. It looked really cool! They used fabric and sticks to make their own special scene. Darius made a garden with flowers (the stems were popcicle sticks) and sparkly green grass and gold grass. Lorien made grass and a bridge made out of popcicle sticks. They had so much fun.

11:00am, Science: Since there were so many clouds in the sky we classified the clouds. I told them about all 4 types. They they drew pictures of them. Cirrus were feathery, and the highest clouds. Cumulus were the big puffy white cotton ball clouds. Stratus are just flat wide drizzly clouds, and Nimbus were the very dark grey rain clouds! We saw three of the 4 cloud types. It was great to see them draw what they saw.

11:10am, Reading: Just Another Morning by Linda Ashman illustrated by Claudio Munoz, and An Orange in January by Dianna Hutts Aston illustrated by Julie Maren.

11:30am, Snack Time: Wash hands, eat, free play time.

12:00pm, Closing Circle: We did as many things as we could that started with J. We jumped, jogged, went on a journey, found junk (in our lunch boxes!), played with a jump rope, and last of all made jingle bell braclets and sang jingle bells. We also sang Jack and Jill. Darius was Jack and Lorien was Jill. They ran around the room while I sang. I kept telling them to try to sing, but they were having too much fun! I reminded them to bring something that started with J for show and tell on Wednesday.

More Halloween fun!

2008-11-04T20:10:00.001-08:00

The finished product
Methodically decorating the apples

Ahoy! It's Halloween!!

Coating the apples (with Leilah supervising)

It's HALLOWEEN!

2008-11-04T19:45:00.000-08:00

Who is smiling bigger- Lorien or her jack-o-latern?
Concentrating on his masterpiece...

...and here it is!

Every princess needs her...mexican pirate wrestler man!

Making bats at the library.

It’s party time!

What a fun time had during our first class party! So much to do in so little time! We had a fun Halloween bean bag toss game, pirate crafts that Anne headed up, and for a treat they kids made their own caramel apples! We melted the caramel in the double boiler, and then they each dipped their apples to coat. Then we brought the apples to the table where they decorated them with pirate sprinkles, M&M’s & my favorite, marshmallows! We then enjoyed a quick lunch together followed by pumpkin carving. Then off we went to the library to continue with our Halloween fun! After Halloween story time, the children did a bat craft and then received Halloween bags which contained stickers and fake spiders. What a fun filled day!

Wednesday, October 29th

2008-11-04T19:25:00.000-08:00

Lorien enjoying her ice cream
He looks like a poster child for ice cream in a can:)

Rolling the can back & forth, with Leilah's noggin to supervise!

"my turn!"

Mixing the liquids.

Word of the day: Infamous (English)

Iglesia (Spanish)
9:30-9:45 Opening Circle time. Opening song (“Good Morning/Buenos Dias”). Calendar time. Words of the day. Sharing time. Rain forest review-
9:45-10:15 Center exploration: Letter of the week- Journaling. Painting. Center project: Rain forest Project- Emergent trees or tracing pumpkins.
10:15-11:00 Special “I” project: making ice cream.
11:00-11:15 Story time, “I've been working on the railroad” by Nadine B. Wescott
11:15-11:50 Wash hands/Snack time/Free Play
11:50-12:00 Closing circle time

What fun we had today! We began today by reviewing the rain forest concepts, and going over what we use in our daily lives that comes from the rain forest. The list was BIG!

Sharing time was a lot of fun. Darius brought his favorite (fake) iguana, and let us all pet it. Lorien brought her "Identical twins"- a couple of dolls that look the same. So cute! We then spoke of the difference between identical & fraternal twins.

After center exploration, we launched into our science project which was about liquids vs. solids. We spoke of things that are liquids (i.e., orange juice, water, apple juice, blood) and solids (i.e., the glass the orange juice comes in, the body that houses our blood, ice cubes). To reinforce this concept, I showed them a bowl of milk (with added sugar & vanilla). I then asked them what they think would happen if we were to put the milk in a baggy, and put the baggy in a can filled with ice- they were quick to say it would freeze into ice cream, which is a solid!

We proceeded to put the baggy in the can, and the children rolled it back and forth for 15 minutes. After they finished lunch we opened the can to see what became of our liquid milk & sure enough it turned into a solid bag of ice cream! They then ate their experiment. Yummmmy!

Monday, October 27th

2008-11-04T19:06:00.000-08:00

Lorien looks so excited (not!) :)
So proud of their Liana Vine!

During the course of the day, Darius managed to find an old window

screen & a clothes pin- and made a super hero cape! So resourceful:)

SO proud of his igloo!

Letter of the week “I”
Word of the day: Incubate (English) Iman (Spanish)

9:30-9:45 Opening Circle time. Opening song (“Good Morning/Buenos Dias”). Calendar time. How was your weekend? words of the day. Sharing time. Rain forest introduction- can you think of things in our homes that are from rain forests? What about food from the rain forests?
9:45-10:15 Center exploration: Letter of the week- Trace/color. Painting. Center project: Rain forest Project- Liana vines.
10:15-11:00 Special “I” project: Sugar cube igloos.
11:00-11:15 Story time, “My little Island” by Frane Lessac
11:15-11:50 Wash hands/Snack time/Free Play
11:50-12:00 Closing circle time

We had such a busy but FUN day today! We started off the day by introducing "Rain Forests". To do this, we had the sounds of the rain forest playing as the children walked in the room, with their eyes closed. We discussed the sounds they heard and what they might be. After we opened our eyes, we introduced the different layers of the rain forest, and what types of animals live on each layer. To reinforce the concept, we had a quick project of making our own "Liana vine" which normally is a vine that grows up the big trees of the rain forest- for our own purposes, the children decorated & cut out different things they might find in the rain forest, and hung it on our Liana vine.

After the children had some free play time (to take a break from all that learning!), we made home made igloos out of sugar cubes & home made frosting. This was an easy & fun project for the kids and us! We also looked up pics of igloos on the Internet to show examples of different types of igloos.

We love Books!

2008-10-28T14:56:00.000-07:00

Circle time: We figured out the day and recited the days of the week in English and Spanish. We sang our good morning song. We said the Pledge of Allegiance. We talked about "H" words and our Happy Day picture. I introduced the words I should have on Wednesday: Helado means Ice-cream in Spanish, and Harmony in English. Darius said he already knew what Harmony meant. It was almost right. But they understood very well once we were done talking about it.

Free Craft time: We didn't have much time for this one since we were going to the Library, so Lorien finished writing "H's" in her Journal and Darius worked on a craft with popcicle sticks.

Science: I asked Darius and Lorien to add four drops of food coloring to the glass of cold water and hot water. Then we watched to see how long it took for them it to mix completely into the water. So it appears that this doesn't work. But if you look closely, Darius' color sinks to the bottom (cold water) and Lorien's mixes throughout. (Lorien didn't put her drops of color in the cup at the same time, either). They had a lot of fun with this experiment.

We also discussed hard and soft water. Hard water (we added salt to tap water) prohibited the soap from creating many bubbles. The soft water (just regular tap water) produced an inch more bubbles than the hard water. Lorien and Darius loved shaking their water bottles as hard as they could.

Snack Time: They washed hands, ate, and got to play for a little bit.

Library Time: We forgot to do closing circle time. But the kids are really getting the routine at the library down. They both listen to Story time (Darius sneaked away to give Leilah a kiss). Then they pile into the children's area. Darius heads straight for the computer to look up "Pokemon" and Lorien went to the librarian at the counter to ask for the princess book. She can't check it out since it's reference. Leilah and Vanessa both get board books and read while in the Duo Glider. All while the mommy's look for books that will fit the preschool criteria for the following week.

Sick Day

2008-10-28T14:45:00.000-07:00

Lorien and Vanessa both woke up with awful coughs and snotty noses. So we decided to do preschool seperately. Lorien wasn't so sick that she couldn't do school work. So we sat down and had circle time. We figured the date out, recited the days of the week in English and Spanish. We went over the "H" words from the previous day. Then I had her write "H" in the schoolbooks she has here. Darius got to do the same. They did the date and practiced drawing "H". Lorien brought out her Horse for Show and Tell. She said she liked to play with it and sing the "Horsey" song.

Free Craft Time: Both Lorien and Darius did. They were assigned to do a "Happy Day Picture" made from items in their backyards. So Lorien went outside and gathered up grass and leaves. She pasted the grass on a piece of cardstock and the leaves at the top of her tree. Then she made clouds using Cotton Balls. Both of their artword looked wonderful!

Lorien got to have piano lessons after that and we cleaned up her room. I'm not sure what Darius did for the rest of his preschool. It was very sad not to go. Vanessa got to have a good morning nap. It helped her cold. So we got to go on Friday.

"H" Week

2008-10-28T14:31:00.000-07:00

Circle time: Sang Good morning song. Said Pledge of Allegiance. Found a State that started with "H". (They still wanted to sit on Florida). We figured out what day it was. Introduced letter of the week “H”. Introduce word of the day, Hurricane for English, and Horno is oven in Spanish.

Free craft time: Colored "H" and drew "H" and read "H" words: Hard, Hat, Hit, Hook, Hot. Then Lorien and Darius practiced writing them too. They both did a great job reading and writing these words.

Science: Heat, I (Anne) folded up edges of aluminum foil to make 4 small pans, then the kids put lumps of butter, a TBS of sugar, TBS of salt and a small piece of bread into the foil pans. I put the pans onto a baking tray, and put them in the Horno to bake at 400 degrees for 30 min. I think it was too long, but we found out that the bread got hard, the sugar and butter melted and the salt didn't change at all. Then to further study heat (and have the heat a little closer) I had the children draw bread, popping corn and a candle. They each examined the items and told me what they saw and how they felt and smelt. Then we cooked the popcorn, toasted the bread and lit the candle. We talked about the difference in each of the items. They really enjoyed eating the popcorn after our experiments on heat were all over.

Reading Time: Hurry and the Monarch by Antoine O Flathara, and Hot Air, the (Mostly) True Story of the First Hot-air Baloon Ride by Marjorie Priceman.

Exercise: Freeze Tag. It was very exausting. Farah couldn't play with us, so it was just me and Darius and Lorien. It was sooo hard to keep running! They were both so fast!

Snack Time: Wash hands

Closing circle time:Remind to bring something on Wed that starts with an “H”

(There were no pictures because I forgot to bring mine and Farah couldn't find hers! Sorry!)

Friday, October 17th

2008-10-17T20:01:00.000-07:00

Words of the day: Gradual
Gemelo

9:30-9:45-Opening circle time- Calendar time, opening song, go over letter of the week & words of the day.
9:45-10:15-Journals & special project- create a garden
10:15-10:45- wash hands/snack/free play
10:45- off to the library!

I must say, I am so impressed with the children and how much they have learned in such a short amount of time! I love hearing Darius & Lorien sing, "Buenos Dias" every morning, and I especially love hearing them recite the days of the week in English and in Spanish. What sponges are they! I also love seeing Vanessa & Leilah trying to get in on the schooling action- sitting down at circle time (that is, when they are not wrestling- and by "wrestling" I mean, Vanessa putting Leilah in a choker hold).
Today we were able to plant our own little mini gardens, using beans from my kitchen, and soil from the backyard. Sister Stevens was nice enough to put together a couple of planters for the children made from old oatmeal containers. The children dug for the soil in the yard and placed them in the planters. Then, they put the beans in the soil and we talked about what seeds need to grow. The children really caught on fast and are so eager to see their plans grow, as are we! I got advice from Cyrus, my oldest son (he's all of 8 years!) on how to plant the seeds correctly and how much water to feed them. He is quite the gardener like his Papa.
We actually made it to the library on time today (hip hip hooray!), and were able to pick out some great books after story time.

Wednesday, October 15th

2008-10-17T19:48:00.000-07:00

Letter of the week: G
Words of the day: Gracious
Gato
9:30-9:45- Opening Circle time- "Good Morning/Buenos Dias" opening song. Calendar time. How was your weekend? Sharing time.
9:45-10:00-Trace/color letter of the week
10:00-10:30- Weight and comparisons- light or heavy?
10:30-11:00- Pumpkin cleaning
11:00-11:30-Story time
11:30-12:00- Wash hands/snack/Free play
12:00-12:15-Closing circle time

We had a pretty mellow day today. Lots to do, as usual, but I think we have settled into our routine by now & the children seem to do really well with all our activities! Today we did a lot of story reading as we missed out on Monday during our field trip. We had so many fun stories to share with them so I decided we could squeeze in a few books today. We read, "The Grouchy Ladybug" by Eric Carle "Watch out! A Giant!" by Eric Carle and "The Gift of Nothing"- what fun books!
The kids really loved the pumpkin cleaning. What an easy, fun project for them- easy for us, and FUN for them! Lorien exclaimed "I don't want that one, it's dirty" when picking out pumpkins. Then I told her, "well, you can make it clean"- and she did! Lorien was busy scrubbing and brushing, and Darius was scrubbing and brushing along side her. Next week they can wash my dishes!

Pumpkin Patch Field Trip!

2008-10-17T19:38:00.000-07:00

What a great day we had, visiting the Great Peter Pumpkin Patch, in Petaluma. This is not the Pumpkin Patch everyone sees off HWY 101- Oh, no sir, this Pumpkin Patch took you through the back roads of Petaluma- up and down & all around, until I thought to myself "why did we decide to drive out here again?"and then I saw why- this Pumpkin Patch had it all: Tons of pumpkins, huge haystacks (extra emphasis on the "S"), petting zoo, cow milkings- yes, cow milkings, dig your own potatoes, hay maze...and creamery ice cream, made right there on the farm!
It was a beautiful day, so warm and sunny, and the children soaked up every last bit of it that morning! One of the highlights of our trip was when we went on a ride around the whole farm (well, a big part of the farm), with Farmer Bill. He shared with us his family's genealogy and their story of migration to Sebastopol, and eventually, Petaluma. He even was willing to take a photograph with the children- I think I was more excited about that than them:)
We enjoyed lunch on the farm & let the kids pick our their own ice cream cups. I wanted to get them pumpkin flavor- but they ran out, so Lorien chose vanilla & Darius chose strawberry. I got to buy my favorite cheese, Jersey Hill "Garlic Curd" only the best cheese ever!
After lunch we packed up & headed home, the morning sure went by fast!

Fruity Friday

2008-10-13T20:32:00.000-07:00

10-10-08
9:40, Opening Circle time: Sing Good morning song. Go over “F” words. Color in Journal.

10:00, Creative Time: We finished the family tree. We talked about Grandpa's and Grandma's and Cousins and Aunts and Uncles. Lorien taped pictures of her Grandma and Grandpa Stolp and Stevens families. Darius taped lots and lots of pictures of Grandma, Grandpa and Auntie Shawna and Uncle Austin, cousins Lani and Austin Jr. His pictures took up a lot of space! Darius and Lorien added poles to their Family Flags.

10:25, Cooking: Wash hands. Allow children to help wash the fruit. I gave them butter knives to cut the fruit into smaller bite-size pieces. They took turns mixing the fruit in a large bowl. Darius brought Watermelon and bananas. Lorien brought grapes and a cantelope. Darius really liked it. Lorien wasn't all that excited to eat it. They both loved cutting the fruit up!

10:35, Snack Time: Wash hands, dish out salad, eat snack rush off to the library. . .

Library Time: Leave at 11:40.

Wonderful Wednesday

2008-10-08T14:29:00.000-07:00

10-8-08
9:45, Opening Circle: Good Morning song. Show and tell time. Darius decided not to do this assignment. I asked if he would tell us about Florida. He’s been sitting on FL since we talked about “F” words. But he didn’t want to. So Lorien brought flowers. She keeps them on the headboard of her bed. Go over “F” words, English word is Farther. Spanish word is Fuego = Fire.
10:20, Creative Time:

Family Flag. I got out big painting paper and Lorien and Darius drew their family on their flag and decorated it. They cut fabric and ribbons and glued them on. And then they painted pictures of their family members.

10:45, Cooking: Create Gingerbread Families, 1 ½ cup whole wheat pastry flour, 1 tsp baking soda ½ tsp salt, ½ tsp ginger 1 tsp cinnamon ¼ cup oil, ¼ cup maple syrup, ¼ cup honey, 1 large egg, preheat oven to 350, measure all dry ingredients in bowl and mix well. Measure all wet ingredients into second bowl and mix well. Add two mixtures together. Pour into square pan (8in) and bake for 30-35 min. When cool, roll gingerbread dough into thin slices and provide cookie cutters for children to cut out their families. Decorate with raisins, peanut butter, etc. So this project didn’t really work how I thought it would. But it did give the kids the opportunity to measure ingredients, pour them in a bowl, mix them up, bake it, decorate it and eat it! The part that was weird was it said to bake it before rolling it out. So we did, but it was too dry to roll out afterwards. I would try this again by rolling it out first. Or just get a different recipe! It tasted great!

11:15, Reading Time: We read 3 books again, they were Franklin and Harriet by Paulette Bourgeois and Brenda Clark, and Ebb and Flo and the New Friend by Jane Simmons, and The Frog Prince Continued by Jon Scieszka paintings by Steve Johnson. Darius really liked the ending of The Frog Prince one. After that we went out and made a montage with pictures of babies from magazines. Then Lorien and Darius stuck a picture of themselves with their siblings on top.

11:30, Snack Time: Wash hands, eat, play.

12:00, Decorating Gingerbread: They came in right after eating so we had to tell them to go back and play for a little bit. They were so excited to decorate.
12:30, Closing Circle time: Sing Farmer in the Dell and Five little monkeys. Darius also led us in singing 5 little Pumpkins. I had forgotten the words already! Get Family Meal Charts out and talk about how many people liked the different foods on the list. Lorien talked about hers. Darius had lost his. Lorien found out that not many people in our family like mushrooms. But she said that everyone liked pizza. Assign kids to bring stuff for our Family fruit salad, Ask each child to bring one or two pieces of their family’s favorite fruit.

At one point, Leilah and Vanessa were wrestling. I think Leilah is happy here. Vanessa was just loving on her! Trying to give her hugs. It was so cute watching them have so much fun!

Too Much to Do!

2008-10-08T14:05:00.000-07:00

So I borrowed a preschool curriculum book from Farah, and I loved everything in the one called "Family". So we ended up doing too much. But we had so much fun! Take a look:

10-6-08
9:30, Opening circle: Good Morning song. Figure out what day it is. Introduce “F” as the letter of the week, let them know to bring something to share that starts with F for Wednesday. English word of the day: Ferocious (we all growled as loud as we could). Spanish word of the day: Familia. Color “F” page and trace “Ff”.

9:45, Creative Time: Classroom Family Tree, Use Potato Stamps to stamp leaves on the big butcher paper. Paint a brown trunk. Talk about our families and how many are in each of our families. Glue our pictures on the family tree. In Order, Read the story of the little red hen then have the children put the pictures in the right order and glue them on paper of how the story occurred. Lorien and Darius really like doing this one. They listened intently and tried really hard to figure out what order the pictures went in. Assign Meal Times graph, Survey a lot of people. Ask what their favorite foods are. List the answers on a graph provided for them. As soon as I left to go home Darius started calling people. He even called his Auntie Shawna and Sister Lee. Lorien called the Stolp house and automatically had 9 people to interview! Button Sorting, Sort buttons according to color by placing them in the appropriate colored box. We counted how many buttons were in each box. There were 32 red, 10 green, 10 blue and 5 purple. It was a great success.

11:15, Snack Time: Wash hands

11:45, Science time: Feely Box, Show children the various household items, then place the items in the feely box. Have children try to identify what they are touching without looking.

12:00, Exercise: Mother, May I?
One child is chosen to be “mother”. “Mother” gives commands such as “take two big steps,” “take one step backward.” Children who forget to ask “Mother, May I?” must return to the start. Darius loved this game and wanted to keep playing it. After we were done with closing circle time he and Lorien played it all by themselves.

12:15, Reading: Space Case by Edward Marshall, pics by James Marshall and Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me, by Eric Carle and Fish is Fish by Leo Lionni.

12:30, Closing circle time: Sing To the tune of “This is the way”
This is the way we jump up and down, jump up and down, jump up and down, this is the way we jump up and down so early in the morning. We can also do, stand on tiptoes, stand on one foot, jump to the side, hop on two feet, reach to the sky, wash our hands, brush our teeth, eat or breakfast, brush our hair, put on our clothes.
My Family
Tune of “Ten Little Indians”
Are there two or three or four in a family? Five or six or more in a family? I’m in a family, you’re in a family, Families are all different, Some have fathers, some have mothers, some have sisters, some have brothers, Some have cousins, some have others, Families are all different.
Remind the kids to bring Show and tell item that starts with “F”. Darius and Lorien both picked up the family song really easily. It was lots of fun.

Friday, October 3rd

2008-10-06T21:01:00.000-07:00

Such happy home decorators! Lorien & Darius sharing the glue:)

Letter of the week “E”
Word of the day: Exasperate (English) Esperanza (Spanish)
Theme of the week “All About Me”
9:30-9:45 Opening Circle time. Opening song (“Good Morning/Buenos Dias”). Calendar time. Words of the day.
9:45-10:15 Center exploration: Letter review, journal writing, puzzles, play dough, paint, hermit crabs. Special center project, “where do I live?” Home decoration & memorization of addresses.
10:15-10:30 Wash hands/Snack
10:30-10:45 Free play
10:45-11:45 Library!
What a nice mellow ending to a busy week. The children were busy doing their regular crafts, and also had the opportunity to memorize their home addresses. Both did a great job at memorization & had a wonderful time decorating their ‘homes’! Our library time had a pleasant surprise as the program for the day happened to by bi-lingual (English/Spanish), what a treat!

October 1st!

2008-10-01T12:21:00.000-07:00

Lorien cutting out her phone
Darius pounding his phone onto the paper
98,99,100!
Look at the colors we made!
Lorien taking her time, sprinkling the salt-

Darius is- blowing the salt all over the page!

Letter of the week “E”
Word of the day: Empathy (English) Elefante (Spanish)
Theme of the week “All About Me”
9:30-9:45 Opening Circle time. Opening song (“Good Morning/Buenos Dias”). Calendar time. It’s a new month! words of the day. Sharing time.
9:45-10:15 Center exploration: Journaling letter of the week, Paint, hermit crabs, memorizing home phone number & doing telephone craft.
10:15-10:30 Special project: Home-made finger paint
10:30-10:45 Story time, “The Emperor and the Kit”
10:45-11:15 Wash hands/Snack time
11:15-11:45 Free play time
11:45-12:00 Closing circle time: “5 little pumpkins” “Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam”.
Today was another busy day! In circle time, Lorien shared her elephant & Darius shared his “Extra box” with us, where he keeps his valuable treasures.
Making home-made finger paint was fun & easy! The children took turns counting to 100 while stirring. We painted on black paper with the 2 Halloween colors were created, orange & white! We used salt to make the pictures shiny. I think the children loved sprinkling the salt the most!
During lunch we had some unexpected guests- bees! Anne of course ran into the house & left the children to fend for themselves! Lorien followed her Mommy & Darius took control of the situation & began to catch the bees. He is a natural born bee catcher.

Monday, September 29th

2008-09-30T07:19:00.000-07:00

Letter of the week “E”
Word of the day: Expedition (English) Estrella (Spanish)
Theme of the week “All About Me”
9:30-9:45 Opening Circle time. Opening song (“Good Morning/Buenos Dias”). Calendar time. How was your weekend? What is a “Weekend”? Introduce letter of the week & words of the day.
9:45-10:15 Center exploration: Color/trace letter of the week, Paint, Play dough, foam shape art, interview each child for the “All About Me” questionnaire. Take picture of each child to put on the questionnaire for that day. Hermit crabs.
10:15-10:30 Special project: Crayon Melting
10:30-10:45 Story time, “Shopping Expedition” and “Zen Shorts”
10:45-11:15 Wash hands/Snack time
11:15-11:45 Free play time
11:45-12:00 Closing circle time: Movement/stretching using the exercise step.
Today was a busy day. Lorien & Darius told us about their weekend, both participated in the Primary Program the day before so we talked about it amongst other things. Darius was eager to tell us that him & Papa went to the dumpster, while Lorien shared with us that she went hiking wither her Mommy. The children loved the special project, ‘crayon melting’. We used an electric griddle, and lined it with two 8x11” foil paper sheets. The children were very careful, thankfully, and had a great time making art. We even pulled out the glitter & some Q-tips to enhance their experience! The rest of our school day was filled with stories & lots of activity. The children played well during free play time & such it was such a beautiful day, we decided to having closing circle time outside in the backyard! We sung some songs while running around, did some stretching, and then used the “Step” to do some more stretching & exercising. Of course, Leilah & Vanessa were eager to join in on the fun!

Library Time, again. . .

2008-09-26T13:26:00.000-07:00

Our wonderful disguises, Vanessa is a fairy, Leila is a rock star, Lorien is a Lady, and Darius is Mysterio Jay (I think!). We look so good undercover! Darius is trying to help Leila keep her wig on.

We're trying to get Leila to keep her wig on!

Perfect fit!

For free craft time Darius decided to observe the Hermies.

9-26-08

Circle Time, 9:30am: Sing opening songs (we need to start saying the Pledge of Allegiance). We checked out our disguises, went over D words and meanings. Found out what day it is, Library Day!

9:45am: Color in Journal, Free Art time: Lorien and Darius played with play dough, and Darius observed the Hermies.
10:15am: Wash Hands for snack time. We read A House for Hermit Crab by Eric Carle while the kids ate.
10:40am: Library time. I was looking for E books and found a dragon book I loved! I wish I had found it last week. The art was awesome! So here it is: The Dragon Snatcher by M.P Robertson. I read it to them after their time with the librarian. I think they liked it. And we discovered that Darius can spell Pokemon all by himself. It was an amazing day!

Feed the Birds

2008-09-26T13:03:00.000-07:00

Farah Cuenca is brave!

Lorien's dumping ingredients into our bird feed mix.

Darius is mixing the lard into the mix.

Time to hang them up!

9-24-08

Circle Time, 9:30: Sing Opening Song. Share and Tell, Lorien brought her Deputy Badge that she got from the Home and Garden/Family Expo. Darius brought his Dump Truck, it carries dirt, sand and rocks. Then we went over the new English and Spanish D words (Delta, Dia) and what they mean. Figured out the date on the Calendar. Then they Colored D pages. I told them their Assignment for Friday was to bring or wear a disguise on Friday.
10:00 Free craft time: Paint, Play Dough, Building blocks, Train.
10:30 Feed Hermit Crabs, Darius got the food and Lorien did the water. Farah tried to get us all to hold the hermies, but we were a bit nervous about those claws!

10:45Science: We mixed bread crumbs, bird seed, crushed nuts, oats and lard together to form bird food cakes. The only problem was that lard melts. So after we hung the cakes up they melted. Darius scooped it all up into one cup. So now we need to find another way. Perhaps we'll do peanut butter next and see if we get better results.

11:30am Read 2 Books: Dreams by Ezra Jack Keats and Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey
11:45: Wash Hands, Eat, free play.
12:00pm: Closing Circle time, reminded everyone to bring disguises.

It's D Week!

2008-09-22T19:52:00.000-07:00

He really is having fun!

Very serious buisness!

Chillin' at snack time. . .

Yeah, they're done!

This is Darius' project. I would have had to dig Lorien's out.

9-22-08

9:30am Circle time: Sing good morning songs,Talk about date, Letter of the week, words of the day (Delta, Dinosaurio). Go over day on the Calendar. 10:00am Color letters in book and Spanish page.
10:15am Science: Talked about Fossils and how they were made. Fossils are made when a plant or animal dies and the mud around it hardens. The plant or animal or insect deteriorates. That leaves an empty space, which forms an imprint of a fossil. Sometimes that space is filled up with minerals that become hard rock, that’s called a fossil. I brought plaster mix and jewels and shells. This kids grabbed rocks from the yard. They had such a fun time stiring the plaster. And of course it got all over the work table! But I think the best part was puting the jewels in it. Lorien's shell was too buried in the plaster to work, but Darius' worked just fine!
Math: Work on adding and subtracting things. Have the kids go out into the yard to find rocks or sticks or leaves, bark. Write problems down on paper. So this kind of worked. We'll have to try again on Wednesday. . .
11:00am Exercise: We pretended that the rocks were lava and we couldn't step on them. It was fun to "explore". Darius led the exploration first and then Lorien got a turn. We played Duck Duck Goose. It was a little tricky with just 3 of us. Maybe we'll get the babies to help us out next time. I couldn't get them to stretch with me. Oh well! Too many things to do.

11:30am Read two books. The Dragon Nanny by C.L.G. Martin illustrated by Robert Rayevsky and There's a Dragon in My Sleeping Bag by by James Howe illustrated by David S. Rose. They really enjoyed both books. They asked questions and I'm pretty sure they used their imaginations to see the story. It was great!
11:40am Wash Hands and eat, free play time.
12:00pm Closing Circle time: Talk about assignment to bring something that starts with “D” on Wednesday. I read the following nursery rhyme and tried to sing Do Your Ears Hang Low and Down by the Station. They did not know the songs very well. I'll have to do them again on Wed.

Diddle, diddle, dumpling, my son John,Went to bed with his trousers on;One shoe off, and one shoe on,Diddle, diddle, dumpling, my son John!

Do Your Ears Hang Low?
Do your ears hang low? Do they wobble to and fro?
Can you tie them in a knot? Can you tie them in a bow?
Can you throw them o'er your shoulder like a Continental Soldier?
Do your ears hang low?

Down by the station early in the morning, See the little puffer bellies all in a row.See the engine driver pull the little throttle:Puff, Puff, Toot! Toot! Off we go!

Friday October 19th

2008-09-22T19:51:00.000-07:00

Is was macaroni day. And Lorien pointed out that we forgot to do the Hungry Caterpiller puzzle. She loved it. I made the mistake of trying to help Darius with his macaroni structure, and he did not appreciate it. Now I know why you shouldn't "help" on the kids projects. They get very attached to thier own creativity. It was a great learning experience for me. We went to the library and had a great time searching for D books.

2008-09-18T14:47:00.001-07:00

Wednesday, September 17th
9:30-10:00 Circle time- Sing “Good Morning/Buenos Dias” Review letter/words from Monday, introduce new words: Catapult/Comida. Sharing time, introduce special projects for the day. Read “Apples”
10:00-10:35- Make apple sauce together!
10:35-11:15 Free Play + Centers- Journal writing + free arts/crafts. Making crafty caterpillars!
11:15-12:00 wash hands/lunch/TASTE APPLE SAUCE!
We got off to a bit of a late start, but things really took off as we had such a busy day planned! As we had opening circle time Anne was busy peeling/cutting up apples. When the children arrived in the kitchen they washed some apples by using a sponge & tooth brush. They sure did a great job! Lorien found a “grub” on top of one of her apples! Some found it cute, I found it repulsive!
After they children were done cleaning some apples, they came over to the kitchen scale & weight out 3lbs of apples. They weighed a little bit over, so Lorien & Darius had no problem eating the extras to make weight! In fact, I couldn’t get Darius to stop eating them!
Making the apple sauce was a success, and we were eager to taste it- boy was it good- not good, GREAT!
Making the caterpillars during their free play time was time consuming, but the children were able to use some great skills while making them- they used scissors, painted, and threaded yarn through the holes, all with the assistance of Sister Stevens (THANK YOU!).
We had a good day.

Monday, September 15th

2008-09-18T14:47:00.000-07:00

9:30-10:00 Circle time- review calendar days in English and Spanish, introduce letter of the week (C) and words of the day: Courage, Corazon. Introduce routine opening song, "Good Morning/Buenos Dias"
10:00-10:45 Free play+centers
10:45-11:10 Story time "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle
11:10-11:45 Wash hands/lunch time
11:45-12:00 Closing circle time- review letter/words. Sing "if you're happy & you know it"

Good morning/Buenos dias (to the tune of "where is Thumbkin")

Good morning, good morning

How are you? How are you?

Very well, Thank you

How about you?

Buenos Dias

Como estas?

Muy bien, gracias

y usted?

Busy, fun day. Introduced the "Good morning" song, which will be our routine opening song. Anne kept the babies busy by exercising with them & having them eat...I mean "color" with crayons:) The children completed a caterpillar craft project and we read one of my favorites, "The Very Hungy Caterpillar" by Eric Carle.

Hermit Crabs

2008-09-12T12:21:00.000-07:00

Day 5

Circle Time, 9:30am: We figured out that the date is Friday the 12th of September. We went over our words and letter of the week. Darius and Lorien remembered Bashful, Bombero, and Buho. Beseech is still a little elusive to them.

Hermit Crab Time, 9:45am: I spent some time going over the proper care and feeding of a Hermit Crab. We discussed his eating habits. What a habitat is, what an exoskeleton is and about molting. Lorien and Darius both got comfortable with picking them up by their shells. We learned that they pinch hard, and we shouldn't be too rouch with them. We found out that they like to hide. So we took the box that the crabs came in and cut a hole for the door and painted the outside. It was a great craft.

Free Art Time, 10:15am: Well, this was part of painting the box for the crabs. They did get to draw 'B's in their journals and I taught them how to draw Bee's. Darius didn't want to write 'B's but he did a great job.

10:30am: They washed their hands and ate. They wanted to play, but it was time to go to the library.

Library Time, 10:45: We all piled into our seperate cars and went to the library. Reading time was fun as always. I didn't get to observe the kids much since I had to take care of the fussy Vanessa. I forgot her blanket again! But from what I saw, both Lorien and Darius sang songs, did the motions to the librarians activities and listened very carefully when the stories were being told. They left nicely and got lots of books to read at home.

Field Trip ~ Class Room Pet

2008-09-10T14:10:00.000-07:00

Day 4:

Circle Time, 9:30: Lorien, Darius and Anne sat in a circle and talked about the letter B. We found more words that start with B. Our word of the day was Beseech, meaning to beg. I think the work should have been beg. And the Spanish word was Buho which is Owl. Then we had sharing time. Darius brought a bag that he uses to carry everything in. Especially cars. Lorien brought her Barbie, and a butterfly finger puppet she got from Armstrong Grove. We then moved to the table (so the babies couldn't get in the way) and did math with buttons! I used flashcard with addition equations. They both knew all the numbers and made piles of buttons for each number and then counted them all together. They had a hard time starting on a number and counting from there. They had to start from 1 to be able to find the answer. We'll have to work more on counting, starting with a number other than 1, in the future.

Free Art time, 9:50: Lorien painted and made sure there wasn't any white showing (She had to leave it there 'cause it didn't dry on time.) Darius drew a picture on lined paper and cut it out to paste it onto construction paper. That also was super wet, so it had to stay on the counter to dry. They they got the play dough out!

Science, 10:15: We studied the different types of bark. Bark is the outer layer of trees. They took paper and crayons all around Farah's backyard and set the paper against the bark so they could rub the crayon on it and see the design it made. They had lots of fun. They found some trees that were rough and some that were smooth.

Reading, 10:30: Soon Baboon Soon, by Dave Horowitz and The Secret Science Project that Almost Ate the School by Judy Sierra Pictures by Stephen Gammell. We forgot to do the calendar at the beginning so we did it after reading time.

10:45: Wash hands, eating, free play time.

Field Trip, 11:30: We all piled into our own cars and drove to Petco. We looked at lizards, turtles, fish, snakes, hermit crabs, mice, rats, guinea pigs and forgot to go look at birds. After talking about what needs to be done for fish and hermit crabs, the kids finally decided on hermit crabs. We picked out water bowls and food bowls, new shells, and of course the hermit crabs. Lorien and Darius got to choose the ones they wanted. It was limited to the ones that came out and moved around! We'll keep you posted on whether they survive or not!

AS

First Science Experiment

2008-09-09T10:36:00.000-07:00

BabyZilla attacking Leilah

Adding the Yeast

It Worked!

Day 3, 8-8-08:

Circle Time, 9:30am: Calendar, Letter of the week is B, Word of the week is Bashful meaning Shy, Spanish Word of the Day is Bombero which is a firefighter. The kids found LOTS of B words and keept shouting them out the whole morning! I wrote them all down as we thought of them. We counted bears and subtracted and added them to their piles. They did great figuring out the problems Anne gave them.

Free Art Time, 9:55: The kids colored their Bombero and Baker pages and copied all the big B's and little b's. Lorien and Darius did a great job! Then Darius glued paper together and put a tamp of a Panda on it. (He named it Kung Fu Panda). Then the kids both went to make play dough structures. They made birthday cakes and sandwiches. They must have been hungry!

Science, 10:45: We studied yeast. Anne filled water bottles halfway with warm water. Then Lorien and Darius pored in the yeast and sugar. Anne put the balloons on top. We learned that the yeast is a living thing. They grow and "burp" and that's why the balloons blew up. They were so excited that their experiment worked so well!

Reading, 11:00: We read The Brave Little Seamstress, by Mary Pope Osborne and Beach Day by Patricia Lakin

11:30: Wash hands, eat and play. Darius and Lorien played Pirates, while Vanessa and Leilah destroyed the kitchen with Farah.

Closing Circle Time, 11:45: We stretched, sang lots of songs that have B in it, like Baa Baa Black sheep, Little Boy Blue and Book of Mormon Stories. We talked about what we would bring that starts with B to share on Wednesday and found more B words to put on our B poster. All in all, it was a great day!

Day 2!

2008-09-05T12:35:00.001-07:00

9:30-9:45 circle time: Review letter of the week (A) and previous word of the day (Absorb). Introduce spanish pronounciation of "A" and coresponding word (Abeja). Introduce the new word of day (Aquaintance). Calendar time. Sing "Head, shoulders, knees & toes". Review centers for the morning. Sharing time!
9:45-10:30 Centers & Free Play: Color "Abeja" work sheet, journal work- draw a picture of something that begins w/"A", and practice writing the letter. Free time w/play dough (that we made during the previous class), paint, toys, reading.
10:30 Wash hands/snack time.
10:45 Off to the Library!
11:00 Story time @ the library: Check out books, obtain library cards for the children.
Today went very well, as expected! The children both looked forward to their 2nd day of preschool. Upon entering our home, Darius & Lorien put their lunch boxes in their cubbies & their items for sharing time on the bottom cubby.
Circle time went well, and both children were eager to share their items. Lorien shared an Alphabet book, and a can of Apple Juice. Darius shared an Anchor that he took off of our wall earlier this morning! Both children seemed to grasp the concept of the different sound of the letter “A” in the Spanish language, and pronounced “Abeja” very well.
When free play time came around, Both Darius & Lorien gathered around the play dough. Leilah & Vanessa were quick to join, and began nibbling on some play dough :)
Our first trip to the library was a success! Lorien and Darius did really well, and participated frequently. Lorien was so eager to sing the library songs & share her thoughts with the librarian!
After story time, we went to the juvenile book section where we all picked out books for the following week at preschool. We then obtained library cards for each of them. Boy were they excited to have their own library cards!
We look forward to our library trip next week, and I know they are excited to use their library cards again!
fc

The first day of school!

2008-09-04T15:02:00.001-07:00

Lorien and Darius eagerly waited outside and put their lunch boxes away in their cubbies. Lorien had her huge Disney Princess backpack and lunchbox, and Darius had his hand-me-down lunch box from his big bro (he doesn't care as long as it's filled with food!). After putting their items away, they waited in line for me to open the door to their new Preschool!
Here is an outline of their first day, followed by a summary of the day:
Letter of the week : "A"

word of the day : "Absorb"(eng) "Abeja"(Spanish)
9:30-9:45 Circle time (getting to know you, going over the class room calendar, introducing the letter of the week and word of the day)
9:45-10:30 Centers + free play (Decorate the letter of the week, journal decorating, free play w/learning toys and art (magnatiles, blocks, painting, crafting, etc)
10:30-11:00 Special Project (making play dough)
11:00-11:15 Story time "Rooster's off to See the World" by Eric Carle
11:15-11:45 Wash hands/snack
11:45-12:00 Closing circle time (review Letter/Word, stretching, singing)
The children had a great time today. Lorien could be found putting her sweet arms around Darius intermittently- so adorable! When we made the play dough Darius wanted blue or red, and Lorien of course wanted pink or purple! They came to a compromise & decided on purple this time, and Darius's choice the next. We talked about how the flour was "Absorbing" the water to reinforce the concept.
Leilah & Vanessa had a good time as 'preschool observers', I am hoping to get Leilah's room organized one of these days so they can have another place to play:)

Our Decision

2008-09-04T11:41:00.000-07:00

So one day Farah Cuenca and Anne Stevens (me) were talking about schools. I mentioned that I was just doing stuff at home. Farah was concerned about finding babysitting during her volunteer hours for Darius's second year at his Co-op preschool, so we decided to do it together. We met one night to talk about what subjects we wanted to cover. We wanted to cover, reading, writing, science, math, exercising, cooking, art work, singing and of course their favorite subject- playing.
So Yesterday was our first day of school. Farah taught. We will switch every week. We are really excited to the possibilities for our children. They are so eager to learn and love to learn together! We'll be posting every thing we do everyday. We'll take millions of pictures and have loads of fun. We hope you all will enjoy this site and support our kids in their effort to learn.