The "School" Corner

Although I said we'd do one more tot school post before I switched to the Preschool Corner, in the end, it won't happen.  Sure, we did "school-like" activities this week, but they continue to be more preschool-ish than tot school-ish.

1. My goal is to do more Montessori-ish (yes, it is definitely an -ish kind of post) lessons.  I will be using this site, as well as the Montessori World and the Shu Chen albums as my main guides right now.  I still haven't read the Gettman book, but it sounds like it may be too rigid for me to follow, as we have no budget for the traditional Montessori materials and I will be making do with what we already have.

2. I will not be using any curriculum for preschool or kindergarten.  It isn't a necessary expense, not even for first grade.  I will be using minimal printables (no printer right now and none in the near future).  I will be using preschool and kindergarten learning objectives and creating/finding activities to reach that objective.

3.  Bear does no more than 20 minutes per day of "school".  She truly sees every activity we do as a game and when she is bored, we quit.  What is bothering me lately is that when I am busy with J-jo or cooking or housework, Bear is going to these trays instead of her blocks, or her make believe play.  Not all the time, but enough that it is bugging me.  Consequently, I'm going to be spending more time with Bear in real play.  We've spent this past week totally immersed in that and it has been great.  Lots of playdough, lots of block play (well, mostly Bear just watches me build things with the wooden blocks), a return to more reading, lots of listening to music.... And the neat thing is that we worked so much more on counting and phonological awareness while playing and doing these things than when we do "school."  It was an interesting insight for me.

On to The School Corner

Math

This week, Bear solidified her counting to 10.  She stopped being silly and skipping half the numbers.  She's now working on her rote counting to 20.  We are still doing daily calendar and she knows her months of the year song by heart.  She can tell you which month we are in and she loves to talk about the days of the week, but she has no idea which days are which.  She can often be heard saying, "Mommy, let's go back to the beach on Saturday," to which I'll respond, "Probably not, Sweetie.  I don't think we're going back to the beach for a while." To which she will respond with, "Then probably Thursday(or insert any other day of the week here), Mommy," with a very serious expression.  It cracks me up each time.  We're working on oral number stories like "Rabbit has two apples and Mommy gives him two more, how many does he have now"

Her one-to-one correspondence when counting is much better, but sometimes her counting is too fast for her fingers, which are pointing to each object.

Phonological Awareness

She's been using the Boggle Jr. and some homemade "see and spell" cards for CVC words.  I am hoping that by using these (with me sitting with her and talking about the letter sounds in the words, pointing out the first sound, the middle sound, and the ending sound) she will learn the context for letter sounds.  She knows all her letter sounds and almost all the names.  I don't teach her the names, she picks them up from Leapfrog Letter Factory and books we read.  I have always read alphabet books using the letter sound rather than the name because I believe that since she is learning three languages with similar alphabet sounds, this method would create the least confusion.

When we read books, I choose a CVC word on the page for her to find.  She finds the word using the beginning sound strategy - she isn't really reading the word, but I figure it is a good I Spy activity and getting her closer to understanding reading.

I don't really know what else to do with her in this area; she's not quite ready to learn to read, and I'm not ready for that either!

Prewriting/Fine Motor Skills

Lots of playdough this week, rolling snakes and making pretend cinnamon buns and birthday cakes.  We did a few mazes from a workbook my mom brought Bear.  I put the pages in sheet protectors and she uses a whiteboard pen.

She showed renewed interest in the salt tray and has been tracing lower case n's and upper case D's all week.  (She never means to make a D, but sometimes she overshoots the curve in the lower case n and ends up with D!)

Painting and drawing happened quite a bit this week too, as well as pouring and scooping various things.

So that's it. Although I have tons of pictures, I'm so tired, and I don't feel like getting the camera and looking through them all right now....maybe I'll have time for a post tomorrow.   Maybe not.  I have a lot of Montessori reading to do :)