Practical Life
Preparing chamomile tea.
Impromptu flower arranging for some make-believe birthday party she was preparing.
Setting table for the birthday party.
Washing "real" dishes. I made her that apron using Meg's tutorial and pattern. It was super easy to follow. Bear loves it because she can put it on herself.
Preparing her snack (cantaloupe).
Language Arts
Bear loves stamping. It refines her small motor skills, especially when she decides to color inside the stamped picture. She likes having "friends" with her.
Bear drew her grandmother "Tita" and then wrote Tita's name all by herself.
I had strewed the moveable alphabet (cardstock letters) on her table, along with green (a-e words) cards to see if she might be interested. I thought maybe she would spell the words to go with the pictures. Instead, Bear made up her own activity of matching the word to the picture and then finding the beginning sound letter in the alphabet.
We had our trial week of Reading Eggs. She loved it. I still don't like the idea of her using the computer so much and I didn't really see transfer between her computer time reading and her actual book reading. I didn't like how it read the words for her each time. So we'll see whether we sign up for more time.
Math
Bear made up this activity with her felt food. She chose crayon numbers and tried to find the corresponding number of fruits and other foods. It is so neat to see her come up with her own learning activities.
I tried to sneak in some counting during play dough time, but she wasn't too into it.
Culture (Science and Socials)
Coloring in the States.
Observing wildlife in our backyard. We have a rabbit who comes nearly every evening, lots of birds, and squirrels and chipmunks.
Sensorial
I bought a metalophone for J-jo for his upcoming first birthday and Bear kept insisting to play it. We returned it however because it does not play a scale. I was pretty annoyed at that. I'm going to search for a real one, though I'm not sure where to look yet.
A mommy initiated work.
Shell sorting.
I'm linking up to The Preschool Corner.
Since this is chock full of Montessori work too, I'm also linking to
If you can hold off on the Reading Eggs. I'm having technical problems with it at level 6 and they say it's due to using a newer flash program. I'm really annoyed and asked for a refund.
ReplyDeleteJC loved doing the activities but it's hard to say how much she learned from it as she seems to read at a higher level than the program offers.
I do agree with you on being skeptical about how much kids learn from computer games like these. My guess is it's short term retention. They should do more studies in the effectiveness of computer games for kids. I tend to think it's pure entertainment.
I love all the activities!!! the cylinders, the shell sorting, cutting, coloring the states... EVERYTHING!!! Bear it's so SMART!!! Lovely!! Great jobs, Congrats!!
ReplyDeleteThanks for share it!!
Great week! You could try West Music for the instrument- that is where I get a lot of my stuff for class. (Westmusic.com - look under Kids Bells & Glockenspiels) hope that helps!
ReplyDelete@JL - thanks for the heads-up. After talking to my husband, we decided not to sign up with Reading Eggs and your comment only strengthened that decision.
ReplyDelete@sbswtp - thank you. I will look there for sure.
@Karen - thanks for such nice compliments:)
Great week! I love the idea of making tea.
ReplyDeleteRobbie loves Reading Eggs. I can take it or leave it. I sit with him while he "plays" on it and make him read everything before he clicks it. We also turn off the sound on the books at the end of each lesson and he reads them.
We have a three month trial, but we won't be paying for the full thing when his trial ends.
For a glockenspiel/metalophone instrument, I would recommend the instruments from Music Rhapsody - a music program in CA run by Lynn Kleiner. When I taught music I went to several of her workshops and she's a great educator. She had Remo make many of the instruments to use for her classes, and they are awesome.
ReplyDeleteI love Bear's drawing and writing. I do hope that our writing block will end eventually - I do plan to put more focused effort on it when Anna is 4.
ReplyDeleteI love the photo of bear setting the table for the birthday party...so cute!
ReplyDeleteLooks like you had a wonderful week!
(Thanks also for linking up to Monday's Montessori Moment!)
Jody
So cute to have a little party! love the flower arranging and the setting the table work.
ReplyDeleteThe language kit you are using looks neat. We have not tried reading eggs, but like you, I am trying to hold off on technology to some degree. We do use webquests, though, as those are more interactive and project based.
Well, I enjoyed your post. hope that you will pop by my blog, too.
Colleen:)
Thanks for linking to Montessori Monday! It's so neat to see how many lessons Bear set up all by herself. I'm finding the question of computer use in your post and in the comments interesting. We too have held off on computer games, and I'm not sure whether to introduce some learning ones or not. Short Pants *always* wants to play them at the library, and I know he'll be doing them in Kindy next year.
ReplyDelete