As my mom is visiting us after-schooling has taken a back burner. Bear, J-jo and my mom have been spending enormous amounts of time outside in the very warm Fall weather.
Reading:
Bear and I have been devouring books and have now finished all the Little House books. I read The First Four Years alone, deciding that Bear could wait a few years yet to learn of all the hardships Laura and Almanzo endured the first four years. I now feel incredibly grateful for all I have even if it is not all I want.
We take turns reading pages of her other books at night. She still feels overwhelmed by too much text even though she is capable of reading it. Co-reading takes the pressure off.
Writing:
Bear has been creating her own stencils to trace. Here she cut out the pumpkin craft I had tried to get J-jo to do and used the negative space as the stencil. She has been writing notes and ideas down too.
Bear has been choosing bead stairs and working with the teens board a lot at school. We haven't done much at home.
Bible:
Inspired by Godly Play and Bear's current affinity to Jonah and the Fish, I set up the items she needed to retell that particular story. She is loving doing this for J-jo.
Socials:
We started writing leaves for our Thankful Tree.
We completed the pumpkin lifecycle that I had hoped we would do in October. The idea and printout are from My Montessori Journey. We put a twist on it by using the pumpkin craft that J-jo started (and I finished) instead of a paper plate, and by making the ribbon curl back to the pumpkin to show how a lifecycle is cyclical. It ended up making a nice necklace.
I really wish Bear could be in My Montessori Journey's classroom. I incorporated yet another of her ideas (the poetry basket) into our day and school room. Bear has been enjoying this one as well. We sing most of the songs from there as well, in addition to the songs I downloaded from 1+1+1=1.
Our poem is one by Ralph Waldo Emerson. It came from the Ambleside Online poetry list.
Bear took the picture of the objects in the basket to go with the poem. It is a nice poem for Thanksgiving.
Linking up to the Preschool Corner at Homeschool Creations.
We do a lot of co-reading also. I think it's ideal because then you can model and you can also see where your child needs help. But when I'm too busy, I find her reading on her own which is sweet also.
ReplyDeleteDoes Bear read mostly by sight or does she break down words too? I'm trying to get JC to break down words but she tends to memorize whole words instead.
I like the homemade stencil. That can be quite useful for so many things!
I'd say she memorizes whole words because a lot of times it seems like she is "guessing" and putting a word that doesn't work. She usually catches herself though (she notices that the word she said doesn't match the print) and then will try to sound out. She doesn't seem to like breaking them down though.
ReplyDeleteI've been reading Mem Fox's Reading Magic and love how she encourages children to read by sight as it builds confidence in reading. She argues that phonic reading will follow naturally from this. We've been casually doing this with our 32 month old daughter, and she keeps amazing me as she starts to recognise more and more words. I don't think it is bad if they guess, either - it takes a great deal of grammatical skill to do that, and if a child can guess a word because of clues from the rest of the sentence, I think it shows that she understands the meaning of what she is 'reading', which I believe has a lot more value than being able to phonetically sound out words at a young age.
ReplyDeleteAnna reads by sight too despite learning to read through phonics approach. I liked the picture of her in a colorful costume. It sounds like she is doing great - both at school and at home.
ReplyDeleteI love the look of your thankful tree,I think we might have to make one too.
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