Crepes by Suzette

Crepes by Suzette by Monica Wellington was a very neat read.  It follows a crepe vendor through her work day in Paris, with a few French words thrown in here and there. The illustrations are very interesting as they are mixed media and include a cartoon version of a famous French art work on every page. 

I grew up in Quebec and my sister and I enjoyed many crepe dinners.  I can't believe my mom let us spread our crepes with butter and brown sugar and that was allowed to be our dinner.  I certainly don't let Bear have crepes like that! 

Since Bear had only had pancakes and had never had crepes, we decided it would be a good idea to make some.

The book had a recipe, so we followed that one.  I've returned the book and never typed out the recipe, but any search for crepes recipe should find you a basic one.

Bear beat the egg.

Stirred in the flour.

I cooked them while she watched.

Bear devoured them.

Then she washed the dishes! She is definitely in a sensitive period for this.  She even gets upset when she arrives in the kitchen and finds that I've already washed the dishes.

To see what others are reading, visit  What My Child is Reading.

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Geography books

To Grandmother's House: A Visit to Old-Town Beijing by Douglas Keister is a photographed journey of two girls as they head to laolao's house for a meal.  Written in both mandarin and English it depicts some aspects of daily life in Beijing.  Bear requested it daily.  It included a recipe for dumplings, but it seemed a little daunting to me.  It mixes in mandarin words within the story and I liked sharing those with Bear. 

I Lost My Tooth In Africa by Penda Diakite is about a little girl from Portland who travels to Mali to visit her relatives.  After losing her tooth there, the tooth fairy brings her a chicken, as is the way in Mali.  This book was also requested daily.  It also depicts a bit of life inside a small village and the illustrations are done in a folklorish manner.  This book is special because the author/illustrator team is a daughter/father one.

 With both books, we talked about the countries portrayed in the books and we found the countries on the map.  Bear looked through her Africa box.  I have yet to make her an Asia one.  I'm hoping to pick up my mementos from my high school trip to Japan when we visit my parents in a few days.

To see what others are reading, visit  What My Child is Reading.

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Plans for the New School Year

As the school year approaches rapidly upon us, I am forced to contemplate what I liked and didn't like about our past year and our learning experiences.  What stands out in my mind as things I liked are the fairly recent units of study on the universe, birds and trees.  These were well-planned, thought out, researched and executed.  Bear enjoyed them, too.


However, I have felt like most of what we did was spur of the moment and disconnected, especially for geography.  What I mean is that we might talk about France as we read a picture book set there, or any other country, but I don't feel like we have had any coherent focused look on any one country.  


Learning has always happened whenever we feel like it. It has never been scheduled into our day.  For example, today in the middle of a game about picnicking, Bear sees her hundred board on the shelf and decides to fill it out.  I'd like to find a bit more of a rhythm for our days for the upcoming year, and not necessarily just in the area of learning.


These are the core five things I want to work on with Bear this year.

• Faith Formation -she'll attend PSR (Parish School of Religion) at church this year and I also want to focus on one verse a week for her to memorize, or at least become very familiar with.  I am using the verses that Carisa uses with her boys in her Raising Rock Star Preschool resources since that way I don't have to so all the work.
• Reading - we're beyond the Montessori reading series now. We are currently revisiting the Progressive Phonics, but skipping straight to the middle of the Intermediate lessons.
• Writing - using the moveable alphabet to write out ideas.  She loves to write lists, so we'll work on that with our alphabet letters.  Finding ways to write - letters to grandparents, lists, stories with Mommy - and practicing letter formation using Erica's letter tracers.
• Math Literacy - following the Montessori method for this one, but throwing in a bunch of math games too.
• Culture (Practical Life, Art, Music, Sensory Exploration, Science and Socials.)
• I have a few ideas for this section but haven't settled on anything yet.  I'm toying with reading her the Magic Tree House books and doing a unit for each book in a hands-on, Montessori like approach for history.  
• We'll be doing science experiments and observations tied to Sid the Science Kid for a bit as she is quite interested in the show right now.  
• Practical Life will entail helping around the house.  
• For art we'll be starting to learn about specific artists.  
• I'm trying to get her signed up for violin lessons for music.

My goals for Bear (and J-jo) are for them to 

• Love God.
• Love others.
• Love moving.
• Love beauty (nature, art, music, culture, etc.)
• Love working.
• Love playing.
• Love learning.

and to add the following prayer to their repertoire of prayers: “Good morning, God!  I thank you for this day.  Please be with me in all I think and do and say.”  

(the idea for this came from Training Happy Hearts)

I'm linking up to The Preschool Corner.

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Not a Toilet Paper Tube

If you are familiar with the books Not a Box and Not a Stick by Antoinette Portis, then Bear's story, Not a Toilet Paper Tube will sound a bit familiar.

I scribbled her story out and we haven't had a chance to make it look all pretty, but here is her story.

Not a Toilet Paper Tube

That's a toilet paper tube.

No it's not.  It's a a hair dryer.

No! It's a toilet paper tube.

No it's not.  It's a megaphone (you know, like the one Sid uses).

No.  That's a toilet paper tube.

No it's not.  It's a drumstick.  Dum da da da dum.

No! It's a toilet paper tube stick!

No it's not.  It's an icecream cone.  Yum!

No! It's a toilet paper tube!

No it's not.  It's a stamp you put in ink.

Or maybe it's just a candle.

Or maybe it's just a toilet paper tube!

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We Play - Nature Walk

We try to go for hikes on Saturdays.  I call them hikes, but they are really nature walks.

Our most recent one was very special as it was a special Mommy-Bear walk and we also got to see a lot of insect life.

A cricket.

A grasshopper.  This led to a discussion on camouflage.

Butterflies resting on the the ground by the creek.  It was really strange to see so many of them all in one place, not moving.  There were at least 14 of them (sneaking in counting again...).

At one point, they all flew, all around us, but then they sat and rested again.

We were surprised at how warm the water was.  We sat there for a long time resting just like the butterflies.

On the walk back to the car, we noticed these caterpillar tents in the trees.  They were full of tiny wriggling caterpillars.

Come over and play at the Childhood 101 We Play link up

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How Math Became Geography

Take a pile of coins.

Start sorting them.

Realize you have State quarters.

Do lots of matching.

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Teeny Tiny Tot School

This week, I tried to involve J-jo in some cooking and baking.  We decided not to buy the learning tower as he has become used to standing on the chair and stays quite still while he is up there.

I try to ensure he has a lot of different sensorial experiences, but he does like to eat sand, so this one has to be supervised closely.

He loves plunking things into containers of any kind and then taking the things back out.  Tonight he happily took lettuce from the salad spinner and put it in a plastic container for me, but then he decided to put the lettuce right back into the spinner.

I didn't photograph much.  He still loves putting the Boggle Jr. cubes down the rolled up mats.  And he loves to look through books, but doesn't really like me reading them to him. As soon as I start, he'll crawl away, but if I don't interrupt his looking, he'll look for a long time.  Bear was so different.  She sat for really long books from a very early age.

To see what other tots are doing see 1+1+1=1

 

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Some food related books

I have tons of draft posts of books we enjoyed from weeks back.  Here's two such books that Bear really did not want to return.

Mmm, Cookies! by Robert Munsch is a very funny story about a little boy who tricks everyone into eating play clay cookies and how his teacher cures him of this.  Bear has always loved Robert Munsch and this one quickly got addded to her favorites.  (Of course, how could it not since it is about cookies!)

Pancakes for Breakfast by Tomie dePaola a wordless story about a woman who wants to make pancakes but nothing seems to go right.  I don't usually like wordless stories.  Bear picked this one out, but I have to say I quite enjoyed it and didn't mind retelling it over and over.

To see what others are reading, visit  What My Child is Reading. 

I've also linked up at Little Sprout Books.

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The School Corner

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

 

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