Preschool ~Pumpkins

Handwriting Practice...

We continue to move slowly through our handwriting practice. It isn't Smiley's favorite thing to do, so I am trying to keep it light and fun, mainly focusing on games. This week, we worked on the letter E again. We started by tracing our sandpaper letter E. 

We then did some letter E exercises from our Handwriting Without Tears (HWT) workbook... 

We assembled the letter E with our wooden pieces (part of HWT)... 

And we finally traced a few E's...

Reading...

Smiley continues to like his easy readers from our Hooked on Phonics Kindergarten pack. He learned a few new sight words this week and we practiced them through various games...

I put one of his sight words on his train track, and he had to read the word in order for the road block to be able to be lifted off... 

Pumpkin Theme...

Smiley has been really interested in pumpkins lately. So, we have been reading quite a few books about pumpkins, fall, and halloween. We also worked on several pumpkin printables from 2 Teaching Mommies. 

Making pumpkin patterns...

Labeling the parts of a pumpkin....

Measuring vines...

The highlight, of course, was a trip to the pumpkin patch (including hay ride) :)

 

Preschool ~ Fall Fun

We continued to enjoy the fall season around here and engaged in several fall-inspired activities. However, the weather has been a bit crazy around here, with temperatures in the 80s-90s!

Fine Motor/Sensory/Writing Activities...

We really love the wooden pieces of our Handwriting Without Tears program, and not just to form letters! Smiley loves using the pieces as ramps for his cars, as bridges, or ladders for his fire truck :)

We did also use them to build a gigantic E, F, and L though ;)

The kids enjoyed playing with a fall-themed sensory box that included oatmeal, textile leaves, pumpkin erasers and small apple prints. I also gave them a few Halloween-themed buckets that I got from the Target dollar section a few weeks ago...

We sorted fall leaves by color. This was really an activity for the tot, but Smiley liked to participate for a little while...

Making patterns...

Later that week, I let the kids play with corn kernels. They LOVED it! All they needed were a few buckets, spoons and their trucks...

The kids had such a great time finger painting our ocean mural a couple of months ago that I thought it would be great to make a fall mural. Smiley started by practicing writing the letters L, F and E, before just mixing all the colors together ;) Unfortunately, I was too slow to capture his letters on camera... (I think this might have been the letter L)

Additional crafts included bats and pumpkins :) I love fall!

Everything else...

Reading continues to go really well. Smiley loves to read his little readers (hooked on phonics- K). He also played ABC Reading Eggs on the computer once or twice this week. It's great practice to reinforce sounding out and practicing his sight words.

Math just continues to be an everyday occurrence around here. Smiley is often counting something, adding, or subtracting. The singapore math textbook I purchased isn't really working for us right now. The concepts are too easy, and he isn't interested in writing numerals yet. So, for now we're just continuing with our everyday hands-on math :) Eventually, I would like to either purchase Montessori Math materials or Right Start materials. We'll see... 

  1+1+1

Preschool ~ Fall

A lot of our activities this week have involved the changing season. It is finally starting to look like fall around here, with the weather cooling down, leaves falling, wind, and lots of pumpkins everywhere :)

Fall Theme

Smiley is fascinated by pumpkins (he already was last year). He completed this pumpkin cycle. I can't remember where I got it, but maybe from Montessori Now?

We then did the same with our Apple Cycle cards...

We baked our first pumpkin muffins of the season. Smiley was an excellent helper measuring the ingredients, pouring, and stirring.

And we all liked the finished product :)

We did quite a few puzzles this week as well...

Waldorf

I am beginning to like several Waldorf traditions more and more. One is oral story telling. I found a very cute apple story, that I told the kids. Smiley is very imaginative and LOVED the story. He even jumped in at several points adding some information to the story ;) I told the story LITTLE RED HOUSE, which you can find on page 103 of this booklet. In the end of the story, the little boy finds the little red house, with a star inside by cutting opening his apple, so this is what we did... We then used our apple star to make apple prints.

 One of the most important parts of our days is going outside. We go for a nature walk, a bike ride, a walk along the beach, or to play at the playground at least once every day, but we try our best to go out twice, once in the  morning and once in the evening. I find it so so so important to spend lots of time outside at this young age. My kids have plenty of energy and need lots of time to run around outside and explore nature. One of Smiley's favorite activities is to look for snails, worms and bugs :) He was thrilled when it rained this week and we went on a snail expedition (his name, lol). Another evening this week was spent on the beach. It was quite windy and chilly, which really confirms the change of the season...

Math
We continued to work on sequencing the numbers 10-20 and 20-30, with the help of these fun printables from Confessions of a Homeschooler.

On a different day, I drew a tree and had the kids make a specified number of play dough apples to put on the tree. I got this idea from Homeschool Creations...

The kids were only interested in this idea for a minute. Smiley then made a giant worm, which was much more fun than making apples, apparently. This happens quite commonly by the way, where we start a mama-led game, and after a bit, it turns into child-led play, which is totally fine with me. I think that at this age, kids learn best through play, anyways :)

 Fine Motor Skills...
In terms of fine motor skills, we worked on cutting this week. Smiley cut apart paint samples from a hardware store. His sister then matched them by color...

 After cutting all the pieces, he relaxed on the floor and kept cutting and cutting his pieces into smaller and smaller parts. He plaid that they were tags... He LOVED this. Again, this was totally child-driven and something he truly enjoyed and played for a long time.