Tot School

Kayleigh is currently 23 months

Hello fellow Tot Schoolers! I hope all is well with you. We've been busy, busy, busy. Hence our absence from blogging. Between Christmas, a trip to Michigan, hubby being home, adjusting to "back to school" with my older dd, and a demanding/opinionated tot, something had to give. Blogging drew the short straw.

Hopefully I'll be able to keep up with it better. Maybe...LOL

Our holidays were nice. Kayleigh got a lot of things just perfect for Tot School. Hopefully they'll make into some photos. I got a laminator (Woot!) so that's been fun.

Now we just need to make Tot School more consistent. I've been failing miserably at that. Kayleigh is very, shall we say, high maintenance and she's been making Mackenzie's school difficult and long. And third grade is a priority before Tot School. So it's been sporadic. But we have been doing some things. When she's willing.

So here's some of activities, as of late. Some are from before Christmas. LOL Since the holidays we've been working on a winter/snow theme, a very loose theme.

Clearly, this was a before Christmas shot. I got the Nativity stickers from Oriental Trading.

These pictures are particularly exciting to me. I asked her to draw me a circle. And she did! Sorta... I'm more excited about the "she did" then the actual circle-like drawing she made. She rarely does what she's asked. LOL

In this shot I feel like she's mocking me saying..."Don't get used to this lady." LOL

Here she is playing with her new Magneatos. Fun, fun!!! Big Sis likes them too! Thanks for the recommendation, Carisa.

Here she is matching colored mittens that she can't destroy thanks to my new laminator. Yay! I would like to tell you where I got the mitten game but I can't remember.

Oh and be sure to notice that the game is on a tot tray. I picked those up when Carisa mentioned that OTC had free shipping on any amount. I snagged those and some stickers. Right now, I'm just putting activities on the trays to train her to keep her "work" contained. It's nice in theory.

And this was the one and only time that she actually would play the game. It was a resounding "No" every other time I brought it out.




She's decorating her snowman with pencils and binger markers. She worked on this all through out the week. I just left it on her little desk and she wandered over whenever she felt like it. The hardest part was getting her to wear the paint shirt.





We discovered tried this activity in a moment of desparation. She likes to empty all of the drawers in our school room while I work with Mackenzie. This particular day she had discovered the pony beads hidden away. I hadn't let her use them before because of the choking hazards. But we were desparate to get on with school so we sat her next to us with a small cup of pony beads and a pipe cleaner. She loved it! And I only had to get on her 3 times for putting them in her mouth.

And as a special surprise, God sent us something we never see here, to add to our winter theme. Snow! I think the last time we saw this much snow was 7 years ago when my oldest dd was the same age.

Oh my! I almost forgot. Kayleigh is now an athlete. She is "playing" basketball with other tot's through our local homeschool sports league. She loves it! For the first 15 minutes anyway. Then she wanders off for the remaining 15 minutes and reappears when they bring out snack. LOL

Aren't they adorable?

Be sure to check out the other tots over at Carisa's.

Weekly Wrap-Up

Well it's time for the Weekly Wrap-Up hosted by Kris over at Weird, Unsocialized, Homeschoolers.

We had an interesting week with a couple of nice surprises. And as a bonus, I'm going to post some old pictures because they're finally off of my camera.

Bible:

Our topic this week was Jesus Prayed. We stick-figured through some of the times and places that Jesus spent time praying to His Heavenly Father.

Math:

Mackenzie started her 4's times tables this week. She's doing well with multiplication. I am going to work on her speed next week.

Science:

We were talking about weather this week. There was an experiement but we haven't done it yet. I hope to do it tomorrow.

Speaking of weather...we had some unusal weather here at the beach today. Snow, and quite a lot. At least 4/5 inches in our yard right now. More then we saw in Michigan last month. We went because we wanted to see some snow and only got a dusting. LOL We should've stayed home. We had fun this morning playing in it.

History:

We're still enjoying Colonial times. We've hit the start of the American Revolution. The Battle of Lexington and Concord has been covered. We've also been reading a lot about Paul Revere.

My second nice surprise was Mackenzie's first-ever report. (Actually that was our first surprise because the report came before the snow. LOL) I asked her to write a mini-report about Ben Franklin. It was a surprise for several reasons.

Firstly, it was fabulous! It was more then I had expected from a child who's never written one and who's never been exposed to the writing process. We use Writing With Ease and First Language Lessons for LA and they approach writing differently then most programs. I gave her a couple of graphic organizers on writing a paragraph and set her loose.

Secondly, she did it with a cheerful attitude. I was expecting a lot of whining, griping, and complaining. What I got was excitement. I about passed out on the floor. A true miracle.

My scanner's down or I'd have scanned it in. You'll have to make do with photos of it. Maybe you'll actually be able to read it. LOL

Language Arts:

Prepositions, prepositions, prepositions. 'Nuf said.

Now here are some pics of school days past. Dissecting Owl Pellets with Daddy

Weekly Wrap-Up

Hello fellow bloggers. Hope all is going well. I am still around but have no time for blogging since the hubby came home. I'm ignoring the clutter on my desk to post this.

Our Christmas was nice. We also popped in to see family in Michigan the day after Christmas. We were hoping for lots of snow but barely got a dusting. We went sledding down the dust and frozen mud anyhow. LOL

I have photos but they're not even off my camera yet. Nor are the ones from Christmas. Photography is another reason why I haven't been blogging. I am backlogged on photo-editing. Way behind. So when I have a few minutes to myself (which almost never happens) I generally choose to edit photos so I can get caught up. I'd better hurry because birthday season has arrived in our house. That's more pictures to get me behind.

Enough of my excuses, on with the Wrap-Up.

Bible:

Last week our topic was Jesus Taught. We covered some of the "biggie lessons" that he spoke of during his ministry. It was nice that Mackenzie's lesson at church this week fit right in with what we had just covered.

Math:

She's still working on multiplication. I think she did the 4's last week. At any rate, I just graded her test and she aced it. So that's good.

Science:

We just finished our brief study on birds. We ended the study with owls and dissected owl pellets. When I say we, I mean Mackenzie and her father dissected owl pellets. Not for me. They found a mouse skull in there so that was neat. I have pictures but...guess what? They're still on my camera. (I'm only up to Thanksgiving in my editing. )

Social Studies:

Our favorite subject. We're almost up to the American Revolution. We're loving our studies. Mackenzie was thrilled with Ben Franklin and now she's loving Paul Revere. (I'm particularly glad she enjoyed Ben because guess who she's writing her first EVER mini-report on?) We even found King George interesting.

We're reading Johnny Tremaine for our read aloud and, naturally, we love it. So much excitement and it reinforces what we're learning about that time period so nicely. Mackenzie is reading Mr. Revere and I as her reader. She is enjoying reading about him through the view point of his house. So much that she wants me to find Mr. Franklin and I at the store because she saw it in the back of the book. LOL

Lastly, we finished our Life in Plymouth Colony history pocket too. We did a lot of fun projects. Sorry, you'll have to wait for the photos. =o)

We're still working on our Native American pockets for the remainder of the year. We did our Iroquois pocket last week.

Language Arts:

Well you already know what we're reading so I guess we'll talk a little about grammar. We're still plugging away at diagramming sentences with the focus being on direct objects. I love how First Language Lessons is so easy to use.

Extras:

Tis the busy season. Extra busy. We're in the middle of cookie season for brownies. I have hated cookies season since I was a child. I was so shy back then that it was torture. LOL

Plus our leader has been out of town for months, dealing with a family emergency. So add planning Brownie meetings to my list of reasons why the blog is ignored. LOL

Also cheerleading and basketball have started up. Usually Mackenzie only does cheer but this year I convinced her to try basketball too. Actually I tried to convince her to only do basketball but that didn't work out. LOL (Not to mention, guess who somehow wound up as the cheer coach? Add that to my list.)

Mackenzie is LOVING basketball. And they even won their first game. No thanks to Kenzie. LOL

Cheering is going well, considering the coach. Youtube is my new best friend. =o)

And that is our week. Check out what the other homeschools are doing over at Kris'.