Homeschool Preschool--Unit 17--The Time of the Kings

I am using Heart of Dakota's Little Hands to Heaven curriculum, Bob books emerging reader books, various forms of Spanish, & reading aloud, usually from the chapter books &/or the Bible for my 4 year old son.

This week focuses on the letter N, & the kings Joash, Hezekiah, Josiah, & Job.

We started off Monday with a new fingerplay. We read in the Bible about Joash.  Lil J practiced writing "N" & "n".  He did 'count on me', drawing pillars in each box & counting each box & then all pillars.  He read a Bob book.  We did Spanish & then we colored a coloring sheet about Joash.  Then we did our songs--a song about Israel & our usual 3.  Later there will be reading aloud, from Christmas books & also from the Bible.

On Tuesday we continued with our fingerplay.  We read about & discussed Hezekiah.  Lil J did "hide & seek N".  He read a Bob book.  We did Spanish & our songs--a song about Israel turning back to God & our usual 3.  Later I will read aloud from Christmas books as well as the Bible at bedtime.  

On Wednesday we continued with our fingerplay.  We read about Josiah in the Bible.  He read a Bob book.  We did both devotionals for the letter N.  On a piece of paper I demonstrated what he needed to do--eyes, Bible, & smiley face--representing Josiah's eyes, the Bible, & Josiah's smile.  It was masking tape "N" day, which my son loves--he had his monster trucks drive on the N today. We did Spanish & colored a picture of Josiah & did our songs--a song about Israel turning back to God & then our usual 3 songs.  Later I will read aloud from our Christmas books & also from Luke in the Bible at bedtime.

On Thursday we finished off the week with our fingerplay, combining days 4 & 5.  We read about God's people turning away from God, marrying women who didn't believe in God.  And we read about Job.  We did a lot of discussing of what we read, there were a couple of activities that I skipped here.  He painted the letter "N" & wrote "N" & "n".  He read a Bob book, did Spanish, & did our songs--a song about Israel turning away from God & our usual 3 songs.  

Our Christmas books

Next week we are breaking for Christmas & will then resume the following week learning about Isaiah & Jeremiah & the letter O.

Homeschool Preschool--Unit 16--Elijah and Elisha

I am using Heart of Dakota's Little Hands to Heaven, Bob books emerging reader books, various forms of Spanish, & reading aloud, usally from a chapter book, for my 4 year old son.

This week focuses on Elijah, Elisha, and the letter M.

On Monday we started off the week with a new fingerplay.  We read about Elijah in the Bible.  He read a Bob book.  He wrote M & m (& he wanted to N & n also).  He did 'count on me', drawing birds in each box (birds representing the ravens that fed Elijah).  We did Spanish & our songs--a song about Elijah & our usual 3.  This is still an area where I can't really find crafts that correlate, so I found a coloring sheet that went with today's Bible reading & he colored that.  I don't really mind though because I've been super busy with holiday stuff & finding crafts & doing all the prep work that goes along with extra crafts would be a bit much right now.  He's never really been into coloring, so I joined him on this one to help make it more exciting for him.  Later I will read aloud & I will for sure be reading aloud at bedtime from the book of Luke.  I have to say I really love reading to him at bedtime.  I think I will continue reading to him from the Bible at bedtime even when Christmas passes.  He is so calm & he really is listening, as he comments on certain things.

On Tuesday we continued with our fingerplay, we read in the Bible about God sending down fire for the sacrifice, Elijah being taken to heaven on a chariot of fire, & about the widow with the never-ending oil supply.  I combined days 2 & 3, to make for a 4 day school week.  We did a lot of discussing of what we read, we did masking tape "M" & a "bean M".  I left out a couple of things, but added on a worksheet.  He did Spanish & read a Bob book.  And we did music--a song about Elijah & our usual 3.  Later I will read aloud, probably from Christmas books, which I did yesterday, & then reading from Luke at bedtime.

Yesterday I sat down & went through the remainder of the school year (we are about half way through or close to it I guess, it's a 33 week curriculum) & pulled up coloring sheets to go with each week & printed out the "count on me" pages, the "hide & seek" pages, & "color" pages that are coming later on.  I organized them all by unit & day & put them in a folder.  It feels like such a weight off, knowing that it is all done & planned & I can truly just grab & go for the remainder of the school year.  I am also feeling burned out on crafts, but I think that may pass after some time off from it, & especially now that all the rest of the planning & organizing is completely done.  It now leaves me time to possibly find a craft & do all the planning & prep work involved.  But even if I don't return to doing crafts I still have lots of coloring sheets that I printed off the internet, to go along with what we are learning.  I am wondering if I should make sure I buy next year's curriculum early enough for me to do all of this before we begin, but I don't know that next year's will need this.  It looks like A LOT, so I don't think I'll be needing to add on extra stuff.  And printing pages out won't take all that long, if that is all that's needed.  

On Wednesday we continued with our fingerplay, we read about Elisha telling the leper to wash in the river 7 times to be healed.  He did 'Hide & Seek M'.  We did a drawing activity where I demonstrated & Lil J copied my demonstration on his paper.  There's been activities similar to this before & from what I recall they never made much sense to me, but this one I actually understood.  We were to draw red circles at the top of the paper--these represented the lepers sores.  Then we drew a river in the middle of the paper--this represented the river he washed himself in 7 times.  Then we drew a happy face at the bottom--this represented that the man was happy once he was healed.  Of course my silly son had to draw a happy face AND a serious face--because he might not have been happy ALL THE TIME he says.  Then he read a Bob book, & then we did Spanish.  And then we did our songs--no song to go with today's lesson, so just our usual 3--books of the Bible, God made the universe, & 10 commandments.  Later I will read aloud from Christmas books & at bedtime from the Bible.  

On Thursday we finished off the 4 day week with our fingerplay.  We read in the Bible about angels watching over Elisha.  We did our devotionals--I'm still using both--I really like ABC Bible Verses, but my son really enjoys the illustrations in Big Thoughts For Little People, so I include it also.  He wrote "M" & "m".  We read some scriptures in the Bible about angels & discussed the fact that we are not to worship angels, but only God.  He read a Bob book, we did some Spanish, & we did our songs.  There was no song for today's lesson, so we just did our usual 3--books of the Bible, God made the universe, & 10 commandments.  Later I will read aloud, probably from Christmas books, & then from Luke in the Bible at bedtime.  And that's a wrap for this week!

Next week we will cover the time of the kings...........

Homeschool Preschool--Unit 15--King Solomon

I am using Heart of Dakota's Little Hands to Heaven, Bob books emerging reader books, various forms of Spanish, & reading aloud, usually from a chapter book, for my 4 year old son.

This week is a review week, focusing on letters A-L & on Solomon.

After taking a week off to focus on Thanksgiving, I must say I was quite eager to get back to our regular schooling.  My son seemed to feel the same way.  I had worried that time away might lead to him being more lazy about it or not wanting to do it, but that didn't seem to be the case at all I am pleased to report.

On Monday we started off the week with a new fingerplay.  I decided to read the Bible reading from both my own NKJV Bible as well as from Lil J's own Bible that came with the curriculum & I will continue to do so from now on.  This curriculum is written to be used with any Bible--it lists the Bible reading in a standard Bible as well as the 2 Bibles they offer with the curriculum (they offer 2 to allow you to choose which one best fits your child's age & abilities).  So I read out of my Bible & then out of Lil J's Bible.  Then there was a "math activity" where I had a pile of pairs of shoes & Lil J had to sort the pairs & put them together & tell me which was largest & which was smallest, etc. & also which pair of shoes belonged to who in our family.  I don't really see that as being math per se, but it still seemed like a good learning activity so I did include it.  The point of it was that Solomon was wise & knew how to match the baby with it's own birth mother (what we read about in the Bible today).  Being a review week, I had Lil J write all the review letters, A-L.  And then I had him write his numbers as well.  Then we did an activity where we draw a blue cloud at the top of the page, a red smiley face in the middle, & a yellow rectangle at the bottom, representing the temple Solomon built.  The cloud represented Solomon's dream, where God came to him in a dream.  Then Lil J read a Bob book, then we did Spanish, our songs (a song about Solomon, a song about Proverbs, & our usual 3), & then he colored a print out page about Solomon.  I seem to have reached an area in the Bible where it's really tough to find crafts to go along with it.  So I was able to find this coloring page on Solomon & I settled for that as an add on activity.  Later I will read aloud.  The reading of Little House in the Big Woods has been put on hold for now....I've been doing a lot of library books instead.  And since it's December now, I've started my tradition of reading a chapter of Luke each day, beginning on December 1st & I've been reading it aloud to my son this year.

Bottom Left: my demo of what he was to draw  Bottom Right: his drawing

On Tuesday we continued with our fingerplay.  I chose this day to combine days 2 & 3 together to make a 4 day school week.  Yesterday seemed too busy to do so, so each week I will look for the lighter days to combine together.  We read about Solomon building the temple, we did a lot of discussing about what we read.  Being a review week I let Lil J choose what letter he wanted to decorate on paper (he chose A & chose to decorate with "o"s) & what letter he wanted as masking tape letter on the floor (he chose B).  Then he read a Bob book, we did Spanish, & our songs--a song about Solomon, a song about the temple, & our usual 3 songs.  All in all it was a very good day & I look forward to having Friday off!  There was an activity I skipped, building a temple out of food--it's in our curriculum & I had also found it when searching online for craft ideas.  I just have such a hard time with wasting that much food to do that.  I'm sure that's probably silly of me, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it.  I will read aloud later on today.

On Wednesday we continued with our fingerplay.  We read more about Solomon in the Bible.  We did letters I-L review in our devotional (for reviews I ONLY use ABC Bible Verses), he did Hide-n-seek Review.  He did Count on Me, drawing 2-3 crosses in each box & counting up each box & then all of them together.  He read a Bob book, we did Spanish, & then our songs--a song about Solomon, a song about the temple, & our usual 3 songs.  I will read aloud later today.

On Thursday we finished off the week with our fingerplay, we read about Solomon turning away from God, we did some acting out & discussing of what we read in the Bible.  Being review week he again wrote letters A-L & I had him write his numbers as well.  He read a Bob book, then we did Spanish, & songs--a song about Solomon, a song about Proverbs, & our usual 3 songs.  Later I will read aloud from something, as well as from Luke in the Bible, as the Christmas season is upon us.  I've been reading from Luke right before Lil J goes to bed & I love it.  He's so calm & still & it's so nice.  Anytime I read to him during the daytime he's running & wiggling or swinging on his swing, etc.  If I question him I find that he is listening, it's just distracting to ME when I'm reading & he's all over the place.  

Next week we will be covering Elijah and Elisha.............

RV Life

My hubby's job doesn't allow for much time off.  The most he can take off at a time is one week & he can only do that 2 or 3 times a year I believe.  And when he does do that it takes him close to a month to get caught up again when he goes back to work.  So we mostly plan to take lots of weekend trips in our motorhome.  Our goal is to do so once a month.  And that means we have to stay fairly close to home.  We didn't manage to go anywhere in October (early September was our week long trip we took right after buying the motorhome in late August).  But we did head south to the San Diego area for our November trip.  We stayed at "Chula Vista RV Park".  It was nice & I would recommend it, BUT someone we spoke with there said there was another RV Park in the area that had lots of fun stuff for kids, so if we do go back to San Diego again I think I'd rather stay where there's fun stuff for my son.  This place was nice, but geared more for senior citizens it seemed.  It was a little like the place we stayed at in Las Vegas--where some of the people were living in there long term & lots of people in there knew each other & played bingo there, etc. I guess this sort of thing is pretty common, it's just not something I ever recall seeing when I was a kid travelling in our motorhome.  

This was our campsite, if it's called "campsite".....I'm not really sure what to call it, but it had a picnic table to the rear of the motorhome, overlooking the bay.  {My hubby originally had planned to stay Friday night & head home on Saturday.....but I really wanted to stay Saturday night & head home on Sunday.  Our original reservations were for Friday night only.  On Saturday morning we asked about staying an additional night.  They were able to accomodate us, but had to move us.  So first we stayed here, right on the bay.  Then we moved to a site overlooking the marina.  It was actually nice to have had both views.  And the site overlooking the marina just seemed more roomy to me.  But somehow I forgot to take pics of the second site.}

This was the view from the picnic table behind our motorhome.

The blue dot on this map shows where we were, right on the bay

It was a gorgeous day

My kid, being silly as always--climbing the ladder.........

..........hiding under the motorhome..........

.......he was actually imitating a character on a sticker he was playing with..........

.......Lil J wanted to take a pic of the sky

We took a walk on the marina

and had really gorgeous views of the sunset

The Coronado bridge off in the distance

I love this shot I got of my boys

It had been raining for a couple of days prior to our trip & while this day was gorgeous there were still some dark clouds looming in the distance

there were lots of ducks along the marina

he was so excited to be able to get so close to the ducks!

a gorgeous shot my hubby took

My son was excited to see this cat sunning itself on the dash of a neighboring motorhome (later we saw a second cat doing the same--I don't recall ever seeing people travel with cats in a motorhome!)

Of course my son had to "be that cat" & sun himself on our dash board

And of course he wanted to climb this tree in our "camp site" (this was the marina camp site)

All in all it was a very nice weekend away.  We look forward to more trips like this as well as more longer trips.  My hubby says he is definitely addicted to RVing & I have been since I was a kid.  Lil J sure does love it as well, he was so sad when we went back home & returned the motorhome to the storage facility.