School Room...and toy room and family room

We were given a very sturdy dinning room table so we have upgraded from our card table that wobbled when you wrote on it to this--thank you J.

We have tons a space now and Birdie gets her own chair and not the step stool, although she usually insists on sitting on my lap. It's so nice to have everything close at hand too. However our table hardly ever looks like this.

I usually clean it up for school on Monday, tidy again for our big Wednesday school time and then it slowly gets worse and worse. You can see the 3 tier drawers underneath that serve as our "workboxes"

Frog is super proud of the spinning pencil, scissor holder. He picked it out, well I think that was the only one in the store but he loves it.

The Fall 2010 Plan

THE PLAN

Devotional Book and Bible (various books, I'll post about it)

Prayer

Math Mondays: Preschool Plus, Ultimate Skills Builder (colorful worksheets- a lot of patterns etc.), 100s chart to practice counting, practice writing numbers with this cool wipe off board we got. Number puzzles and all sorts of games.

Writing Wednesdays: Working on letters, writing name, use shaving cream in bag or tempera paint to draw letters, Play-Doh letters.

Phonics Everyday: We're still using Hooked on Phonics and we have a lot of books and puzzles to help too. We "build" words using random letters using magnets or other letter shaped things.

We read our first chapter book together too--Charlotte's Web. It was a great experience.

We read The Berenstain Bears Science and Nature book about once a week too.

I decided to make a schedule for myself to make sure the important things were covered: math, writing, reading. So I made a list of all the activities under each label and switched those in and out each day.

Little Bird? I had pages and activities for her too. She is interested for a while and then usually goes to the toys. Some days she sits in my lap and is quite distracting.

Using work boxes? YES! I love it. However, we've adapted the method. I put a list of things to do each day on the wall and beside certain activities I'll put a letter to the corresponding box next to it. Frog knows when we get there he'll crawl under the table (to the 3 tier Sterilite drawers) and get the items from box A or B etc.

I love having all the materials in one place and it gives Frog the chance to get up and move. I try to have one craft a week.

I have Five in A Row and I want to start that too--it just felt like too much this fall. I do plan to use it sometime soon...

First Day of School

Super Frog is 4.5 years old and is ready to go. We've graduated from "learning time" and we're actually calling this process school now (that's a big step for me!). Little Bird doesn't know what she's in for...hopefully ALL good stuff.