Bears

This week's preschool theme was........

You guessed it - bears!

All kinds of bears. Black, brown, polar, grizzly, panda, teddy, gummy and cartoon. No bear was left undiscovered. We started with the story of Paddington bear. We made a toilet paper tube Paddington and had him help us act out the story. We also got quite a geography lesson as we explored a map of South America looking for Peru (because in the story, that's where Paddington says he's from). 

Next was Polar bears. We learned about the arctic ocean, cold climates, ice floes and talked about predators and prey. David did a science experiment to help him understand how an animal's fat keeps them warm. We filled a bucket with cold water (the arctic ocean) and ice cubes (ice floes). David stuck his hand (a bear without fat) in for as long as he could...which wasn't long. Then we covered his hand with a plastic bag, a thick layer of Crisco shortening (to act as blubber) and another plastic bag. We let his covered hand (a bear with fat) take a little swim in the arctic ocean again. This time David noticed right away that his hand was staying warm. 

getting ready

Brrr!

Hey, I'm still warm! 

Ahh...the gummy. Perhaps David's favorite bear variety. We sorted, counted and lined up our gummy bears. I printed out a picture of a bear cave and had David practice positional/spacial concepts with his gummies {inside/outside, above/below, left/right, near/far}. When he had about all the gummy bear rearranging he could handle, we moved on to gummy math and worked on adding and subtracting bears from the cave. 

And then we ate all the gummies. Every last one. 

This week wrapped up with a day dedicated to grizzlies and Corduroy. We read the story first then mixed up "Corduroy's Missing Button" Cookies {They're really peanut butter. Shhh!}. While the button cookies were baking we sorted, grouped and charted colored buttons. 

{idea here}

Titus

Can you believe he is nearly ONE?! Wow.

Taken today while fighting 2 ear infections, a sinus infection,
pharyngitis and a 102.5 fever. What a sweet boy.

Getting Married

So I joined this Mothers of Preschoolers (MOPS) group that meets at a church near my house. This morning was our first time going to a meeting. Last night as I was tucking the big boys into bed, I let them know where we'd be going in the morning. I told sweet Max he'd be seeing one of his friends (a girl). I really thought it would make it sound fun. Really. Not so much though...

Max: "Noooo. I don't want to do that. That is a terrible idea."

Me: "Why is that? You love seeing her."

Max (after a string of panicked ramblings): "If you go to a church and you see a girl you have to be married!"

Me: "No. No, you don't. You can just play toys with her and it will be fun." 

Max (now shouting at his normal happy Max volume) : "OH! I love to play toys! I love friends. I love MOPS!"

Oh Max.

Preschool Happenings

Oh, man! Preschool is so FUN! 

David and I had it on our hearts to start homeschooling little David this year for preschool (but I think I mentioned that already?). We've been at it for 5 weeks now and it is going great!! David loves to learn. He's like this little knowledge sponge. I keep throwing out new skills, concepts, words and ideas and that boy is soaking it all up. Every bit of it. He has fearlessly taken on every new learning challenge I've given him. He begs to do school each morning and he's always sad to see the weekend come because he knows he has to take a break. 

Here's a little bit of what we've covered so far....

Farm Week

This was a fun one. We read through Charlotte's Web and made a spider web craft. It was a great opportunity to talk about how real life spiders weave different kinds of webs that are unique and special - just as God made us unique and special. We looked up Psalm 139:14 and read about how we are "wonderfully complex". 

We also read The Little Red Hen and talked about the importance of hard work. David painted a Red Hen craft and used feathers and googly eyes to make it look just like the hen in our story. David and I had races with our "beaks" (pincher fingers) and our "grain bags" (cupped hand) to see who could pick up all their grain pieces of the ground first just as Little Red Hen collected grain seeds in the book. It was GREAT fine motor skills practice and SO much fun! 

And it wouldn't be a proper farm themed week without tractors would it? No, not at all. We learned about all the different tractors you'd find on a farm and the jobs that each of them are made to do. That segued quite nicely into a discussion about how God has made each of us with a different purpose and plan in mind. David got some cutting practice in while making a paper John Deere tractor and wagon. 

Paramedic Week 

What a good time this week was. We learned who paramedics are, what they do and what tools they use on the job. David had a special interest in this one since Aunt Ashley is a paramedic. :) We learned what classifies as an "emergency" and what to do if we see those things happen. David learned how to dial 911 and what to tell the dispatcher should he ever have to make that call. I showed him what the Star of Life looks like so he knows who to trust and how to recognize them if he ever needs emergency help. 

We took a field trip to Aunt Ashley's work with her and she showed us around the trucks and equipment. I made David a series of flashcards to use as a treasure hunt. He had to find shears, gloves, a mask, an oxygen tank and mask, the Star of Life, an equipment bag, a laryngoscope and intubation tube, a stretcher, a stethoscope and an IV bag of fluids and tubing. He and Max eagerly found all that and more! It was hard to end that field trip. They didn't want to come home!

We worked on patterns, size sequencing, sorting/grouping, counting and number recognition with a box of band-aids. He loved getting to stick them all over himself! We practiced being gentle and kind and helping others by pretending we had "owies" for each other to fix. Best day ever. 

Leaves

This is a somewhat smaller subject so it's one of two that we'll be studying this week. We took a nature walk this morning and collected a box of leaves. We brought them home to conduct leaf observations. We used our 5 senses to explore the leaves then we picked our favorites to do crayon rubbings. 

David's first self portrait

A head with hair, ears, eyes, nose, smile, legs, feet and
knees (the dashes across the middle of his legs)

Sharing

So this morning, David swiped a toy away from Max which caused him to start screaming. Then I hear this from David...

"But, buddy, listen. Mom and Dad are married so they have to share everything. Like Uncle Andy and Aunt Whitney. They can't be selfish either. They really can't. Like ever. But you're my brother and we're not married. So this is my toy now. Go get your own." 

Aside from being super rude to his brother, he does have a point....