Apples Theme!

Well last week ended up being pretty hectic, so we didn't get much accomplished in the way of "school".  Yesterday I spent the day lesson planning for the week and today we got started on our apples theme.  I decided we'll start at 9am and end around 12pm, that way she can have lunch and the rest of the day to free play or whatnot and I can work on the house.  She did great for such a ball of energy!  Here are the things we covered today...

While she eats breakfast I usually let her watch her sight words.  We LOVE the Preschool Prep Company's Meet The Sight Words Series (We're on disc 3 of  3!) and she has learned over 45 words in the past 2 months!  And she remembers them ALL!  These DVDs have great characters and it gives us ideas of sentences to use the word in.  It really helps her recall the words when she gets stuck.  I've included a video clip of Meet The Sight Words 3...

We also refresh with games and flashcards and word hunts in our books.  Today we watched one mini lesson (5 words), and reviewed them with our flashcards after.

We read an Autumn poem and highlight all the "A" words and "a's" in the words.  It read...

Signs of Autumn

Signs of autumn are all around:

Apples, scarecrows, leaves on the ground,

Cozy sweaters, and pumpkin pie.

It feels like autumn-my, oh my!

Then we moved on to phonics.  She knows the majority of the letter sounds but since we're doing Apples this week I wanted to focus on 'A' words, so we made a big apple and cut things that start with A out of some magazines I had hanging around for just such an occasion, and glued them on the apple.  She really enjoys using the glue!  : )  It's not perfect but it's the process not the product we're focused on...

After this little project we moved on to our Math.  We are focusing on counting 1-1, number recognition 0-10, and counting 1-15.  She's doing pretty well but tends to get ahead of herself when counting things out.  Today we went out to our crab apple trees and picked 15 little crabbies, then we came in and counted them out to each other, which is simple enough, but E really enjoyed it so we did this for probably 20 minutes!  I was the one who ended up getting bored!  : )  After this I let her watch her Preschool Prep Meet The Numbers DVD and I sliced the apples and got all the ingredients for her snack together.

For our snack we found a great recipe for Apples in a Bag on Salad-in-a-jar.com .  It turned out pretty good, E really liked it, but I will use different apples next time.  All we had were green Michigan Apples today, and they seemed a little tart for something that was supposed to be so sweet.  Nonetheless, she had 2 whole apples this way and they are only 50 some odd calories a piece so it's a pretty good snack.

   

We didn't get to do our art project today because I ended up having to go to dance practice, so we'll have it on here tomorrow.  If anyone has any good apple ideas, please feel free to share!  See you tomorrow!  

My First Post Ever!

Well this is my first post and I have nothing interesting to write about..  Which is probably ok since nobody knows about this blog yet anyways.  (:   I guess I will tell you a little about my daughter, since you can read a little about me on my profile.  I'll refer to her as 'E' on here, she just turned 3 in August 2011.  I'm very proud of her, which I'm sure you will surmise from my future posts and pictures!  ( :  But I can't help it, she's my one and only, right now, and I think she's A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!

Now in reality she really is something special.  She started talking when she was 8 months old, and I mean really saying clear words anyone could understand.  I have videos that I'll post sometime from when she was little.  She memorizes things rediculously fast, such as the Lord's Prayer, which she learned in less than an hour and could recite alone at about 18 months!  She also has an ear for music already, and has been singing Amazing Grace (all the verses) for well over a year, and her timing is spot on, as well as her tone and pitch.  She sings every Sunday at church and LOVES it!  In another year or so we're going to get her piano lessons.

Since she memorizes things so fast, and actually enjoys it, I've been trying to teach her as much as I can while she is still little.  At first I thought it would be great to give her a head start to Kindergarten, but I quickly realized that she is going to surpass that before she is even old enough to start!  So far she knows her ABC's (upper and lower case) by sight, the majority of the letter sounds, her numbers 1-10 by sight, and counting 1-1, she knows 45+ sight words (thanks in large part to the PreSchool Prep Comany!), she also know her shapes, and colors of course, and she is learning so much else that doesn't even have a real pre-K category.

We've done mini science lessons based off of the PBS show Sid the Science Kid.  I preview the experiement they do the night before and then after she watches it in the morning we do it and any other activities I can think of that go along with that lesson.  She has explored the wind, rain, sun, plants/leaves, her teeth, etc.  And she remembers everything she has learned!  Weeks later she will be telling someone about her "K9 teeth and how they are for biting hard things like carrots"!  Hahaha  I love that kid.

Anyway aside from the acedemic stuff she is a sweet, loving, strong willed, short tempered, energetic, spunky child and we have fun every single day!  I hope someone out there enjoys this blog and if not, I do!  So it's all ok!  ❤