A Preschool Afternoon

Depending upon who you ask, I may or may not already be homeschooling my 4 year old. In the afternoons, when my two younger kids are taking naps, Katelyn and I spend some time together. Katelyn loves art. Painting, drawing, coloring, making things, cutting, pasting. You name it. She loves it. So I've gathered some things over the last few months or so to use as learning tools that incorporate her passion for all things art.
One of the most used things I have purchased for her is the tabletop easel from Lakeshore Learning Store. We bought the tempera paint cup set and washable tempera paints from there as well as a set of dry erase markers. (I have a wish list at least a mile long from Lakeshore Learning Store!) We use the dry erase board almost every day. One of her favorite games is Pictionary. We play this several ways. Kate will draw a picture and I will try to guess what it is. Sometimes, I will give Kate a letter and she will draw a picture that starts with this letter. To make it a bit more challenging, I will write 3 or 4 letters on the board and have her try to name them. Then she gets to pick which letter she wants to draw.
Katelyn loves to make cards for people and she always to wants to know how to spell people's names or how to write "Happy Birthday" or something like that. I will write it out on the dry erase board for her to copy. The size of the easel is great because I can store it away in our art supply cabinet. All in all, we love this easel.


Getting back to our afternoon... today Katelyn got to play with our new set of Melissa and Doug Alphabet Beads. The set comes with several of each letter of the alphabet, as well as eight or so different shapes. It also comes with eight colored shoelaces for stringing the beads. At first I just let her play with it. She picked out the letter in her name and then started asking how to spell other people's names. Then I gave her some patterns to follow. We built a few more words and then she was ready to build little towers and play for a bit.


The next activity I offered her was a page from Kumon Amazing Mazes. I thought these would be a bit more challenging for her. My game plan was for her to try one page from the book each week. That plan was out the window after she started her fourth page of mazes! Tip: I carefully tore the workbook pages out of the book and slipped them into a plastic page protector so that she could use a dry erase marker to complete the mazes. That way we can use them over and over again.


By this point it was time for Josh to wake up from his nap. After getting Josh up and happy, we headed outside to the driveway to practice letters. Katelyn laid down on a blanket and I took pictures of her making various letters. She thought it was pretty fun.
We had to make a beeline back inside as a storm was rolling in, but "school" didn't end there. While I worked on dinner, the kids sat on their little chairs at our back sliding door and watched the rain storm as it blew in. They thought it was pretty cool.
I think it was a successful afternoon. I don't know if Kate knew I was trying to have some good teaching moments with her today or not. Maybe its a good sign if she didn't. :)

Product Review - Lauri Puzzles

My son Josh (2) loves to play with puzzles. We have a magnetic tic-tac-toe set that is made out of hard foam pieces. He will sit with it at the table rearranging the pieces for 15 or 20 minutes.


So when I saw these Lauri puzzles on Amazon I thought he would really enjoy playing with them. As soon as I opened the package, my daughter Katelyn (4), wanted to play with the lace up cards. I offered the smaller shape puzzles to Josh and he quickly took them apart and put them back together again. Then I gave him the ABC puzzle. This was quite a bit more challenging for him. It took him about 20 minutes to get it back together. And after he finished it, he took it apart and wanted to do it again. Meanwhile, Katelyn was having a great time building a tower out of the "locktagon" pieces.



**The only suggestion I have for this playset would be to make sure and keep them away from toddlers who still like to put things in their mouths. If bitten, the foam on the puzzle pieces will have bite marks.

Why Homeschool

For the past few weeks, my mind has constantly been turning to homeschooling. When I'm not feeding the kiddos, cleaning up after the kiddos, playing with the kiddos, and putting the kiddos to sleep, I am thinking about teaching my kids. My daughter is four, my sons are two and two months. My hands are definitely full. But, deep down, I have this strong desire to try homeschooling. But why? Truthfully, I don't have a clear cut answer yet. Yes, I would like to keep my kids in an environment that I know to be safe. Yes, I would like to incorporate our faith into my kids education. Yes, I would like to have my kids home with me during the better hours of the day. But it's more than that. I love watching my kids learn new things. I love teaching them about things. I want my kids to be best friends.
The purpose of this life is learn and to grow. All we take with us from this life is the knowledge that we gain. My kids will be under my wings for only a short time and then it will be their turn to go off to college, get married and start a family. I think that their lives will be better off in the end by beginning with homeschooling. As a homeschooling family we will be able to make sure that our kids really know the material they are learning. We will be able to focus on areas of strength and weakness as they come. We will have greater opportunities for hands on learning. It will be a challenge, but I hope to find joy in the journey.