Homeschooling Day by Day - Week 1

I'm trying to build a more structured approach to our preschool-level homeschooling and keep records of the stuff we do each week (both for sentimental and practical reasons).

Not having Mr. M going to daycare I always wonder whether he's learning all he needs to learn at his tender young age of almost 3. After all, we don't have circle time or sing alphabet song. And sometimes I feel like we just need a bit more structure and direction in our daily goings-on.

So starting this week I'm trying something new - I put together a little activities list for each day of the week. Ok, so I really started it last week and it worked really well. But I made some adjustments and changes to the process (as I'm sure I will again). Plus last week I included my homeschooling plans into my larger daily to-do lists, which created some boo-boo messes.

This week I'm starting a new activities planner (a simple 3-subject notebook). Our regular events - occupational and physical therapy sessions, playdates, trips to museums and playgrounds, etc. - are not included in the daily lists. We just do it. What's included are ideas for various developmental areas - art and crafts, fine motor, language, science, etc.

I found this book - The Complete Resource Book: An Early Childhood Curriculum - absolutely invaluable in putting together my weekly schedules. Of course, it has to be modified since it's just me and Mr. M here and many activities simply don't make sense in homeschool setting. Plus I have to tweek language activities, suggested story time selections and songs since I only speak Russian to Mr. M.

This week our preschool homeschooling curriculum includes:

Monday

• Art - collage art
• Blocks - start building a town - make roads
• Fine Motor - scooping big buttons with a small brush
• Language - playing Shape and Color puzzle
• Science - exploring balance scales (I bought these a few months ago at a local teachers' store and haven't used them yet).

Tuesday

• Art - easel painting
• Blocks - building a castle out of big cardboard blocks
• Field trip to a grocery store - instead of shopping, we'll concentrate on the produce section - colors, textures, smells and names of fruits and veggies (plus there are always samples to taste)
• Fine motor - tracing simple objects (small blocks) on paper

Wednesday

• Blocks - we will continue building our town and will add some buildings to it
• Fine motor - stringing beads
• Math - playing with a Lauri Shape and Color Sorter
• Science - exploring objects with a magnifier glass
• Writing - chalkboard "writing" - drawing lines, shapes and simple letters in imitation

Thursday

• Art - ConTact paper collage
• Fine motor - playing with Theraputty
• Dramatic play - finger-puppets (the Three Bears story)
• Science - exploring magnets

Friday

• Blocks - we will continue building town and will add trees, people and animals
• Home - hopefully, Mr. M will help me with some clean-up and laundry
• Science - some more magnifier
• Taste - tasting various breads

Theraputty Cake

Does your toddler like Play-Doh? Mr. M is not particularly fond of it. Sure, he plays with the Play Doh Factory and uses some other tools. But he prefers not to touch Play Doh itself.

I'm not sure why it is. Maybe it's because Play Doh is a bit oily to touch. Or maybe it's too playable and provides too little resistance and feedback for him. Whatever it is, he's not alone. Many low muscle tone kids and kids with sensory issues don't engage with Play Doh.

Our wonderful occupational therapist, Michelle, showed us Theraputty the other day. And frankly, we're both hooked. It is pretty addictive even for adults. It leaves no sticky or oily residue. It makes funky snapping sounds when kneaded. And, if you leave a blob of Theraputty in a large enough container (or on a table top), it will transfrom itself into a thin shiny disk. How cool is that!

So I quickly ordered 4 oz of red (medium-soft) Thera-Flex Theraputty from Amazon. And when it arrived, I hid a bunch of very small beads in it. Mr. M loves digging through his putty searching for beads. And once we get enough of them dug out, I shape the putty into a cake and he "decorates" it with the beads.

I might order some yellow (soft) putty as well to create a two-tier cake. Plus Mr. M might like to shape it since it's a bit softer than the red one.

Simple Game of Stickers

I really like Kumon workbooks, I do. But here's the problem that I have with them - my toddler goes through each page in about 10 seconds (5 seconds if it's a maze). So we can go through all the age-appropriate worksheets in one book even before breakfast.

So here's a simple fine-motor skills idea that I tried a couple of days ago. All it takes is a stack of printer paper (or any other paper) and a bunch of stickers (dollar-store ones or leftovers from scrapbooking will do just fine). Turns out it's even better than Kumon since

• It can be customized to fit your child's interests (Mr. M is a budding musician so I found some guitar stickers)
• A child can pick the stickers off the sheet and position them on the piece of drawing paper - that's more fine motor practice
• In addition to mazes, you can play "circle" and "connect" games. Connecting games in particular are great learning activities since you can practice matching sizes, shapes, colors, etc.

How to Get Your Toddler to Eat Veggies

Ok, I don't know how to get YOUR toddler or even a toddler to eat veggies. But I finally figured out how to get MY toddler to do it.

Not like I ever dreamed about my little one asking for seconds of steamed spinach... But when his range of culinary interests shifted towards the bread-cookies-pasta-cake spectrum and the only veggie I was able to get him to eat was ketchup, I started getting a bit worried.

Sure, Mr. M would peck at some green peas and corn, but concentrate most of his table-side attention on hot dogs and pancakes. What was I supposed to do?!

Well, today I felt particularly inspired. I made sure that he had some sure-hits on his plate - a hot dog, pasta with cheese and of course, ketchup. But then I added something new - a side of steamed edamame. At first Mr. M wanted nothing to do with it (green = yuk, I suppose).

But then I suggested he'd invite his two pals - scarecrows - to the table for lunch. (Ever since we built our little pre-season scarecrow Mr. M is "into" them). Anyway, he loved the idea and proceeded to share the edamames and the hot dog (hey, great lesson in sharing). And then he pretty much cleaned up his plate.

Tomorrow I'm going to try some mashed potatoes and, if all goes well, we might get as far as steamed spinach by this weekend. I'm sure this fascination with scarecrows won't last, so I'm just trying to make the most of it.

3 Little Pumpkins

Lately we've been seriously into everything pumpkin. I'm not sure how it all started, but Mr. M is totally responsible for this year's pumpkin madness. We already have quite a few Halloween and pumpkin-themed books. And we go to the farmers market a couple of days a week just so Mr. M can run around every single pumpkin patch there is.

Then a couple of days ago we tried to make some old-fashioned pumpkin pie baked right inside a big pumpkin. Well, believe me when I tell you - never follow recepies from children's books. This goes into our FUN, but BAD IDEA file, right next to kiwi-fruit muffins.

Anyway, the pumpkin pie didn't happen. Instead, we ended up with about 5 pounds of very sweet pumpkin "gobly-goop". Turns out, it wasn't a big loss after all since Chris was able to turn it into some delicious pumpkin bread and pumpkin pancakes.

But for all this pumpkin love, we just finally found time to go to a real pumpkin patch, the one where pumpkins do all their growing. More specifically, we went to the Smith's Nursery in Benson. We already went there a bunch of times this year to pick strawberries and blueberries. Now it was time for a different kind of berries (yes, pumpkins are berries - something we recently learned from one of our more educational Halloween books).

Since it was Friday early afternoon, we were the only pumpkin pickers there for a while. Essentially we had the entire farm all to ourselves! Now, that was pretty awesome.

As we walked to the patch, we passed by the millet maze - tempting, but we left it for another time (and we'll bring friends too). Then we saw some goats and a donkey who looked eager to be petted. And then there was the big huge pumpkin patch!

Hooray! Mr. M took off running. Then, of course, he got tangled up in pumpkins and fell. But he was ok and laughing, saying something about pumpkins catching him. At first we planned on letting him choose a pumpkin. But he just kept walking all around the patch, chatting about all the big and little pumpkins... So Chris ended up choosing for him.

Then we were off to explore the little creek right next to the patch. And then it was time to eat (picnic is another idea Mr. M goes ga-ga about at the moment). So we walked back to the fish pond and ate our little turkey-apple-saurkraut sandwiches until they were all gone (just a couple of minutes, really).

The picnic table was right next to a little play area for kids so of course it had to be next on our list of things to do at the farm. Even mom, dad and a little lizard buddy got to play on the set.