It has been several months since I wrote anything for this blog, and I'm sorry about that! It has been a very busy few months. What with the new pregnancy, a few weddings across the country, Christmas, and Lydia's almost daily therapy appointments, I've been pretty swamped. I am, however, looking to start getting back into a routine before the baby comes (in April!).
I've been a little bit of a slacker when it comes to read alouds lately. We read The Invention of Hugo Cabret. Lydia thoroughly enjoyed this. I think it was partially because it had a large number of pictures for such a long book. She also seemed to enjoy the moon theme throughout as well. This book only took us a few days to read, but I thought it was charming.
Based on my husband's recommendation, we're currently reading The Phantom Tollbooth. I've never read it before, but so far it is good. Like most of our read alouds at this point, I'm pretty sure it is going over Lydia's head, but she still really enjoys sitting and reading a chapter or two with me most of the time. I got this one from the library on my Kindle, which is very handy!
Tyler continues to read picture books to the girls every night. Lydia's current favorite picture book is Joseph had a Little Overcoat, which she refers to as "The Button Book." I really like this one and enjoy the illustrations. The other books they read on a regular basis include Where the Wild Things Are, Fox in Sox, Green Eggs and Ham, Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, and Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.
We've shelved most other preschooly things over the last few months. As I mentioned, Lydia is in therapy 4 times a week and I've been working on her therapists' suggestions. I'm interested to see where she is in the fall, because she turns 4 and could possibly start some "real" preschool activities, but I'm not sure if she'll be ready or not. In the meantime, we'll continue to play outside, do read alouds, and put together puzzles. Lydia is really good at all the 24-piece puzzles she has. I'm looking to step her up a notch here soon (48 pieces maybe?).
Lydia has really taken to Vivaldi. You might remember our Vivaldi "music study" we did probably a year ago? It was basically just a playlist we played every day. Well, for the last several months, she asks to "listen Valdi" every morning. I have to say I'm getting quite bored of the Four Seasons. She liked the Mozart playlist I made her ok, and will usually ask for it later in the day. I've made a new playlist of Mendelssohn, based on the Ambleside Online recommendations. Here's a link to it on Grooveshark. I think she'll enjoy it once she gets used to it.
Friday, January 20, 2012
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Weekly Report Aug. 20, 2011
 |
| Lydia is still "reading" her book after an hour in naptime. |
Things this week went about the same as they did last week. We worked on most of the same things, went to therapy almost every day, and read lots and lots of books. This week we added The Little Engine That Could, Click, Clack, Splish, Splash, Blueberries for Sal, and The Story About Ping. I wasn't going to get Click, Clack, Splish, Splash, but as we were walking into the library to pick up the books I had on hold, Lydia suddenly insisted that we get Click, Clack, Moo, which I got for us once a few months ago. I said sure, but would you believe it? They didn't have it in the library, so we got Click, Clack, Splish, Splash instead.
Lydia insisted that we still read the books from last week this week too, so I'm just going to keep these books another week and read them again. She's still reading Caps for Sale every night with Daddy, and she's still reading The House on Pooh Corner with him when he has a chance. I'm not doing a great job of reading The Secret Garden with her, but I'm not too worried as we're doing so much other reading.
 |
| Lydia coloring on all our scratch paper. Ellie saw that Lydia had dropped a crayon and decided she would try to see what all the fuss was about. |
Oh, although this isn't necessarily school related, her new favorite song is "Don't Give Up (You Are Loved)" by Josh Groban. She has made us listen to that song no fewer than 30 times this week. Oy.
Friday, August 12, 2011
Weekly Report for Aug. 12, 2011
What a busy summer we've had! Throughout Tyler's summer vacation from medical school, we were out of town for over 7 weeks! And that wasn't all at once either. On Monday, though, Tyler went back to school and I feel like I'm getting back into the swing of things. I've been so much more productive than I was while he was home.
This week, Lydia had therapy 4 different days in the morning. I think going to those helped me get started in the mornings, and I was able to do so much more than usual. Now that she's 3 years old, I've been trying to do better about "preschool" stuff. She's still a very concrete thinker, and even stories or themes seem to be lost on her still, so I've decided to do more concrete things. For this week, I printed off pre-handwriting exercises, planning on having her do one a day. She kept asking to do more, though, so we averaged three a day. She's doing better and better with those. It's now obvious that she's trying to follow the lines, and we're working on correct pencil grip. She also spent hours coloring this week, which I think is also helping her. Her new favorite show, Blue's Clues, has really influenced her coloring. She is constantly "drawing" different clues, and I even overheard her one day talking to herself about how to draw a duck, per Steve's instructions, "First you draw a circle for the head..." I used to be a hater when it came to Blues Clues, but for Lydia at least, it has done wonders.
We also had three books that I tried to read every day that were different from her normal favorite books. This week's books were Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, The Little House, and Alexander and the Wind-up Mouse. They were all hits, especially the last two. I think she liked The Little House because there are trains and trucks in it, and after the first reading of Alexander and the Wind-up Mouse, she would always point out where the purple pebble was hiding as soon as we got to the page.
I also tried to read from The Secret Garden a little each day, but I only managed to do that a few days. Still, she seems to be enjoying it and any time I ask her if she wants to read it with me, she's game.
I found this book called The Primer of Industry that someone linked to on Google Books. It is a series of fine motor skills exercises that are supposed to help children be able to eventually do handicrafts. Some of the exercises look more interesting than others, but the first series is called "stick laying." Basically the book has a series of patterns, starting with two sticks and moving up to more complicated designs that you are supposed to have the children copy. I was interested to see how Lydia would do, so I took some popsicle sticks and traced a few of the two-stick designs on paper. Then I asked her to lay the sticks on the lines. She was able to do some, but was confused at others, especially if the sticks crossed. I think I'm going to have her do a few of these "puzzles" every day, because although I can't pin why, I think they will be good for her.
Tyler and I have made a deal that I will do the dishes if he reads to the girls the whole time. This deal seems to be great for both of us, and he just finished reading Winnie the Pooh to Lydia. I'm going to pick up The House at Pooh Corner for him to continue. Every night, right before bed, he also reads a picture book to Lydia, and after weeks of her choosing Madeline, she is finally choosing a new book. Her new favorite is Caps for Sale, which she received for her birthday from Grandma.
And I almost forgot! Yesterday, I made Lydia some home made play dough. She didn't really know what to do with it, so I just started making shapes and having her tell me what shapes they were. Eventually, I just started making circles and had her count them. She could actually count them so long as I was pointing. Counting is something we've been working on, so I was excited to see some of the fruit of my effort.
As for Ellie, she's getting cuter every day. She took her first steps this week and loves to stand by herself as often as she can. She isn't very interested in walking yet, but she's almost there.
And that's our week at Abbey Road Preschool. It's been one of our busier weeks, but I think we've all enjoyed it, and I hope next week is as good.
This week, Lydia had therapy 4 different days in the morning. I think going to those helped me get started in the mornings, and I was able to do so much more than usual. Now that she's 3 years old, I've been trying to do better about "preschool" stuff. She's still a very concrete thinker, and even stories or themes seem to be lost on her still, so I've decided to do more concrete things. For this week, I printed off pre-handwriting exercises, planning on having her do one a day. She kept asking to do more, though, so we averaged three a day. She's doing better and better with those. It's now obvious that she's trying to follow the lines, and we're working on correct pencil grip. She also spent hours coloring this week, which I think is also helping her. Her new favorite show, Blue's Clues, has really influenced her coloring. She is constantly "drawing" different clues, and I even overheard her one day talking to herself about how to draw a duck, per Steve's instructions, "First you draw a circle for the head..." I used to be a hater when it came to Blues Clues, but for Lydia at least, it has done wonders.
We also had three books that I tried to read every day that were different from her normal favorite books. This week's books were Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, The Little House, and Alexander and the Wind-up Mouse. They were all hits, especially the last two. I think she liked The Little House because there are trains and trucks in it, and after the first reading of Alexander and the Wind-up Mouse, she would always point out where the purple pebble was hiding as soon as we got to the page.
I also tried to read from The Secret Garden a little each day, but I only managed to do that a few days. Still, she seems to be enjoying it and any time I ask her if she wants to read it with me, she's game.
I found this book called The Primer of Industry that someone linked to on Google Books. It is a series of fine motor skills exercises that are supposed to help children be able to eventually do handicrafts. Some of the exercises look more interesting than others, but the first series is called "stick laying." Basically the book has a series of patterns, starting with two sticks and moving up to more complicated designs that you are supposed to have the children copy. I was interested to see how Lydia would do, so I took some popsicle sticks and traced a few of the two-stick designs on paper. Then I asked her to lay the sticks on the lines. She was able to do some, but was confused at others, especially if the sticks crossed. I think I'm going to have her do a few of these "puzzles" every day, because although I can't pin why, I think they will be good for her.
Tyler and I have made a deal that I will do the dishes if he reads to the girls the whole time. This deal seems to be great for both of us, and he just finished reading Winnie the Pooh to Lydia. I'm going to pick up The House at Pooh Corner for him to continue. Every night, right before bed, he also reads a picture book to Lydia, and after weeks of her choosing Madeline, she is finally choosing a new book. Her new favorite is Caps for Sale, which she received for her birthday from Grandma.
And I almost forgot! Yesterday, I made Lydia some home made play dough. She didn't really know what to do with it, so I just started making shapes and having her tell me what shapes they were. Eventually, I just started making circles and had her count them. She could actually count them so long as I was pointing. Counting is something we've been working on, so I was excited to see some of the fruit of my effort.
As for Ellie, she's getting cuter every day. She took her first steps this week and loves to stand by herself as often as she can. She isn't very interested in walking yet, but she's almost there.
And that's our week at Abbey Road Preschool. It's been one of our busier weeks, but I think we've all enjoyed it, and I hope next week is as good.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Lydia's Birthday
I fell in love with this castle a few months ago. As soon as I saw it, I knew I wanted to get it for my daughters. Since Lydia's birthday is this week, my husband and I decided to get it for her and Ellie. I then had to figure out what toys to get to go along with it. There are some that Mellisa and Doug make to go with it, but they got mediocre reviews. I also thought of Schliech or Papo toys, but all the reviews said that they were too big, plus they have lots of little pieces that my now 3 year old Lydia probably couldn't handle at this point. Then I came across peg dolls. I found several on Etsy, but they were outside my price range. After examining them, though, I thought that I could make some myself, so that's what I did! I found this seller on Etsy who sells the peg dolls unfinished, and I bought 7. Two were extra large, and 5 were regular large. Here's the ones I got in the shape they arrived in:
Then I searched all over Etsy and the web for some inspiration. I used Etsy and a few blogs for models so I could paint the people the best I could. Here are the finished products, complete with castle and Schleich dragon from Grandma, ready for Lydia to discover tomorrow morning.
The peg people turned out to be adorable! And they fit the castle just right. As you can see, my husband and I had fun taking these pictures, and I think we were both tempted to keep playing with it when we were done. I hope she likes it!
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Read Alouds
A few days ago we finished Anne of Green Gables as a read aloud! I completely love that book and it's sequels, and they will always hold a place near and dear to my heart. Lydia enjoyed reading it with me although it is almost all over her head at this point. I'm planning on rereading many of our read alouds when she gets older, but right now it is good just to get her used to it and to let her listen to great language.
I had a rough time deciding what to read next with her. It came down to Anne of Avonlea, Little Women, The Girl of the Limberlost, or The Secret Garden. As you can see on my sidebar, I chose The Secret Garden. I actually didn't like this book when I was a kid, and I never read it all the way through. I think I will like it much more now. I recently read The Lost Prince, which is also by Frances Hodgson Burnett and A Little Princess has always been one of my favorite stories, so I think I'll like The Secret Garden this time around. I will probably do Little Women and The Girl of the Limberlost as read alouds at a later date, and reread the Anne of Green Gables series by myself.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Little Triumph
Lydia had her first therapy appointment this week. One of the things we're working on is getting her to draw a vertical line on paper. She is also working on following small directions and not ignoring adults when they tell her to do something and she wants to just play. These are just a few of the MANY goals she has, but my story is especially relevant to those.
A few months back Scholastic was having a sale on their website for $1 PDF books. This is a sale they have a few times a year, and I thought I'd look through and see what they had. They had several workbooks for preschoolers that focus on pre-writing skills, and I bought a few. I figured it would be better to print them out over and over than have to buy a bunch and go through them quickly. Especially with our awesome laser printer and free paper I get at the back-to-school sales every year. Because I had these on hand, I figured I'd look through them and see if there were any pages that focused on drawing lines in a controlled way. I found a few pages in this book, and printed them out.
Well, this morning I sat down with Lydia and got a pencil and talked her through it. She was whiny about it at first because she just wanted the pencil to scribble on the pages. The first two pages we tried she just whined. On the third page, however, we had a breakthrough. The picture showed three dogs, with guidelines down to 3 bones. The goal is to draw between the guidelines to help the dogs get to the bones. I helped her do them, and then gave her the pencil to try to do it herself. And she did! She drew from the dogs down to the bones! She had troubles staying in the lines, and that was fine because she's only two, but she tried! I've never had a breakthrough like that with her before, and it was great! It gave me hope that I will enjoy this homeschooling thing. If I can find so much joy in my two year old drawing a few scribbles on a paper, I think will do fine. I was also excited to see that I could get through to her and show her things without her entirely baulking at my attempts.
So that's my little story. Small, but it made me feel pretty good today.
A few months back Scholastic was having a sale on their website for $1 PDF books. This is a sale they have a few times a year, and I thought I'd look through and see what they had. They had several workbooks for preschoolers that focus on pre-writing skills, and I bought a few. I figured it would be better to print them out over and over than have to buy a bunch and go through them quickly. Especially with our awesome laser printer and free paper I get at the back-to-school sales every year. Because I had these on hand, I figured I'd look through them and see if there were any pages that focused on drawing lines in a controlled way. I found a few pages in this book, and printed them out.
Well, this morning I sat down with Lydia and got a pencil and talked her through it. She was whiny about it at first because she just wanted the pencil to scribble on the pages. The first two pages we tried she just whined. On the third page, however, we had a breakthrough. The picture showed three dogs, with guidelines down to 3 bones. The goal is to draw between the guidelines to help the dogs get to the bones. I helped her do them, and then gave her the pencil to try to do it herself. And she did! She drew from the dogs down to the bones! She had troubles staying in the lines, and that was fine because she's only two, but she tried! I've never had a breakthrough like that with her before, and it was great! It gave me hope that I will enjoy this homeschooling thing. If I can find so much joy in my two year old drawing a few scribbles on a paper, I think will do fine. I was also excited to see that I could get through to her and show her things without her entirely baulking at my attempts.
So that's my little story. Small, but it made me feel pretty good today.
Friday, June 17, 2011
Weekly Report June 17, 2011
This is our last week at my in-laws', and I'm excited to get home. It always throws you off to be away from home, and I'm excited to get back to our own way of doing things with our own things. That also means that after today, Tyler is free for the rest of the summer, which should be fun! We still have a few more trips to take, but not for a few weeks, so we should be able to get a lot done and spend a lot of good, quality time together. One of those trips is to Sea World, so I'm thinking I should get Lydia some books about ocean animals so she can know what's going on. She loves, and I mean LOVES aquariums, so I think she will have a blast as it is and having a little knowledge in advance will help her enjoy it all the more.
Academics were in short supply again this week, and probably will continue to be so for a while. We did read several chapters of Anne of Green Gables out loud, and should finish it soon. I'm reminded how much I love that book. It was a major part of my girlhood and I think I might still have a little crush on Gilbert. When I was a girl, he was my dream man. Tall, dark, handsome, and a doctor.... oh wait! I guess I married a Gilbert after all!
As I was reading, I noticed that Miss Stacy seems to be heavily influenced by Charlotte Mason. That or L.M. Montgomery and Charlotte Mason came to similar conclusions about how children should be educated. I admire Charlotte Mason's methods and hope to use some of them in our home school, although I do tend more towards The Well-Trained Mind in philosophy. Luckily, they overlap in many ways. I've been reading Charlotte Mason's books on education over the past while (they are long and involved and you can only read a bit at a time) and they are fascinating. I definitely felt like I should be having the girls spend more time outside after reading her section about young children spending too much time inside. Her books also make me wish I had a governess, but such is life!
I'm trying to figure out what to read out loud next, and I'm having a hard time. However, with my Kindle I seem to be able to download more children's literature than we can get to, so I'm sure I'll figure out something. We also read Othello and The Taming of the Shrew in Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare. My 17 year old sister-in-law even listened in for a bit in those!
Oh, and I almost forgot to mention, Lydia successfully counted to 18 this week! Without any mistakes or anything! I was so proud of her. We always count the stairs when we go upstairs or downstairs, and she counted them all by herself.
I've been focusing on my history reading this week and am looking for a good version of The Epic of Gilgamesh to read to go along with the section I'm in about ancient Sumer. I'll probably just end up getting on from the library after we get back home.
Overall, I'm feeling pretty good about where we are and am excited to continue with this journey we are just starting!
Academics were in short supply again this week, and probably will continue to be so for a while. We did read several chapters of Anne of Green Gables out loud, and should finish it soon. I'm reminded how much I love that book. It was a major part of my girlhood and I think I might still have a little crush on Gilbert. When I was a girl, he was my dream man. Tall, dark, handsome, and a doctor.... oh wait! I guess I married a Gilbert after all!
As I was reading, I noticed that Miss Stacy seems to be heavily influenced by Charlotte Mason. That or L.M. Montgomery and Charlotte Mason came to similar conclusions about how children should be educated. I admire Charlotte Mason's methods and hope to use some of them in our home school, although I do tend more towards The Well-Trained Mind in philosophy. Luckily, they overlap in many ways. I've been reading Charlotte Mason's books on education over the past while (they are long and involved and you can only read a bit at a time) and they are fascinating. I definitely felt like I should be having the girls spend more time outside after reading her section about young children spending too much time inside. Her books also make me wish I had a governess, but such is life!
I'm trying to figure out what to read out loud next, and I'm having a hard time. However, with my Kindle I seem to be able to download more children's literature than we can get to, so I'm sure I'll figure out something. We also read Othello and The Taming of the Shrew in Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare. My 17 year old sister-in-law even listened in for a bit in those!
Oh, and I almost forgot to mention, Lydia successfully counted to 18 this week! Without any mistakes or anything! I was so proud of her. We always count the stairs when we go upstairs or downstairs, and she counted them all by herself.
I've been focusing on my history reading this week and am looking for a good version of The Epic of Gilgamesh to read to go along with the section I'm in about ancient Sumer. I'll probably just end up getting on from the library after we get back home.
Overall, I'm feeling pretty good about where we are and am excited to continue with this journey we are just starting!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
