Change up!

So today, our first Wednesday in our little home school preschool adventure, we made a few changes. Today would have been the start to Tot Town, an indoor play place that meets every other Wednesday for 90 minutes and the kids can play with all sorts of cool toys that I don't have :)  Its $15 per family for the entire school year and totally worth it.  Being that my kids are having their joint birthday party this Saturday, all extra funds (which isn't much) are going to that.  So we'll try and hit up Tot Town next time (even though that will be Em's 2nd birthday so we may wait till October to do that). So today we changed it up a bit and went to the library today.

I also let them sleep in a little. I was having everyone wake up around 8/8:30 so that we could be ready to go by 9, but since we didn't have anywhere to be till 11, there was no sense in getting up THAT early (ha ha!).  The kids were up and moving around 8:45 and I let them have breakfast while watching an episode of Clifford (Em loves this show).

Once it was over I had the kids get dressed, and this is where Connor struggled a bit.  He wanted to play with his new Legos (that he go for his birthday yesterday) and was taking his time in getting dressed.  I kept telling him to get dressed or he'd miss morning circle, his favorite.  Well he took his sweet time so Emma and I did it.  He did not get to participate in morning circle and no, I didn't do it twice.

First thing we did was color.  Since we are still on the letter Q, Connor colored a quail.  And he was matching the colors of the quail on a picture he had, which I thought was really awesome!  He made the beak brown, cheeks pink and legs gray.  Then he made the tail green and that's where it ended ha ha!  Em scribbled on the queen while I colored a question mark.  Today I had Connor name all the letters in the word "quail" and he seemed to struggle.  This concerned me a bit, as he is asking what letter this is while little Em, who is 2, is naming off the letters in "queen" like she has known them all along (later on he was naming the letters in his name with perfect ease so I have concluded that he is being lazy).  After we were done coloring, we moved on to the match and align game.

Match and align

Connor did great with this one.  He was able to match everything that was cut out with the picture and he counted them, still over counting though.  I helped him count again and he was able to stop on 4.  He really had fun with this one and took him about 10-15 minutes to do this.

Shapes in the box

Emma really likes this toy, placing the shapes in the cut outs on the box.  I had her do this while Connor was matching and aligning.  She does get a little flustered when she can't make the star fit into the plus cut out or if the triangle is the wrong way, but we are working on trying all angles or asking for help.

After they were finished with this, it was play time, I have the nursery station on Pandora with all sorts of songs (Monkey's on the Bed, ABC, Wheels on the bus, etc) which is great because they are starting to learn them and know them and will hopefully be good to go when kindergarten starts.  Em is a little attached to her iPad so this transition has been a bit difficult for her, but no iPads till after naps.  Once we get to playing she's fine, but she can get a little testy when asking for the iPad and not getting it.  It's getting better with each day though.

Playing in the tent.

The kids received this tent as a gift from their aunt and uncle who stayed with us for a while, on their trip from Poland.  They love to bring everything they own and stuff it in this tent.  Em just like to hide in here.

So today instead of doing Tot Town we went to the library.  Thankfully the library has story times every Tues, Wed, and Thurs so if something should change and I need somewhere to go, I can always stop there for an hour.  Thursday and every other Wednesday is usually our library days, but the kids love it, plus Mommy gets some new books for Daddy to read at bed time.

Story time with Ms. Teri

What I truly love about the library, is not only do they get a story time, but they get to do a craft and sing songs.  I take Connor here as it helps teach him how to sit and listen to stories and follow directions.  Some days he's right up front with the other kids, sometimes he cuddles next to mommy. Today was a "stay by mommy" day :)  Emma you can see is doing her own thing.  Thankfully Ms. Teri doesn't mind my crazy 2 year old :)

Learning about tools

Shape your body like a screwdriver

What I love about Ms. Teri is that she has a new theme every week and a fun craft to do with the kids.  Today it was about tools, they read a story about a cat who is in charge of a house at night (thats what those silly cats do!) and then after we matched tools.  Here they are molding their bodies like a screwdriver.

Their craft today was to make name tags for themselves out of letters that were shaped like tools.  I picked out all the letters and then while Em wandered aimlessly around the room, I had Connor find the letters to his (and Emma's ) name and then glue then in order on the name tag.  I would say the letter that came next and then he would find it and glue it on the name tag.  Connor loves glue :)

Bubbles!

This is Em's favorite time of the day, when they blow bubbles.  They also get a sticker or stamp at the end of the time and then we head out with our checked out books.  Even though we are only here for 30/45 minutes, its still a great thing for them to be learning.

I'd be lying if I didn't doubt what I was doing with Connor and Emma is really helping.  I think of home school like a regular school, where you are literally doing something educational from 9:00 AM till lunch time.  But I don't think it really has to be that way.  Even though today, we were doing things from 9 to 12, I still felt like I wasn't doing anything to help them.  We still did a lot in this short time.  We colored, matched and aligned, played, read stories, made a craft and danced.   If I look back on it I can see that we really did a bunch of fun stuff. I hope it's doing some good, I guess it's better than sitting in front of the iPad all morning.  I have to remember that even though this is a "learning" time for Connor, it also is a fun time.  I have so much fun playing and doing these things with them, and hopefully when kinder testing comes around, he'll be ready to go :)