Day 4: A Bit Iffy, but Good

First of all, baby girl ditched school in the morning and slept the whole 3 hours I had to spend one-on-one with her. So I made myself useful and did a bunch of stuff around the house as well as get a few things done for K's lessons.

K came home and he fell asleep while he was supposed to have Quiet Time in his room.  He hasn't been napping for a little while, so this was a bit surprising.  He must've been super tired because I went in a couple of times to check on him and he was knocked out.  I tried talking to him and he'd look at me and his eyes were obviously heavy with sleep and he'd fall asleep right away.  I did get a ton done around the house, so that's nice.

So, to make a long story short, our lessons today were extra short today because by the time he woke up and had his snack, it was almost time to start dinner.  He loved Circle Time, Bible, and Reading.  He got really fidgety when we started Language Arts and Spanish.  I guess he felt so rested that now he was a ball of energy.

For Language Arts, we focused on MATCHING! Matching everything from matching pictures, matching pictures to names, matching letters (upper case to upper case and upper case to lower case), and matching -at words (cat, mat, rat, etc), -en words (ten, pen, etc), -ip words (chip, rip, etc), and -an words (pan, ran, tan, etc).  He did well.  He was very fidgety.

We practiced our numbers in Chinese and he remembered them all except for five.  That's pretty good for just one lesson.
In Spanish, we learned the numbers from zero to five. He did well, but I could tell he liked Chinese more.
Dinner was delicious and our evening went smoothly. I can't ask for anything else, but to snuggle up with my hubby on the couch for a few minutes before retiring for the night.

Oh, forgot to say that he's getting better and better at cutting, too! He picked it up so quickly!

So the lessons I learned today are:

Be flexible.

Don't let him nap longer than an hour, unless he's had no sleep or he's sick.

Stay encouraged. :)

Day 3: Intro to Chinese Numbers!

Today went really well. We had Practical Life and Chinese, as well as Circle Time, Bible, and Outside Play Time.
I'll let the pictures and videos do the "talking." Enjoy.

K is Reading

Intro to Chinese Numbers 0-5 (pinyin and characters)

Needless to say, we will definitely do this again!

Second Day Successes

Wow, Day 2 is over and we had a blast. Unexpected things come up all the time, but we roll with the punches; no big deal. You learn to be flexible when you have kids. :)


Today, both kids napped! So I napped, too! I couldn't be happier, especially after a workout!
Anyway, A and I worked on her curriculum in the morning while K is in daycare for 3 hours. It gives me enough time to workout while A naps and then I work with her one-on-one, which works out perfectly (she loves the attention, too, hehe). 
With A, I use "Teach My Baby" with her, as well as "Your Baby Can Read." She loves both. We take turns using one each day. For a 5-month old, she is super attentive and quiet during her lessons.

                 
I ordered "Teach My Baby" from www.toysrus.com and is about $50. Totally worth it!

                     

I got this entire set (except for the DVDs on the far right) on eBay. They were used, but in excellent condition. I think I paid about $80 for all of it. Again, totally worth it!

With K, we had a snack (granola bar, fruit, water), then went right into our Sensorial lesson. We used the Knobbed Cylinders (boards B and A only). He was better than I expected! Our lesson lasted about half the time, so we used the rest of the time going into activity extensions.

These are the knobbed cylinders (board B), which has 10 cylinders,
all same height, but different circumference (from skinny to fat).
       He figured it out fast!
       

This is Board A with 10 knobbed cylinders, all same circumference, but different heights (tall to short). This one was a bit more challenging, but I am glad at had it on hand in case he got Board B quickly.  What an impressive kid!

By the way, I get all of our Montessori materials from www.adenamontessori.com because they have the best prices and the quality is great for the price. I decided on these because, even though they aren't Nienhuis (the original Montessori material which cost maybe 10 times more), because I was planning on using them with just my kids. If I were to use them daily in a classroom setting (with more than 5 students), then I'd definitely go for more quality items. But Adena materials suit us perfectly.     

This is our Circle Time setup. I have all of our rhymes and songs on the giant notebook.

One of these days (when K can cut better), we will cut and paste pictures that go with the songs and rhymes to personalize them a bit.

After Circle Time (calendar, songs, reading, conversation), we had music time where we listened to Classical music, paying attention to the instruments we could hear (thanks to the Little Einsteins, K knows many names of instruments), and we also played with two different rain sticks. Even A tried them out!
We also played outside (throwing different size balls in the kiddie pool and them collecting them and throwing them down the slide into the kiddie pool). K enjoyed that game. So simple, so fun. He realized that he needed to throw the bigger and heavier balls harder than the small, lighter ones.

And we ended our day splashing around in the neighborhood pool. Fun!

They "Wake" Up!

Inspiration...

K's beans have sprouted and are growing really fast! I am so happy to see him excited about his beans. He is so responsible, too. Every time we go check on them, he lets me know that he needs to water them. Sigh. So sweet!

First Day of (Home)School

Inspiration...

First Day of (Home)School

Today, we had Quiet (room) Time, Circle Time, Outdoor Time, Snack Time, Math, and Art.

K's favorite thing about Quiet Time: Nothing. Lol

K's favorite thing about Circle Time: Singing and Reading. He can read in complete sentences. We are working on talking about the pictures so he can start understanding what he is reading. We will be working on fluency in a couple of months. For now, I am happy to hear him decoding words and reading.

He loves Outdoor Time because he gets to explore in our backyard or front yard. I am planning on taking him on "Field Trips" to the big field in our neighborhood, to the park, and to different playgrounds that are around here.

He had Chex Mix, blueberries, and water for a snack.

I remembered to take pictures when we were already in Math class!

Sandpaper Numbers (he was tracing them)

Number cards (he was counting the items on the cards

 Number Rods (he first counted each red and blue space and 

put them in order from smallest to largest)

Number Rods with matching number squares 

Then we did something fantastic: He learned how to cut with scissors!

K did very, very well in everything today. He has such a natural curiosity 

and hunger for learning that make it easy to teach him. I love it and I know 

he does, too. Here's to a great rest of the week!