I'll take a moment to describe what we've been doing in "school." There have been 6 days so far that the boys have heard me shake a tambourine - their signal that I'm ready - and have taken a seat on a rug in the classroom. We usually begin with the "silence game" to calm down. We close our eyes and listen. When I make a noise with a percussion instrument, they open their eyes and list all the things that they heard. Most of the time the main thing they hear is their little brother playing in the other room! They also hear things like traffic down the high way, geese flying over head, or perhaps the washing machine.
We review classroom rules and basic grace and courtesy items such as: sitting down & getting up from a chair at a desk; using and rolling up work rugs; saying "hello" and "goodbye" with eye contact; asking if you can watch someone else do their work. Then I do some presentations for the 3yo (always watched with interest by the 5yo,) then 1-2 presentations for the 5yo, and then I work on letter sounds (aka "pink reading activities") with the 3yo. I try to end with hugs! All in all, it's only about 10 minutes that I'm actually in the room with them. Of course it takes a lot more time than that to plan activities and get presentations set up!
Presentations so far for the 3yo:
using a hole punch
transferring water by sponge squeezing
putting clothes pins on a box (2 sizes to clarify "big", "small")
name tracing
transferring pom poms to an ice cube tray with tongs
putting rubber bands on a peg board (the 5yo loves this)
dry pouring beans
transferring colored water with a large baster
flipping lids with a pancake turner
hammering golf tees into clay
dusting
table setting and table matters, including rolling napkins & using napkin rings
passing sharp objects
transferring water with an eye dropper
brown stairs (5yo additionally measured them with a ruler)
sandpaper letters & numbers - reviewing 3 each day
red box of knobless cylinders ("narrow", "wide")
large button dressing frame
salt tray for tracing letters and numbers
pasting (I've tried school glue bottles & glue sticks without success. Eventually they are too tempting to misuse! So I got this bottle and it works great. Also got these for them to use as mosaics for patterning.)
Recent presentations for the 5yo:
shoe lacing (he learned to tie last month)
plant care including leaf washing
capitalization of proper nouns
stamp game
Hundred board review
grinding with a mortar & pestle (egg shells so far, though I'm looking for other things to use.)
pasting
Also, a typing program on the computer.
As soon as I get a chance, I have binders ready for him to begin narrating to me about books he has read as well as a Book of Centuries. Ahhh, if only there were more hours to each day!
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4 comments:
Does ds#3 really leave you alone in the classroom for 10 whole minutes? What's your secret? (I think I'd have to strap mine in the high chair with graham crackers...)
yes, graham crackers, chocolate chips, whatever. :)
My 3rd child is the first son I've had who is pretty content to just play by himself... He is seriously the easiest child we've had by far. I make sure he's had breakfast & has a dry diaper, and then I start playing with him in his room & sneak away when he's happy. There has only been 1 day so far that he's cried, and it was just for about 30 seconds. He sometimes stands at the gate (there's a baby gate into the classroom) and just watches us. Sometimes I take something "special" out of the classroom for him to play with while we work - percussion instruments, puzzles, etc.
And by the way, we haven't done ANY school this week, because the boys trashed the room on Monday and wouldn't pick it up. It started out the 3yo spilled one messy thing on the floor, and it just went downhill from there. Every day they say they want to do school, and I say we can't until they put their things away. Which they finally did today. So, back to school tomorrow!
i would love to see pics of the mosaic work that they did? how did lead up to that? did you show other art pieces?
the mosaic pieces we used - which I linked to - came with a single piece of paper (which I of course LAMINATED!) full of examples of patterns they could make. Things like you'd see on a quilt. This was over ds3's head, but ds5 tried it.
Mostly, they just wanted to glue, glue, glue.
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