First Poem from Class

Hazel reciting her poem from recitation.  The Hart Loves the Wood, a medieval nursery rhyme.

Last week in school

We made salt dough vegetables, read Tops and Bottoms (definitely recommended - a great book) and The Vegetables We Eat (also a really good book), practiced writing our name and continued on in her phonics book.  Hazel had her first day of recitation and loved it.  This week we'll be reading the first chapter of The Story of the World and talking more about the middle ages as homework for that class.  She was talking about knights most of the weekend.  Things are off to a good start!

This week is all about cows, milk, butter, and cheese.  Excited to do some fun projects with Hazel and Klaas for that.

And I'm posting a picture of tomatoes.  Because we are getting a lot of yummy tomatoes off our plants.

First Day

First day.  Well, not her actual first day.  First assembly.  We've already started doing our homeschooling, but this Friday Miss Hazel starts her one-day-a-week recitation class.  Her class will be meeting at the Christian school here, so even though her class is separate from the regular school, she gets to wear the uniform.  She's so big.  And cute.  And we can't believe she's four and going to a class.  

Today was the first day of school for the full-time students and the recitation class was invited to attend the morning assembly.  She was rather excited, then was a little nervous about sitting with the other girls.  But she overcame her nervousness and did great listening to the school rules.  The main facts she walked away with were "no climbing up the slide and "no sitting on the boys."  I'm not sure where that came from, but hey, that's probably a good thing to remember.   

At home we're working our way through the phonics book, alphabet workbooks, and this week (if I can get the books from the library), we're going to start an activity/reading plan from the Wee Folk Art website.  Excited!  This week: salt dough vegetable-making, field trip to the grocery store, and reading Tops and Bottoms and The Vegetables We Eat. 

A spring week

Weather this week was unseasonably warm here on the Palouse.  Of course it gradually transitioned into the cold and rainy weather we're used to in April and the beginning of May.  But on Monday and Tuesday, we were outside a lot, playing at the park and in the water outside (I still need to locate the air blower that is hidden amongst our camping stuff in order to inflate the wading pool.)

 

Wednesday was the awards ceremony for Hazel's AWANA group.  She finished her book so she got a certificate (very proud) and a mini Cubbie bear (her age group's little mascot).  We got to watch them all sing their Cubbie theme song.  Quite adorable.

Then it rained the rest of the week.  While I did lots of dishes and cleaning on Thursday, the kids watched part of Pete's Dragon on YouTube.  You can tell they were enthralled.

Klaas helped me out with some mopping.

Today was cold again, but when we got home from my checkup (34 weeks!) they ran around outside for a while.  And they looked cute, so I had to take pictures.

 

And we're working more on writing her name, so here is her latest success (with lots of help).  Very proud of her!

Last week we did some little alphabet sheets I found via Pinterest (the best thing ever). And we're continuing in her Rod and Staff workbooks, which she loves, and the reading book, which is (as I predicted) a little hard for her. So she and I have slowed down a bit with that and are spending a couple days on each lesson. But Jason and I are so proud of her since she is recognizing letters right and left when we go out and starting to remember her numbers too...

This is what a typical morning looks like around here: Hazel wearing some funny outfit she came up with (I can't wait until that dress actually fits her - it's from my sister-in-law and I love it!) and Klaas was getting frustrated that he couldn't get his feet into the klompen slippers without assistance.
And this is Hazel and me reading last night on the couch. It made me happy because she just climbed up on my lap like that to look at her AWANA book while I was drinking tea and relaxing. And it makes me laugh because this is her attempt at a "real smile" when Jason asked her to look happy. (We're keeping it real with the random diaper, apron, and shirt that are on the couch. This is just what our place looks like on a Sunday night: slightly crazy.)
A project I finally finished. We bought this stepstool when Hazel was a baby and I finally painted it this summer. I can't find a before picture, but it was very beat up and pink. Jason helped me sand away some nasty who-knows-what it was (wait, Jason probably does know) stuff that was on the steps about, oh....3 months ago. I got around to painting it a couple of weeks ago. (I'm keeping it real yet again by showing you the random Lego pieces and my shoes that are on the floor.)

Another little project we did was this. Jason saw something similar on Pinterest (there it is again, the best website ever) and found an old shutter at work somewhere. So I painted it "way too green" in Jason's opinion and we hung it up to hold pictures, cards, and whatever else we want to stick up there.
I also repainted our kitchen table, something I've been talking about doing for about 1 1/2 years. It's now white and I love it. But it's covered in stuff like always, so it's not very photogenic right now. I will try to style a very chic photo shoot later this week.

And just so he's not neglected by not being super-involved with this post, here's Klaas yesterday, lying down in the slide. I guess he wanted to watch the clouds.

This week

Here are some pictures of our week. Hazel started working on the Rod and Staff 3/4 workbooks. She is now an expert at matching!
We also did some apple stamps. Also a new favorite.
And here's a snapshot of Hazel at AWANA racing around the circle to the finish. She had fun.
And Klaas fished toys out of the kiddie pool to chew on.
He also likes to model his new sweater and tennis shoes. We should post a video of him walking sometime. He's practically running now...

We're starting

Since Hazel is three and is ready/wants to start doing more "school" type activities, we're slowly starting to try and do "school time" every day. And since I do better at things when I keep a record of what I've done and make lists of things to do, I'm going to start blogging a bit about what we're doing for our little projects.

First of all though, it should be said that I am a person who does much better with outside-enforced organization than self-imposed organization. I figured let's start when she's young and then I can get in the swing of things within a year. That's the plan anyway....

We're doing a reading lesson every day from Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons and so far she really likes the time we spend on that. She's probably a little young to do this, but so far she is getting the concepts, so we'll see where we are in a few months.

We're also working on general alphabet recognition and this week and part of next week, we'll be working on the letter A, with a new letter every week. We made this little apple on Wednesday and did a little letter search.
Of course we're also trying to point out "A"s wherever we see them in reading as well. Hazel is funny: she has favorite letters. H (of course), K (of course), W, and Q.
Next week we'll be doing some apple stamps on paper and a tote bag (for mama).

I've also started following the recommendations in Slow and Steady, Get Me Ready, which is a wonderful book with activities for every week from birth to age 5. This week we're talking about the differences between snakes, frogs, fish, and birds. So right now I'm printing out some coloring pages about snakes and frogs and later we'll look at some pictures of snakes shedding their skin.

Yesterday and today, Klaas and I were learning about "on" and "off" with lids. He's so cute and excited when he learns something new.

Of course we're reading, reading, reading. Some of the books from the library this week include:
Dr. De Soto by William Steig
Food for Thought by Saxton Freymann and Joost Elffers
Rip Van Winkle by Will Moses and Washington Irving
Give the Dog a Bone by Steven Kellogg
Ox-Cart Man by Donald Hall

And for Klaas, we got I Touch, which is similar to a book we already have, I Hear. We read a lot during lunch time, so both of the kids are happy eating while they listen. This is especially nice for Klaas, who does like lap time and reading, but can get a little wiggly.

So basically our plan right now is: working on letters (and then moving onto number recognition - she can already count, but doesn't know the number symbols) and letter-related activities, reading, and reading.

One book I would recommend is A Well-Trained Mind. I read it last year, and just purchased a copy to own. Super helpful with curriculum reviews (starting with kindergarten) and a general plan outline for schooling.

So that's where we are right now in September, 2011. Stay tuned for another update next week!