We're back with a full school schedule and had a great time last week! The week started off slowly with unanticipated trip to the grocery store and day out with Daddy so really we did just three days last week but that was a good thing after all as we were all wiped out anyway! We have been enjoying our Olympics unit and I hope to post pictures of our completed lapbooks tomorrow once we get them finished off. We have learnt all kinds of great things about the Olympics, China and sport and had so much fun on Friday - we cooked a Chinese meal and tried (and failed!) to eat it with our chopsticks and watched the opening ceremony. If you didn't get to see it I would definitely encourage you to find it online - it was AWESOME! England is going to really do some work to top that in four years!
Here are some pictures of our week!
Here are some pictures of our week!
Kemi enjoying tummy-time!
We finished up our ice cream unit with an ice cream soda! Yummy!
Yum-O! Ice cream is so tasty!
Niyi is was so tired he fell asleep in Tayo's bed the other morning!
Lola got her hair cut! The first time ever - and she looks beautiful!
Circle Time:
I enjoy reading a blog entitled Preschoolers and Peace and got the idea for Circle time from Kendra. You can read about the idea here, but basically it is a time in the day where I get all my children (eventually it will be all four) together to start our day! When I began implementing this I wasn't sure if it would work out for us, but it is a huge hit around here! No matter what the kids are doing when I shout "circle time!" they come running! We have been playing with this for a few weeks now and I think we have figured out how it is going to work best for us.
Each circle time starts out the same with Praise and Worship, with lots of vigorous dancing, and a time of prayer. We then move on to bible time, either a devotional (right now we are talking about anger and how to deal with it) or a story from the bible with coloring sheets. I am planning on switching up this bible time to fit what we need to work on. We may work on character stuff with these character lapbooks, study select proverbs or parables or read through chronologically. After this we work on memory verses, then each day we do something a little different. On Mondays we do some math drills and talk about the upcoming week (my expectations, any assignments or trips out etc), on Tuesdays it is poetry and Spanish drills, Wednesdays are map work and another poem, Thursdays we will work on our Mystery of History index cards for memory work and read another poem and Friday is Artist Study and math games.
I have tried and failed many times to fit Artist and Poetry studies into our day, so circle time seems to be the answer for me. I am planning an artist, a poet and a composer to last six weeks. Right now we are studying Van Gogh, Robert Louis Stevenson and Bach (we are not listening to Bach during circle time, but during lunch). We are doing this in a very laid back way just as Charlotte Mason encourages us to, I am providing the books and the CD's and we are enjoying them. Occasionally I may read from biographies, but mostly we focus on enjoying the art...
The pictures below were taken on Friday - we are studying Van Gogh right now and the kids spent over 30 minutes just enjoying the books. We found some great little books called Touch the Art at our library and that is what you see the kids enjoying along with some other art books.
I enjoy reading a blog entitled Preschoolers and Peace and got the idea for Circle time from Kendra. You can read about the idea here, but basically it is a time in the day where I get all my children (eventually it will be all four) together to start our day! When I began implementing this I wasn't sure if it would work out for us, but it is a huge hit around here! No matter what the kids are doing when I shout "circle time!" they come running! We have been playing with this for a few weeks now and I think we have figured out how it is going to work best for us.
Each circle time starts out the same with Praise and Worship, with lots of vigorous dancing, and a time of prayer. We then move on to bible time, either a devotional (right now we are talking about anger and how to deal with it) or a story from the bible with coloring sheets. I am planning on switching up this bible time to fit what we need to work on. We may work on character stuff with these character lapbooks, study select proverbs or parables or read through chronologically. After this we work on memory verses, then each day we do something a little different. On Mondays we do some math drills and talk about the upcoming week (my expectations, any assignments or trips out etc), on Tuesdays it is poetry and Spanish drills, Wednesdays are map work and another poem, Thursdays we will work on our Mystery of History index cards for memory work and read another poem and Friday is Artist Study and math games.
I have tried and failed many times to fit Artist and Poetry studies into our day, so circle time seems to be the answer for me. I am planning an artist, a poet and a composer to last six weeks. Right now we are studying Van Gogh, Robert Louis Stevenson and Bach (we are not listening to Bach during circle time, but during lunch). We are doing this in a very laid back way just as Charlotte Mason encourages us to, I am providing the books and the CD's and we are enjoying them. Occasionally I may read from biographies, but mostly we focus on enjoying the art...
The pictures below were taken on Friday - we are studying Van Gogh right now and the kids spent over 30 minutes just enjoying the books. We found some great little books called Touch the Art at our library and that is what you see the kids enjoying along with some other art books.
Even Niyi can appreciate a good piece of artwork!
I am trying to keep the books out on display.So that has been one very busy week in one very small nutshell! See you soon!
