September is usually a month of review for us. I try to cram in one month what we learned in one year in regards to basic subjects like math and reading. Sometimes this spills into October, sometimes it doesn't. Again, we learn year round, but I don't do a lot of formal or focused schoolwork with Sparrow from June til September.
We learn a Bible verse and a hymn a week, or so is the plan. ;) This year I am struggling with what I want to teach about civics and patriotism, so while normally we would start with the pledge of allegiance, we didn't this morning. These things typically begin our structured learning for the day.
Today we did some work in workbooks...it is my younger daughter's first time with 'preschool lite' and to my surprise she adored working in her book...she wanted to do every page! ;) We'll see if it lasts!
| Sparrow in the grass, working on phonics/logic activities | First workbook lessons! |
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This year we are doing two unit studies-one on our state's history and one on seasons. So we are doing a unit on autumn at the moment. For the month of September, we are learning about apples, which will actually fortuitously dovetail into our state history studies. But the beauty of unit studies are just that...they can dovetail into just about anything. Learning about the season of fall, we are learning botany and biology, weather and climate, and relating it to many other subjects as well--such as art, history, cultures, math, grammar, reading, anthropology, environmental, Bible, etc. Field trips will abound. And it will all take place in the every day beat of life, as we observe it happening around us.
With the unit on our state, we will be learning history and geography primarily, but it will of course lend itself to all the other subjects as well, and also be a natural outflow of simply living in the state.
I am certainly looking forward to all the field trips and activities I have planned for this, as well as all the delicious apple-related food we will consume. For October we will be doing pumpkins and squash; for November we will be learning about cranberries and root vegetables like potatoes.
So today, we celebrated the beginning of the school year proper with apple treats...sliced apples with caramel dip, pure apple juice, and cinnamon-dusted apple chips. :)
We also used some sliced apples for a stamping project. We made some gift bags and wrapping paper for the apple-related treats we plan on giving to some people in a few weeks. The girls had a lot of fun with this...and I was glad we were outside, because it was QUITE messy!
This is the first year I have done anything 'formal' with my younger daughter. Now that she's four, we'll step up some of our Montessori work and explore some math and phonics concepts, as well as learning in our fall/state units what she can :) I am not a huge fan of formal learning for kids her age, but she REALLY wants to do what her big sister is doing, thus the workbooks and such. So technically, this is her 'preschool' year...and what would a preschool or kindergarten be without a giant colorful calendar?!
I couldn't find any calendars that I liked, much less could afford. So I made one. Someday I will make a fully reusable fabric calendar. But for now, our poster-board one will suffice. I can use it at least twice, anyways ;) The white squares will be filled in with what we're doing that day (like, gymnastics lesson or HRC), and represent the days yet to come ('white' is still very blank...those days haven't been written yet, get it?) and indicate holidays coming up, etc. The green apple is the current day, and we'll record observations on it like the temperature and weather. The red apples represent a completed day. They are actually pre-shaped post-it notes, which work perfectly for my purposes...we can peek under the green apple to see what we are doing that day, and peek under the red apples to remember our observations for comparison (or under both to see what we did that day). I also splurged on the sparkly letters, which are attached with tape and fully reusable.
All in all, it was a promising beginning to our school year! :)
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