Jessica's Week
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​One of the things I was excited about when we moved to Pennsylvania was the fact that we’d be living less than an hour away from Punxsutawney Phil! Our most successful “tot school” last year in GA was on groundhogs day and I couldn’t wait to expand it to an entire week of fun! Since Phil predicts the weather we spent time talking about what the most common weather is for each season and played dress up trying on outfits that are commonly worn at that time of year. This was a good way to spend extra time practicing independently dressing, buttons, zippers etc. 

After a day of general seasonal weather learning we got into playing meteorologist and recording the weather at our home. Taegan helped (kind of ;) build a weather station and each morning she would observe and make predictions about the forecast. To help her understand why the weather changes we made a water cycle bag taped to the window. Taegan loved pointing out the condensation as it accumulated but seemed a little confused as to why it didn’t precipitate as snow (like we had outside). 

   The best part of our weather week was the field trip to Punxsutawney. Phil’s prediction happens in the freezing cold at daybreak and people walk for miles then hang out all night waiting to see it happen. This is NOT a toddler friendly activity. Fortunately, the day before there’s a ton of fun activities for kids in the town of Punxy and it really wasn’t even crowded. We visited Phil in his burrow at the local library and also took part in a fun themed storytime. The town square had additional crafts and games for kids and there was a farmers market where we bought a yummy groundhog cupcake for snack time. We lucked out and ran into the national weather station just arriving in town! I really like that T got to meet a real meteorologist and even see some of their equipment. We hiked around Gobblers Knob while film crews were setting up for the main event and then ended our trip with a visit to the Weather Discovery Center. This is a great smaller museum with lots of activities for younger children. They simulate a tornado using a tunnel slide with sound effects and a foam tower to knock out at the bottom. We got to make thunder and lightning, see ourselves on screen playing meteorologist, and play with a more lifelike water cycle. 

    This was a very fun week for us and if you live in PA it’s definitely worth making a drive to check out Punxsutawney sometime! 

​Ana's Week

For our third week of school, we focused on the weather. I planned more hands-on interactive projects for this week, so it ended up being more successful than the week previous. We made a weather chart and checked out the weather each day on weather.com. We made weather bottles to show what different weather looks like (very, very successful). We learned about rainbows and practiced stringing with homemade dyed pasta to create our own rainbow coming out of the clouds. We dyed the pasta easily with hand sanitizer and food dye squirted onto the pasta in a Ziploc bag, shook them up in a bag, and then dried them on paper towels. We made our own blue dyed rice this way and created our own rain shakers in a water bottle by stuffing the bottles with rice and cotton balls. We also practiced the letter C and pasted cotton balls onto a white letter C for “cloud”. I also created my own weather matching game by printing pictures I found on Pinterest, laminating them, and having Aria match the weather types. This allowed me to do a cursory introduction to some more difficult to explain weather, like partly cloudy and hail. She loved this game so we did it multiple times. 

 For a snack this week, because of how successful last week was with frozen yogurt snacks, we made frozen yogurt “cupcakes” in different colors with different fruit flavors for the rainbow. I didn’t do as many colors as I liked, but I only had so many silicone cupcake holders. Aria loved these and had fun making them with me. I will make these again.

Other ideas for a weather unit are: doing a weather I-spy (found one on Pinterest and it helped give us a way to talk about different cloud types) and reusing the dress up dolls from the seasonal unit to practice dressing the dolls for different types of weather.
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On a side note, the pictures of Aria and Skylar playing instruments above are from a Music Together class, which we have decided to be part of this semester. This allows us to have a musical outlet outside of the home, and it gives us the chance to spend time with other little kids. Both Aria and Skylar can get involved, play instruments, dance, and sing (though Skylar mostly just watches and bounces along). Not the cheapest option, but any way to incorporate music with homeschooling is great! Once this class is done, we will likely go to a free music class at the library each week to make sure music is still a major part of our week. ​

Jessica's Week

So this turned into kind of an odd mash up for us. I had seen lots of “Jungle” pinterest activities and wanted to include this as a unit. Unfortunately, when I started gathering resources and checking out books, many of the animals mentioned did not come from a clearly defined “jungle” environment. We had everything from deserts to rainforests represented.  So I guess it was more of overarching zoo lesson than jungle but whatever. 

We reviewed camouflage (which had been introduced in our Arctic lesson) and spent a lot of time discussing different habitats and geography of the world. I tried to do a few cultural activity tie-ins with  crafts by making rain sticks and African masks.  We listened to music and watched cultural dance videos from these regions of the world. Taegan loved creating her own sensory bin for the “zoo” animals to play in. She gathered lots of leaves, rocks, sticks etc and attempted to layer them the same way the layers of the rainforest are explained by “cat in the hat” in our book/tv episode. She used a water bottle with holes poked in the bottom to “make it rain” and we observed places where the water pooled and how this might be attractive or unattractive for various animals and plants. For snack we made delicious chocolate covered frozen bananas dipped in coconut and crushed nuts. While we eat really healthy 80-90% of the time our school themed snacks rarely meet my standards. This was one treat that I felt proud of. Sure there’s some dark chocolate involved but everything else was healthy and T got to do each step on her own. She stirred up the chocolate to melt, dipped fruit, crushed the nuts with a mortar/pestle, and rolled the banana in its toppings. Yum!
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Truthfully, we didn’t spend a whole lot of time on school this week but I enjoyed everything we did ….especially our field trip Friday at the free Smithsonian zoo in DC visiting all our animal friends up close and personal in their habitats. This is an easy bridge to summertime unit and I think I’ll repeat it as a mini (maybe 1 or 2 days max) next year.

Jessica's Week

​​Sometimes I try to base themes on my daughter’s interests and sometimes I try to spark interest by using a theme. While I feel both are important I’m sure you can guess which is more successful lol. My child does not show much interest in visual expression. She is reluctant with many arts/crafts and despises coloring. Now I'm not particularly skilled with a pencil...even my signature is illegible but I've grown to at least appreciate visual arts and want Taegan to participate on a childhood level. I also believe it will be a problem if T enters kindergarten refusing to shade a coloring page with more than three black lines. 

So I set aside a week to focus on the most unique, interesting concepts of art in attempt to expand her horizons. I wanted to explore many art mediums, hoping if she saw dance, singing, and building as art she might also want to try sculpting or paper cutting. We began by mixing primary colored paint in a bag and learning how secondary colors are made. We also poured food coloring. Spring has finally arrived in PA so I tried to spend at least one day doing art outdoors. We colored with chalk and painted a rock path in the playground.

​ When Taegan’s friend Riley spent the afternoon with us we did a really cool milk paint experiment that both girls loved. We also made some hardening clay sculptures. The girls enjoyed decorating their clay with beads and bendy sticks much more than actually shaping it but the clay was a little harder in consistency than playdoh and may have been too difficult for little hands to work with.

Another favorite concept this week was studying architecture. I printed a bunch of photos of famous landmarks from around the world and we tried our hand at building the Taj Mahal, Eiffel Tower, etc. Taegan loved these so I laminated them and they will be a permanent fixture in our building play area. She hasn’t really remembered any of the landmarks when asked but my hope is that seeing and interacting with them often will eventually bring about familiarity.
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We didn’t make a ton of progress with coloring in the lines but at very least I’m glad Taegan got lots of practice holding crayons and other writing utensils this week. She had a moderate amount of fun with the other visual art expressions and of course loved when we explored dance and singing as art.  This wasn’t a favorite week for either of us but it did build on some of Ts passions and provide an opportunity to practice some skills she could improve upon. 

Jessica's Week

​I decided to introduce Taegan to a passion of mine that has been on the backburner for far too long. I love camping! In truth its part glamping….I enjoy drive up sites, air mattresses with a battery powered fan in the 3-room tent, and French press coffee for the morning…but tent camping nevertheless. Since it’s still May and I’m not quite ready to call it quits for the school year we turned this into a full on learning theme.

 In preparation for this week I did something I rarely do…I paid for a resource. I know (gasp) this is something Ana and I both set out to avoid whenever possible. It was a camping themed bible lesson with printables to “color and pack your camping supplies” and then set off on an active mission as a “Good Samaritan” for the Lord. It was really fun, unique, and complex. We spent close to an hour acting out the mission. If you can afford to drop a few dollars on materials this is a really neat way to incorporate a bible lesson into your theme. 
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Some of our other camping activities included: making and following our own maps, learning to use a compass, and matching animal tracks to those we could find in the wild. It was great to enjoy the not quite summer weather and do most of our learning outdoors. The best part was at the end of the week when we took our skills out for a trial run overnight camping with some friends. I think Taegan enjoyed  it even more than I did. Its great to think we can share this passion for the great outdoors all summer long!

Jessica's 1st Summer Mini Lesson Plan:

With Ana and the girls in town I really wanted to test out a lesson all three kids could participate in. I would like to start a local co-op eventually and if/when we foster I will likely need to include other children (possibly of various ages) into our weekly lessons. This was the perfect opportunity to see if I could find activities to challenge and excite each child individually while allowing for cooperation and social interaction throughout the lesson. We certainly had some success but I must admit it was much harder than I had anticipated. Each child has their own learning style and pace so keeping everyone's attention is sometimes trying. I was able to come up with several "watermelon" sensory or movement based activities Skylar could easily join in on and even a few complimentary ones (such as seed scooping while the older girls counted seeds) but because her attention span is not nearly as developed she quickly tired of them and preferred to wander off or be held. This was fine with Ana present but I can imagine just how difficult it would be for one adult to manage all the kids together. I'm sure there is no perfect way to prepare for teaching multiple ages, but I did feel like I picked up a couple tips from our watermelon day experiment. 

1. Be flexible: No one is learning anything if one kid is overly tired or hungry etc. Sometimes you just have to hit the pause button mid lesson and take care of the basics before you can expect everyone to focus.

2. Allow for Individuality: if one child really wants to take their time on an art project perhaps the other can repeat an experiment he or she seemed particularly interested in. Doing school together doesn't mean we all have to be doing exactly the same thing at the same time. Kids should be allowed to indulge their own interests, strengths, pace etc just as adults do. 

3. Sometimes the best lesson is the simplest: I think the kids (collectively) enjoyed and got as much out of examining a watermelon with a magnifying glass while I asked questions about what they saw (colors, patterns, bruises, textures, sound, weight, stem/seeds and on) as they did with any of the activities I carefully planned and prepped for hours. It's certainly fun to feel like the "cool" teacher with a 5 step watermelon obstacle course for them to navigate but there's nothing wrong with skipping some of those more difficult activities in favor of old fashioned conversation and exploration!
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Taegan hasn't stopped missing her friend Aria since they've left so I'm hoping we can make a trip to see them again and do another school lesson together sometime during the coming year. Homeschooling is great but with friends it is definitely more fun!

Jessica's Week

​We’ve participated in kindermusik all year but Taegan doesn’t seem to enjoy it as much as the other children so I’ve been searching for an alternative. I recently stumbled upon a class called “let’s play music” a three year program that teaches preschool age children to read and compose music as well as play piano through a play-based exploration curriculum. It looks Amazing! Unfortunately Taegan is still a year under the minimum age requirements but it got me thinking. Could I introduce music theory to a three year old in a fun way? Well the answer is yes! We had a great homeschool week learning the basic concepts of music. I have an old hand me down keyboard we covered with stickers of the musical scale (A-G). We were able to practice correct hand position while reviewing the alphabet and where the notes are located simultaneously. We also learned about rhythm and how many beats different notes get, there by reviewing basic math. It was unexpectedly awesome how easily these basic core subjects relate to music! 

We also spent a lot of time learning about the orchestra and different instruments. I made Montessori cards to match the toob instruments and we bought our first Usborne book...”The Orchestra” which actually introduces the sound of each instrument, section, and orchestra as a whole. Taegan loves playing conductor more than anything else and she was thrilled when we got to see a conductor in action at Pittsburgh Symphony’s Fiddlesticks. I highly recommend checking out one of these programs because they are highly interactive as well as a great cultural experience. T sang songs with the opera singers, got up close with various instruments and made crafts before the performance started. Then they had costumed characters, children’s books, and cultural dancers to accompany the music. Really proud of Pittsburgh Symphony for thinking outside the box to get kids interested in orchestral music! 

The final highlight of our week was a science tie-in where we explored sound. It was great to branch out from musical performance and do some hands on experiments visualizing the noise. We put cling wrap over some bowls and set rice on top. The rice moved differently when we whispered or talked and T thought it was hilarious to watch it jump/dance when we yelled as loud as possible (because what kid doesnt love to scream lol). We also filled glasses with differing amounts of water, pouring back and forth to create and compare tones made by higher or lower water levels. The only thing I wasn't able to get my hands on that I would like to for this theme next year is Alex Toys bath water flutes. Same concept as the cups but with a really cool instrument. 

Jessica's Week
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​My plan for this week was to pair building and planting our family vegetable garden with a preschool garden theme. The problem is both these activities are labor intensive and pretty hard to accomplish simultaneously with a three-year-old. Thankfully I believe she will benefit from learning to cultivate food for years to come so I was ok with making it a second rate lesson plan.

We tirelessly planned, paced, measured and marked. Holes were dug and seeds were individually kissed before being tucked carefully into their warm dirt beds.  And the win of the week is a Pinterest worthy garden with raised beds, pebble walkway, and split rail fence.... executed entirely by my wonderful husband but since it's my design and T hand planted each seed it will henceforth be known as family project "homegrown with love". If it all grows that is 😳 

To learn more about gardening in the classroom we focused on the parts of a plant and differentiating types of seeds. By sequencing how a plant grows and then observing seedlings popping up in our yard and garden I felt like this theme really came to life for Taegan. Too bad we couldn’t make it all the way to harvest in a week! We categorized different seeds with matching Montessori cards and did some STEM building flowers from tanagrams. Taegans favorite activity was pretend play with various types of garden sensory bins. We pretended to be the farmers growing plants, then pickers harvesting, then had a market to sell our veggies. I really enjoyed the books we picked out for this week too. There's some great reads for this age group with regards to spring and gardening so head to the library if you can and pick a couple of these up!

A trip to visit the gardens of Phipps conservatory made a great field trip to compliment our lesson. They had a spring plant sale so we picked up some extra garden goodies and then played with friends in the observatory. This was our first time visiting and it didn't disappoint. While we didn’t complete as many learning activities as I had planned we did get a large garden up and running this week. Hopefully that will provide life skill learning all summer long!

Ana's Week

Our human body week was hands down the most fun and interactive unit that we’ve done this PK-4 year. We did loads of science experiments (I would argue that the Magic School Bus Human Body science kit is a must buy), and we did some super fun food activities. All of these experiments and activities really helped Aria, and even me, to learn much more about the human body than we knew at the start of the week. I love that I can learn along with her through homeschooling, and some of the resources out there are truly amazing!

The Human Body Organs Toob is a great complement to the unit, and we used them almost every day for learning activities and reviewing terms. Skylar was able to play with them while we were working on other activities, which was a great bonus. We also bought a little skeleton at Party City since it is Halloween time, which not only helped with studying body systems, but also worked as decoration at Halloween time. Another great buy for the unit was the brain jello mold. We were able to make our own jello brain following the instructions on the box, and then the kids could dissect and eat the brain for a snack (though they ended up being just as grossed out by the jello as me).

Aria’s favorite day of the week was germ day, where we talked about how germs work, how to stay sanitary, and did some awesome science experiments. She loved both the pepper and glitter experiments, and we all had fun playing with playdough to make viruses and blood cells while talking about the function of red and white cells. We were also able to working on teaching Skylar the ABC song, as Aria would sing her ABCs while washing her hands after each activity.
Making rice krispy treat lungs helped Aria not only see what the parts of the lungs might look like, but also helped her remember the organs. Plus, that was by far the most popular snack of the week for the girls. The Magic School Bus science kit activities kept us busy all Friday morning and were the perfect way to end the week. While some activities were fairly hard, the kit can be reused as she gets older, so it was definitely worth the cost. Aria begged for more science experiments when we were done, so she thoroughly enjoyed herself (especially the taste buds test and the glitter whirlpool to represent how inner ear fluid works).
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I love how there is always more to learn when it comes to the human body, so young or old, the unit can be fun and a great learning experience. Aria, Skylar, and I were all able to have fun, work on projects and experiments together, and feel like the fun was actually helping us to hit points home and understand our bodies better. Even though Skylar is only 1 ½, I’m so glad that she is ready to climb on a chair and get to work if her sister is doing school. I can’t wait to see what she is able to catch onto early because of her readiness to learn! Hopefully, after a week studying our bodies and germs, Aria will be better about keeping her body healthy and strong through hand washing, exercise and eating her fruits and veggies! 

Jessica's Week

So Grandma was visiting for part of this week and towards the end T came down with a little fever. There’s always something to get in the way of a strong homeschool theme am I right? I realized today though, after a year of doing this I’m getting better at powering through and not allowing the hectic interruptions of life to stall our progress. So except for the few hours T was not feeling well enough to leave the couch, we soldiered on. 

In addition to our Magic School Bus body science kit, I found a new experiment for the unit that turned out to be a big hit. T replicated the digestive process crushing crackers, mixing in stomach acid (fresh squeezed lemon juice) and watching how our bodies break down food. Playing with the jello brain was our easy sick day experiment and pretty much all I could get her to eat a few bites of that day. 

As Taegan has gotten a little more mature I’ve tried to adapt our sensory activities to more learning/less play when possible. We practiced writing letters on a pretend x-ray table (lighted bin with black sand) and put together the blood components water bead tub we did last year. I was pleasantly surprised to find T remembered the names of several blood related parts. She also knows most of her organ names, where they live and basic function. 
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I had a breakthrough Pinterest find this week with Mrs. Plemon’s kindergarten blog. We decided to purchase the year of downloads because she was offering a deal and there are so many awesome activities with the same themes we already explore. Even if you don’t buy the bundle though, many of her ideas can be replicated and everything is organized by age group in a theme per week format so I recommend at least checking it out! https://mrsplemonskindergarten.com/ We used two of her activities for body week. First T used q-tips to make her name out of bones, and second I purchased the recommended skeleton decal for her to practice bone names and skeletal position. Taegan needed the picture on the box to help her assemble the puzzle but she loved the activity and it was all easily re-positionable so I think we will get a few more years of use from it.

Ana's Week

​Spending the week before Aria’s birthday on a farm, farm animals, and food unit ended up being a great decision, as we were so overloaded with party preparations, cleaning, and guests that keeping it a fun week benefited us greatly. We had wonderful plans to visit a farm of one of our friends the day after Aria’s birthday, but then we were hit with a week of rain and had to cancel our big, end-of-unit excitement. I still think that the idea of what a farm is, what food farmers and farm animals provide, and a basic understanding of liquids, solids, and various foods form was conveyed, so we can count the week as an overall success.

Aria had the most fun with our outdoor activities during the week, from animal and food washes and relays to playing in a farm rice box. Both girls flipped over “milking” a cow using a latex glove filled with water, and that activity entertained the girls over multiple days. Aria also flipped over the Friendly Farm Math Activity set, which helped us practice counting in a fun way. Farm yoga and the farm movement cards were a great way to get energy out while being silly, so we did some exercises each day, with Aria asking for repeats. The farm movement cards really are a must print and do!

My favorite activities of the week were the food activities. Aria and I did some science experiments with food together, practicing converting liquids to solids and solids to liquids. Making and playing with jello was a big hit and provided us with dessert for the grandparents one night. Talking about corn in different forms and watching the hopping corn science experiment was fascinating for all of us in the family. I definitely suggest trying the experiment out (but don’t seal your jar too tight or it won’t work; we learned that the hard way)! The kids loved eating the applesauce we made after studying the parts of an apple, and our colorful foods taste test was a great way to get Aria and Skylar (who has to copy everything her sister does) to eat some veggies for a snack. The most fun we had, though, was making butter and ice cream, neither of which I was sure would work. We found out the best way to shake the ice bag full of milk was to hold it gently on the top of the bag so the warmth of our hands wouldn’t melt the ice. I had to help Aria with shaking the bag for probably half the time, but she loved the experiment and the girls loved eating the ice cream. The butter activity was easy set-up but harder labor. Aria gave up shaking the bottle after a few minutes, but my husband took over and after about 20 minutes we had real butter. It was honestly, truly delicious on our breakfast breads! We used more cream than they said because we had a larger mason jar and I figured I would adapt. In the future, I would use a much smaller amount because it might take less time!

An added benefit to the week, other than I already had most of the items from last year’s unit and therefore didn’t have to buy many supplies, was that it motivated Aria to help me make food for her birthday party. She helped her dad with her cake and helped me cut up and make a fruit salad for the party (which we also used as a lesson on parts of fruits, seeds, and what makes a fruit). Nothing like using school to help with party preparations!

While I wouldn’t call this a strenuous week, I think reminding our kids to think about where our food comes from, aka not just a store, and encouraging them to have a respect for those who work hard to plant, grow, milk, harvest, etc., our foods can only be beneficial. Next week when we go to a pumpkin patch, hopefully we can enhance and hit home the concepts from the unit!