Preschool Week 2- Bugs

For the start of bug week Ava joined us for the day.  Since Monday is usually our library day I decided to push that to Tuesday so we could get right on with the field trips.  Today was all about water bugs.  We packed up the wagon with a small picnic and I grabbed two nets from an Elefun game. 

The girls acting their age :)

When we got to the pond I was totally blown away by what we saw.  There were hundreds of small blue dragonflies all over the place.  They were so beautiful and thankfully for me, easy to catch, so I caught a couple for Olivia and Ava so they could get a close look.

It was really funny to see them start off very slowly and carefully trying to catch a dragonfly.  After about ten minutes they realized it was getting then no where and so when they saw a dragonfly land on a plant, they would run over and practically beat the plant down trying to get the bug.  In case you're wondering, that technique didn't work either.

 I love this shot.  "Mom, I think I got a dragonfly!"  Olivia did end up catching two bugs before the day was over.  She yells over to me, "Mom, I got one.  I got a bug!"  I run over and she releases two bees right in my face.  No stings thankfully but from then on I had to be very clear about not catching bees.

 We did an entire day for bees because bees are cool, except when they fly in my face.  It just so happened that a bee garden opened up the week before.  I love UCD.  They have made preschool so easy and practically free.  After visiting the garden, which was really cool, Olivia didn't want to do my bee craft so we went with what she wanted to do.  We ate honey sticks and then later on baked a honey cake.  Her ideas were better anyway.

Olivia visiting the Bohart Museum of Entomology.

Art Projects for the Week

 Olivia really liked this one and wanted to do a picnic scene so that ants could eat a cupcake.  To make an ant, dip one finger in paint and then dot your paper three times.  Add legs and antennae with a marker.  I really like this project because Olivia actually did some independent research for it.  While I was cutting out the paper pieces for the picnic, I asked Olivia to look through her ant book to see what color ants were so that we could use the right color paint.  As I cut out the paper I could hear her talking to herself about what all the ants were doing, sometimes laughing at them, and going on about how cool the ants were.  When she went through the entire book she came up to the table and we had this conversation.

"Mom, I'm done.  I'm ready to paint." 

"We don't have any paint picked out yet.  Did you find out what color ants are?"

"Ah! I forgot to see what color ants are!  I'll be right back"

So, she went back to the book, flipped through a couple of pages, and announced that ants are black and brown. 

 I think this is really cool.  Niki nailed a circle into a piece of scrap wood so that Olivia could make a web.  I just tied a long piece of yarn onto one of the nails and Olivia zig zagged the yarn all around.  Then we made a pipe cleaner and pom pom spider to go on top.

Spiders generally have 4, 6 or 8 eyes.  I love any reason to use googlie eyes and now Olivia does too.  See that spider at the top right?  Olivia's cutting is getter a lot better.

 Painting a ladybug rock.  It's bug week.  How could we really have a bug week without painting a bug rock?  And, she made a dragonfly to look like the ones we caught at the pond.

 The dragonfly is a Popsicle stick glued onto a clothes pin with wings and a head cut out of foam.

Preschool Week 1- Birds

I doubt that my attempts at a weekly update will all be this detailed, so don't get used to this.  I'm also only writing about the science stuff since right now it's the only subject that we structure.

DAY 1
On Tuesday (9/7/10) we officially started preschool.  Monday was a holiday and because Niki had the day off work, I forgot it was Monday so we just decided to start on Tuesday.  Our science topic for the week was birds and so day 1 focused on just learning some basics.

After a good breakfast and other morning things we headed out to the library to check out some books about birds.  I showed Olivia how to look up our subject with the library catalog.  This is sort of how it went.

Olivia, there's the computer.  We are going to find out where all the books about birds are.  Have a seat right next to me.  Stop hitting buttons please.  Okay, now we type in our subject.  Do you want to type it in?  Olivia, stop hitting buttons.  Do you need to get down or do you want to help type?  Okay.  Type a B.  No, not D, a B.  I'm sorry for not enunciating.  I-R-D-S.  Now click this square.  See all the numbers?  These numbers tell us where the books are.  Let's write them down so we can find the books on the shelves.  Olivia, if you slam that keyboard one more time we're going home.  Okay, let's go find the books that have these matching numbers.

Not to worry, week two at the library went very smoothly.

After we cruised the children's nonfiction section for bird books we headed to the fiction section and by the time we made it to check out we had everything from National Geographic to The Little Red Hen plus a few extras, mostly truck related.  We sacked out on a beanbag for awhile to do some reading, then we headed to Niki's work to say hi (library is down the street from the office), and then straight to Michael's to pick up some feathers for bird crafts.

Art Projects for the day

 Colored a picture of a bird and together we labeled the parts.

Covered an outline of a bird with feathers

DAY 2
For days 2 and 3 I wanted to focus on what birds eat.  Today we covered the omnivorous birds, IE the seed, plant, and bug eating ones.  After breakfast we made some pine cone bird feeders and then in the afternoon we headed out to a waterfowl preserve area (may not actually be a preserve) and observed some geese and ducks.  We were pretty lucky and got to see quite a few birds eating what they were supposed to be eating.  Olivia seemed particularly impressed that all the birds liked exactly what the books said they would.

Olivia pretending to eat the seeds

Within ten minutes of hanging these up in our tree a squirrel came by and wrapped himself around the pinecone and licked as fast as he could.  Some scrub jays and a mocking bird did end up coming by later in the day.

As we were leaving the house to go see the water birds Olivia decided that she couldn't leave without her backpack.  I didn't know that she even had one but out of closet came this little carrier for stuffed animals and so along it came.  We filled it with a water bottle, some snacks and a change of clothes.

At the sanctuary

 Checking out the geese and ducks

DAY 3
This was our carnivore day.  I made sure that we made it to the Raptor Center around feeding time so Olivia could see what everyone was having for breakfast.  She was totally unfazed by the rats, baby chicks and dead mice everywhere. 

Arriving at the raptor center

Checking out Mickey, a very noisy red shouldered hawk.  He was having mice for breakfast and Olivia just so you know, Olivia has her chin on the bar, not her mouth.  Of course now that I think about it, her chin on the bar is kind of gross too.

The Raptor center has a nature center.

 Taking apart an owl pellet.  Olivia was really fascinated by the idea of owls spitting out the mouse bones

There was a table set up with a magnifying glass but Olivia found a dead fly and thought it was way more interesting than anything they had set up.

Art projects of the day

 We did a review of what birds eat with two sticker chart type things.  Along the top are the types of birds and along the bottom are all the different things they eat.

Later in the afternoon Olivia dug out the feathers and wanted to do something with them and so we made some quick puppets that she "flew" all around the house.

DAY 4

Nest day.  We headed to the Avian Sciences Department to check out displays.  On each floor of the building there are about 2 or 3 glass case displays set up and so we cruised around looking at everything from bird skeletons to thankfully, nests and eggs.

 Checking out a nest and egg display.  Olivia really liked the hummingbird nest.

Gathering materials for building a nest.

So my first thought was to use what Olivia had gathered and the two of us would craft a nest.  Totally didn't work.  I have no idea how birds do it.  So after a couple minutes and failing miserably we went to the garage to find some wire.  I made a basic frame but still failed miserably.  Once I started getting frustrated and Olivia started loosing patience, I simplified things for us.  We got out Olivia's favorite school supply- glue.  The top nest is one she made to model a larger bird's nest and it has sticks and leaves glued to a semi circle I cut out of some thin cardboard.  The bottom nest she glued leaves and grass to an egg cup from a cardboard egg carton.  She wanted it to look like a hummingbird's nest.  Great job if I might add.  That other one is my attempt at making the wire frame work.  It sort of worked but I don't reccommend it for a project.

Now, if we had started the week on a Monday instead of Tuesday, I would have made our Friday egg day but I decided to just drop it out of this unit completely.  I figured that we could tie eggs into spring around Easter.  But, we still went on our egg field trip anyway.  So, Saturday morning we headed over to Olga and Chris' house to see their chickens.

Olivia was really excited about her new eggs and we made scrambled eggs as soon as we got home and pretty much everyday after that until we finished the dozen.  Niki was totally grossed out by the eggs, especially since we almost got to see one of the chickens lay one while we were there.

What I learned

1. We need more glue.  Like, gallons and gallons of glue. 

2. I need to find a way to organize all these craft projects

3. Nests should always be made outside

4. Time for playing around is just as important as school time (Olivia made a sand angel)

The Big Girl

At the very end of the movie you can catch Olivia saying her full name.  We told her that her full (first and last) name was her big girl name and she has been quite proud of it.  Olivia is defiately a big girl but for whatever reason she's decided that both me and Niki need to be called big mom and big dad. 

Dance Class Starts

Warm Ups (Olivia barely participated) 

It was another story when the ribbons got handed out though.  Olivia is at the back trying to show me her ribbons.  My kid apparently doesn't do warm ups but running and jumping with a ribbon, no problem.

This is called Freeze Dance.  When the music is playing, you dance.  When the music stops, you freeze.  Olivia is up at the front and then makes a run to the back.  Just look for the hot pink skirt.

Olivia doing some bar work (I doubt that is what this is called)

 

Olivia and Bella showing off their hand stamps.  When we got home Olivia couldn't stop talking about how much she loved her new class but there were a few things she thought she would need to continue.  Lola, Olivia would like a ballet skirt like Auntie Shell and Grandma, Olivia would like a purple, a black, an orange, and a white fluffy skirt like this pink one you gave her.  Let's hop to it Grandmothers.  You have a high maintenance dancer in the making.

Thank you Lolos

A big box at our front door always makes her day.

She's going to be a lot of fun around Christmas.

Olivia "trying on" the clothes

She likes the Elmo jammies.  Why she wanted to wear them with this bandana or ride around on this little truck I'll never know.

And thank you to all the other family and friends that have been sending Olivia school stuff and encouraging our home schooling.  It's nice to hear that you think we're competent.

Home School Preschool

Since Olivia won't really be ready for pre-school until next fall, and she is really excited about school, we decided to home school her.  I have to admit, I never thought home school could be so fun and so educational.  I did consider starting another blog just for school but I can barely keep up with this one so I figured that I would just add my posts here.

We have just started our third week and I can't believe how much Olivia has learned.  Each week we have a different science topic, some topics may end up spanning longer than a week but so far, we're just going a week at a time.  I started with familiar topics that Olivia already knows a lot about so that I can get a routine figured out before we start on topics that will be very new to her.  While the weather is nice I've decided to focus primarily on science and then once we're stuck indoors during the winter I'll shift over to language and math.  Niki is really big on her learning math.  What a shock, I know.

Our weeks start off with a trip to the library to check out books on our science topic.  We also do at least one craft project or activity to introduce the general principles and we read through our new books in preparation for the field trips during the week.  If I wasn't able to incorporate math, language, music, art, or writing through the science activities, then I just throw them in during the day somewhere.  My goal is to at least touch on each subject each day.  Most of the time it's through our normal day to day activities and conversations but occasionally in the form of flash cards or worksheets. 

I've actually found that math has been one of the easiest subjects to incorporate into our day because we do a lot of cooking.  Olivia always does her best counting when she's lining up the 40 marshmallows we need for rice crispie treats.  Right now I'm trying to teach her to recognize the fractions on the measuring cups.  Next will be to add them.  Muh ha ha.  I don't know about you but I would rather learn to count and do fractions making rice crispie treats and chocolate chip cookies than staring at a black board or crying over a homework assignment.  Math wasn't my strong point.  I cried a lot, mostly in secret, because I cared a lot about my GPA.  Niki was actually my chemistry and physics tutor in high school and that was more or less how we met. 

I don't really have any words to truly express how exciting home schooling has been.  Planning a basic curriculum to teach Olivia about the world around her has been very empowering and it actually makes me a little sad to think about putting her in a regular classroom.  We cover more material in two days than most kindergartens would cover in a week and we also fit in at least 2 or three field trips.  I don't think we'll end up as a home school family but we are really happy about taking such an active part in Olivia's education right from the beginning.  If nothing else, this experience has helped us realize how important it will be to take the subjects Olivia is learning in school and show her how they can be applied to the real world.  Or if nothing else, get her out to see them in action.  I'm really big on seeing things for yourself.  How can you really learn about a desert if you never actually go out and experience one?  I figure that I'm pretty well prepared to at least handle organic and inorganic sciences and health but Niki will really need to take the reins for the higher math.  If Olivia ever asks me why she needs to learn how to do derivatives, I don't think I could stop myself from saying, "I don't know honey.  Derivatives really are just a waste of your time.  Let's throw your book away and go make some cookies."

I'll do my best to add weekly updates or at least photos as we journey through preschool.  We'll see how it goes.  So far so good.

Dear Dads and Mafely,

We had big plans to do some beautiful portraits of your great granddaughter for you.  Niki envisioned her sitting prettily with an angelic smile all dressed up.  You know, something grandparents might like to have up on their wall.  When we asked Olivia if she wanted to take some pictures, she got very excited and suggested that she wear her new Tinkerbell dress.  We thought, what a fantastic idea.  These pictures are going to be gorgeous. 

So after about twenty minutes we finally had her cleaned, dressed, and even had her hair done up.  Niki laid out a big white blanket on the bed and as soon as she got on it, she started flopping and jumping and twirling.  Within about ten seconds her dress had shed glitter all over the place and her hair looked like a bird's nest.  Once we finally got her to sit down, we flattened her hair a little bit, and then decided to just roll with it.  Having messed up hair and glitter all over her face is a much more accurate representation of what she looks like on a daily basis anyway.  Okay, so we were finally ready to start.  After, "say cheese," we got this.

So we tried again.  "Olivia, can you do a really cute smile?"  And she gave us this.

And let's not forget this.

Turns out that angelic side we were looking for doesn't exist.  Our girl is funny, hammy, unpredictable, and energetic.  We knew that going in though and we thank the Lord every day for it.  So, we embraced what God had given us and went with it.  Okay Olivia, let's see some more of your funny faces.

that's a good one

nice, very nice

always a classic

gotta love this one

you're melting our hearts kid

Then just when we had completely abandoned the idea of getting a cute smile out of her she flashes us this adorably crooked little number.

And then this.

She must have remembered that the pictures were going to be for you.  Clear some room on your walls because we're ordering prints. 
Love, Niki, Kelly, and Olivia