Weekly Wrap-Up: The one with tears

Week of 08/11-08/17

We are in our 2nd week of Pre-K and this one included a breakdown for me - tears, a gigantic headache, and a lot of frustration!   Moments of doubt and insecurity about this homeschooling journey all crept in! 

But, Here is what I learned...
* I've learned that Greyson really doesn't like worksheets. 
* I've learned that I plan WAY too many activities for his attention span. 
* I've learned that even if it looks like a cool art project to me, Greyson may not be interested in doing it.
* and I've learned that Greyson just wants me to read to him ALL...Day...Long!!!  

It's a good thing we are working through the Sonlight P4/5 Curriculum where there is a  lot of reading.  :)    But, I was having doubts as to whether he was really learning anything with just the readings.  

Here is what we accomplished.  I won't mention all of the things that I had planned that we never got around to doing... ha ha!  :)

Bible

• We start each day with a story out of the Family-Time Bible in Pictures*

• Memory Verse:  We are learning the verse for Sunday School each week.  Verse this week -   "I count on God's power to help me."  Colossians 1:29

The Moon

• Learned about the MOON this week out of the Berenstain Bears' Big Book of Science and Nature* 
• We focused on 4 of the phases and made the phases out of oreo cookies.  We  ate them, of course, which was quite a treat since it was 8:00 in the morning :)  
• He practiced counting craters on the MOON and clipping the correct number.
• And we read some other fun books about the MOON.  His favorite is definitely On the Moon

The Fourth of July

• Learned about the Fourth of July this week out of the Berenstain Bears' Big Book of Science and Nature* 
• We learned about the American flag (# of stripes & stars, etc). 
• We made Absorption Art Fireworks
• We made Shaving Cream & Paint Firework and then had lots of fun playing with the shaving cream mixture
• And we read some other books about the Fourth of July

Language Arts
Enter the main culprit of the stress from the week!!!   We have the Sonlight Language Arts K and the supplemental book for Phonics - Get Ready for the Code.  He already knows his letters and sounds and can write a lot of his letters so I thought we were ready.  Well, he is ready for some of it.    He couldn't handle all of the worksheets from the LA K, the phonics book, along with the readiness skills one we are working on out of the P4/5 Core.  SO, I'm making some adjustments and trying to convince myself that it's OKAY if we don't do them all!

• We learned about the letter "F" - the sound, recognition of words that start with "F" and played games of finding objects that start with letter "F"
• We did a few worksheets
• and managed to practice writing the letter a couple of times on paper, some on the chalkboard (I wrote in chalk, he traced with a wet paintbrush), and in shaving cream.

 Readiness Skills

• Developing the Early Learner: Level 1*.   I think we only did one of these this week. 

Math 
We read The Best Bug Parade which is one of the Level 1 books from MathStart. 

• talked about comparison of sizes.   Who's big? Bigger? Biggest? Long, longer, longest? Short, shorter, shortest?
• We did a quick (and I mean quick, like 2 seconds) game of Fish measuring and Bug Sizin

Read Alouds 

Sonlight Reading for the week -

• Treasury of Mother Goose Rhymes* 
• Eric Carle's Animals Animals* We've been playing a game with the Animals that we are reading about - Greyson looks at the picture and tries to describe it to me and I get to guess which animal we will read about.  
• Uncle Wiggily's Story Book* 
•  We read about the School Teacher in Things People Do*
•  Stories from around the World*
• The Lion Storyteller Bedtime Book*

Favorite pictures of the week...

Resources Used:

1. *Sonlight P4/5 books
2. Moon Phase Cards
3. Moon Crater Cards from 2teachingmommies
4. Absorption Art Fireworks
5. Shaving Cream & Paint Fireworks
6. Fish Measuring & F Printable from Confessionsofahomeschooler