"D" week

I am really enjoying our weekly books, as is Gemma and even Kolbe is beginning to enjoy "big kid" books more.  It is so nice having some rhyme and reason for the books we check out at the library.  We keep a handful of ones that Gemma picks out in the basket in her room to read at nap and bedtime and such, but our letter ones go on the fireplace to enjoy throughout the week and specifically during circle time.  There are so many good books out there.  For kids and adults alike.  So many good books.  I heart books. Some of our favorite "D" week books were:

Make Way for Ducklings

How do you Count a Dozen Ducklings

Dilly Dog's Dizzy Dancing

Curious George's Dinosaur Discovery

If you give a Dog a Donut

Duck at the Door

Webster J. Duck

Harry the Dirty Dog

Daniel and the Lions

So many ducks!!  We did a fun duck craft.

Our verse of the week was "Do to others whatever you would have them do to you." which was very good for Gemma to learn (and hopefully remember).  We also had a fun song to help us learn the verse from our Bible CD set that is similar to this one.  Here are the kids playing the maraca I made while we sang one day.  I need to make another one so they don't fight over it.  ;-D

For religion we read the story of Daniel and the Lions and painted this picture.

We also celebrated the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary (October 7). I printed off a coloring picture of the rosary and Gemma used small stickers for the Hail Mary beads and large stickers for the Our Father beads.  She had a lot of fun with this and did a very good job.

And a few more snapshots from our week:

Gemma in what she calls her "party dress" - a patriotic tutu and her dress-up apron.  She is serving cupcakes.

Playing with beans.

Enjoying time with cousins!!

One of our many walks to the park!  We are loving Fall!!!

"C" week

We were having our windows stained and varnished during "C" week, so things were a bit disjointed.  We still enjoyed some fun activities though, just at odd times.

Our favorite books of the week:

Corky Cub's Crazy Caps  (I like the Animal Antics series - Gemma does too - and am disappointed our library doesn't have all the books.)

The Carrot Seed

Corduroy Goes to School (Lift-the-flap books are the BEST!)

Carrot Soup

Cluck O'Clock (I really like this book a bunch.  It is soooo cute.  And it rhymes, always a bonus!)

Charlie Needs a Cloak

Color Dance

We read The Very Hungry Caterpillar and made caterpillars.  Gemma wanted to name them, which I thought was odd.  She never names anything.  Her baby is "baby".  Her bunny is "bunny".  You get the idea.  She did get creative with her fish a few months back.  Their names are Daddy, Mommy, Gemma and Kolbe.  Yeah.  So anyways, I was like, "OK, go ahead and name them."  So she gets a pen and asks for me to write their names down on papers for them.  The names (she made one for Kolbe too,not pictured)... "Doggy Raboon" and "Doggy Racastle".  Seriously?!  Where on EARTH does she get this stuff?!!

We did a color mixing activity.  We had talked about colors already some throughout the week (I made a primary/secondary colors graphic organizer to hang in the kitchen) and they also talked about colors at her art class.  She seemed to get it more than she did the last time we had "played with" colors.

She painted a cardboard cross and colored a picture of the crucified Lord to put on the cross, and we talked about the difference between a cross and a crucifix.

We also celebrated the feast of the Guardian angels by making angel cookies like we did last year.  It is fun to see these traditions begin to develop in our family.

I continue to fine-tune our weekly school/Circle Time routine as I observe our needs and Gemma's (and Kolbe's) capabilities.  Here is the latest version.

Art class

While Gemma is not attending formal preschool, I still like the idea of her having some organized activities with other children her age.  This year one of things we are doing is a once-a-month art class at our local Art Museum.  We had our first class (parents stay and help out) last week and it was wonderful.  Gemma was very hesitant at first...she flipped out at having to wear a name-tag, she wanted me to be in touching distance at every moment...but about 15 minutes into the class (it lasted about an hour-and-a-half) she was doing great and by the time story time rolled around I was sitting half a room away from her and she didn't seem to notice or care.  I think this will be very good for her and we are both looking forward to the next class.  I am hoping to do some of the organized activities at the library with both children in the coming months, and would love for Gemma to start Catechesis of the Good Shepherd next school year (when she is four-and-a-half).

Here are some pictures from Gemma's first art class.  They made hand-print puzzles.

"B" week

I thought I'd share some hi-lites from our "B" week (week of 9/19). 

Bead and Button "B"!

Doing her "find the letter" worksheet.  I just made a bunch of squares in an Excel spreadsheet with various letters, and went heavy on the B's and then gave her a hi-liter and let her go at it.  She really got a kick out of this, I can see it becoming a weekly staple.

Some of the books we enjoyed were:
The Bunny Book (I just love this story.  So much.)

Bear's Loose Tooth (We really like the "Bear" books at our house, and hadn't read this one yet so it was a special treat!)
Bertie at Bedtime (or its alternate title, Gemma at Bedtime ;-D)
We've all got Bellybuttons
Bible Stories from the Old Testament (this appears to be a little different than the version we had from the library, which I really like)

Bunches of Buttons (This was a fun little story that focused on counting by 10's.  Gemma really got into it.  I used it with the Counting By Tens song on our 102 Children's Songs CD's one day and it was a lot of fun.)
Bobby Baboon's Banana Be-Bop (I really like this "Animal Antics" series and am disappointed to find that our library doesn't have them all.  And they are $8 a piece and not sold as a set from what I can tell.)

We had a fun trip to the zoo one afternoon with my mom.   

B is for BEAR!!

I learned that even if there are all kinds of things I could do on a given day that go with the letter, it is best to just focus on one thing.  Case-in-point...with religion this week I tried to talk about the Bible, Baptism and our virtue (Being a Blessing) all in the same morning and it was just too much.  Gemma would have gotten much more out of it if I'd just focused on one thing.  As it was I think she was just confused and overstimulated with too much information.  Lesson learned (I hope).

Gemma's favorite activities are singing songs and doing crafts.  And of course reading stories.  We are both learning a lot.

Our first week of preschool at home

We had a good first week of preschool last week.  The morning Circle Time seems to be a good fit, and then we do our activity for the day sometime later, usually after naptime.  I updated our lesson plan a bit now that I know a little more what to expect and what we are and aren't capable of.  Click HERE for the most recent version if you're curious.  I also sat down and typed out our daily routine after reading about Kansas Mom's and being inspired to do the same thing.

Here are some pictures from "A" week.

Gemma with our capital "A" flashcard for the fridge (yes, we do Circle Time in our jammies).

Working together one afternoon.  It was Gemma's idea to sit by Kolbe.  Much sweeter than pummeling him on the head I thought (because yes, that happens too).  Kolbe did surprisingly well with the watercolors.  It was the first time I had given him more than just a pre-dipped paint brush and he really did great.  And had lots of fun!

Hand-print angels from our Catholic Icing book.

When Saturday rolled around Gemma was a little sad that there was no Circle Time.  I debated for a bit about going ahead and doing it on the weekends as well, but Sundays we are busy with Church and I decided that if we take Saturdays off it will give her something to look forward to each Monday and maybe make it a little more special.

All-in-all it was a good week.  We definitely had our interruptions and challenges and things that didn't go as planned or fell flat on their face, but it was good. I think this is going to be a great fit for all of us.  Here's to the rest of the year!!