Week 2 Lesson Bb

Surprise your child by introducing Bobby Bear in the following way. Cut out bear tracks and put them on the floor leading to a basket full of things that begin with the letter "b." Introduce the letter B by printing up a card with the letter Bb and a picture of an bear. Bobby Bear is an animal whose name begins with the letter "b."

Literature: Brown Bear, Brown Bear by Bill Martin Jr.
Make a stop at your library if you don't own it. After reading the book, encourage your child to identify things in their environment that begin with the letter "b." You can do this while out shopping, driving, etc. You can even do it in the sing song style of the book, "Child's Name, Child's Name, what do you see?" They may or may not stick to the letter "b" but when it's your turn, you can do "b" stuff. It'll be good practice for them on any of the letters.

Music: BINGO, The Bear Went Over the Mountain, Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear
Sing the songs and talk about the letter.

Language: Introducing "big"
Talk about comparisons and how some things are big and some things are little. Big begins with "b." Have your child tell you all the things they can think of that are big.

Language: Patterns
Teach your child the rhyme: "B begins Bobby, B begins Bear, B begins __________, everywhere." Let them fill in the blank and be creative. For very young ones, you may have to help them out to get this. If they can't do it, let them hear you do it.

Cooking: Blueberry-banana smoothies
Let the children participate in making blueberry- banana smoothies. Show children that blueberries and bananas begin with the letter B. Your child can wash the berries and chop the banana then pour all of the ingredients into a blender. 1.5 cups skim milk, 3/4 cup nonfat yogurt, 1/2 of a sliced banana, and 1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries makes 3 servings. Blend well.

Craft project: Binoculars
Materials—2 toilet tissue tubes, 3 feet of yarn, masking tape, colorful paper or tape
Cover each tube in the colorful paper or tape. Tie a knot in the end of the yarn. Place the two tubes together with one end of the string on each side. Tape around the yarn and the tubes to hold them together. Wind the tape around them several times.

Science & PE: Study birds, butterflies, bugs, and bees
Take a nature walk and search for birds, butterflies, bugs, and bees. They can use their binoculars too for a little pretend play. Talk about the colors and sounds these critters make and see if you can hear them. Encourage them to use their senses to hear, smell, and see the letter "b" in nature. Encourage your child to look at the critters carefully and tell you what they see.

Art: Butterfly blobs
Cover your workspace carefully with tablecloth or newspaper. Get a large piece of paper and fold it in half. The larger, the better. Help your child squirt big blobs of paint in bright colors on one side only of the paper. You might want to limit your child to about 3 colors for best results. Try day glow colors if you want. After you've added the paint to one side, fold it over and let the kids squeeze and mash the colors together as they push the paint with their hands to the outer edge. When they have finished, open it up and let it dry. The page will be symmetrical and you can discuss that for a math/science lesson. After the paint dries, fold it back over again and cut in the shape of a butterfly. Add a stick or hang from the ceiling.

Art & language: Feely letters
Make the letter "b" out of beans. Start with printing out or writing a big and little b on the page. Let your child put down glue on the letter and then paste the beans onto the lines. Great for hand eye coordination.

Science & PE: Balance
Set up a simple balance beam in your yard with two bricks and a widish plank of wood. Get your toddler to walk across this. As they begin to master it you can add a second stack of bricks or a narrower plank. You can also just look for opportunities at the park and such to encourage your child to walk on places where they can practice balance.

Physical Education: Bean bag games
Throwing and catching bean bags is often much easier for this age group than balls which tend to run away. You can throw these to one another, your toddler can throw them into a wash basket, over a rope or onto a hole in a cardboard box for variety.

Math: Classify buttons, beads, or beans
Give your child a big bowl full of a variety of items in different colors, shapes, sizes, etc. I have a huge bag of rubber dinos, bugs, butterflies, etc. Give them a cupcake tin and let them sort them likes with likes. For variety and more difficulty, give them a pair of cheater chopsticks to pick the items up with. (You can get these free at somewhere like Tokyo Steakhouse.

Language: A Tisket, a tasket, a beginning sounds basket
Materials—Index cards, marker or pen, small basket
Here's an "office" activity that encourages children to practice letter sounds. Make letter cards (you may already have these at home) by writing the big and little letters on each index card. Give the child one card and have them say a word that begins with the same letter. After giving a word with the correct beginning sound, the child drops the card in the "in-basket" If the child's word does not have the correct first-letter sounds, put the card aside and continue with the other cards. To make this fun, you can leave it by the front door or bathroom and do a couple every time you go in or out that door.

Interesting Homeschooling Articles

No lessons this week since we're on holiday with the kiddos. We'll be visiting the outdoor classroom of Sea World, the zoo, the Mexican market, possibly Enchanted Springs, and loads of time with our cousins!

Here is the first of a 3-part series my husband came across online. It's quite long but I found it very poignant.

Confessions of a home-schooler

Some bits I loved...

"After various tense conversations with friends, family members and strangers, Leslie and I have concluded that earnest, heartfelt discussion of exactly how we're approaching our kids' education and why we're doing it is a bad idea. For reasons I can about halfway understand, other parents often seem to feel attacked by our eccentric choices. I guess this is what it's like to be a vegan, or a Mennonite convert. I can certainly remember having a weirdly defensive response ("You know, I hardly ever eat red meat"), one where I reacted to someone else's comment about themselves as if it were really all about me."

"As Alicia Bayer, a Minnesota home-schooler and blogger who's one of Leslie's online mentors, puts it, "People think we're all conservative Christians who hate the government and wear denim jumpers."

Cooking lesson: Ditching applesauce for cuppy cakes

Alright, so the applesauce idea is a lame one. I knew it as I typed it but the book suggested it for "A" and who am I to argue!?! Well, Jacey loves to cook and he's really been missing his cooking class so I didn't have the heart to tell him we were going to cook today and then ask him to scoop jarred applesauce into a cup. On top of that, he told me today, only 2 days into the letter "A," "Momma, A's done. Let's do Brown Bear or bumble bee." So, we had some bananas and we whipped up these delicious Banana Cupcakes. They are divine. 8 Weight Watcher points but worth it!

Don't be afraid to let your kids measure, pour, mix, and break eggs. You'll be surprised how quickly they catch on. I recommend demonstrating the correct way to do it first and then letting them do it their way after having seen what it is supposed to look like. Also, since you're only sharing these with family, lots of tastes along the way. Jacey decided some time ago that flour isn't for him! Ha!

Banana Cupcakes
Makes 18

1 2/3 cups flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
3 medium ripe bananas
1/3 c. buttermilk
1 stick (8 tbsp.) unsalted butter, softened
1 1/4 c. sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat to 350. Line muffin pan with paper liners. Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in bowl. Mash bananas and buttermilk in another bowl. Separately, cream butter and sugar together with mixer until light and fluffy. Add eggs to sugar/butter mix. Add flour mix and banana mix alternately to sugar/butter just until blended. Stir in vanilla at end. Spoon into liners and bake 15 to 20 mins.

Icing
8 oz cream cheese (softened)
1 stick butter (softened)
1 box (16 oz.) powdered sugar
a touch of vanilla

Mix all ingredients with mixer. Put into ziplock bag. Snip tip and pipe onto cupcakes.

Lesson Aa: Letter Lion

So we worked on our letter lion after church today. I wanted him to be bigger than a sheet of paper so I split him up into 4 parts and printed him up on 4 sheets of white cardstock. Jacey helped me use the cutter to trim him out. I cut out his mouth (you'll likely have to make his mouth a bit larger, depending on what kind of letter cards you're using). We cut a hole where his mouth would be on the bag and taped him to a huge paper Chili's bag because I couldn't find an appropriate box. Jacey had so much fun feeding the lion! I used a set of alphabet cards I bought at the dollar store. I'm putting picks of the final and of the lion pieces here for you to use. I hope that's ok... I just did a google search for the lion so not sure about copyright.

Week 1 Lesson: Aa

All of these lessons are meant to be used throughout the week, just whenever it fits into your schedule. To me, it is more important to have fun with it and pay attention to your child's cues. If they aren't into the lesson, try again later. Also, if they aren't quite getting it, modify it to fit their needs.

Language Arts: Big A, little a
Materials—Paper
Introduce the letter A by printing up a card with the letter Aa and a picture of an alligator. Alligator Ann is an animal whose name begins with the short "a" sound.

Music: ABC Song (Learning Letters)
Work on the ABC song sung to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. If they don't know the song, work on it until all the lines are memorized. Sing the song throughout the day as you do things. Even if your child doesn't sing with you, they will listen and pick it up.

Music: Ants go Marching
Sing the song and talk about the letter.

Science: Alligators, ants, astronauts, acorns
Study alligators. Go to the library and check out age appropriate books about alligators, etc.

Cooking: Applesauce
Applesauce begins with A. Show them the letter on the jar of sauce. Let them wash up, set a place with napkin and spoon, serve applesauce for snack time, and clean up the dishes. Use a play/pretend set (like the tea party dishes) for extra whimsy. Ask them what letter applesauce begins with and what applesauce is made from.

Math: Graphing apples
Print up a page full of varying sizes of apples. Let the kids color them and decorate them with whatever graft supplies you have on hand. If your kids are old enough for safety scissors, help them cut out the apples and sort them according to size.

Language Arts: Letter Lion (Letter Recognition)
Materials—box, paper, markers, scissors, letter cards (buy these or make them yourself, I like the cards that have both the big and little letter on them)
On the paper, draw a large lion's head. Cut a big hole for the mouth. Put the lion's head on the box with a hole cut in the position of the lion's mouth. You can hang the lion from a door, if you want. In order to feed the lion, the child will take a letter card and identify the letter. If the child gives the correct answer, the drop the card into the lion's mouth. If they miss it, just put the card at the back of the pile so they can do it again later. Here's how we made ours.

Physical education: Pretend play
Play at being airplanes, ants, alligators, apes, angels, aliens, etc. Play the Simon Says game with the new "a" words you've learned. Have the kids walk slowly or fast from one point to another while they pretend to be all of these things.

Physical education/science: Nature walk and acorn art
Materials—plastic sandwich bag, paper, aprons, tempera paint, small bowls, trays/cake pans
Take a nature walk and search for acorns. Talk about how acorns begin with letter "a". Point out ants or other things that begin with the letter "a." Encourage your child to collect as many acorns as will fit in the bag. Explain that acorns are a kind of nut that people do not eat but that some animals like to eat. Talk about which animals they think might eat acorns. Birds, mice, squirrels, etc. Even pigs, bears, and deer eat acorns. Take the acorns back. Put on your "a"prons and place the acorns in a bowl with a bit of paint. Roll them around to coat. Place a sheet of paper in the bottom of a cake pan (trim the paper, if necessary). Drop the coated acorns onto the paper and shake the pan from side to side to make acorn (like marble) drawings.

Social studies: Astronauts
Talk about what an astronaut is, explaining in your own words and words your child will understand. An astronaut is someone who travels in space. Space is way up high, past where regular airplanes can fly. Airplanes cannot fly into space. Astronauts ride in rockets or spaceships to get to space. You have to wear a special suit to travel into space. The suit is called a space suit. Play Astronaut, Astronaut, Alien just like duck, duck, goose. Print up a picture from the internet of an astronaut and let your child color/paint it.

How it began: The idea

From the beginning, we have been following our hearts in raising our kids. When I say we, I mean myself and my three co-parents--my husband, my sister, and my brother-in-law. Maybe I should go back to the beginning and tell it all as I see it.

I was raised in a small West Texas town in the 80s-90s where keeping up with the Joneses was par for the course. None of the parents I knew were particularly worried about making connections every day, moment on top of moment, with their children. Having kids was just something our parents did, something expected of them. I'm not saying they weren't great parents or didn't love us... I'm just saying that from my perspective, there wasn't a whole lot of freedom in their choices.

My sister and I wanted something different. We never even imagined that it would bring us to this place and frankly, we didn't care. We didn't set out to homeschool. We never even heard of Attachment Parenting. The only thing we did on purpose was to follow our hearts and trust our instincts. So, the most important thing I think we ever did was to wait. We waited to have children until we were in a good financial place. We waited until we'd sort of sewn our wild oats, climbed the corporate ladder, seen the world (so to speak). We waited until we were in a place of freedom to choose.

We are blessed with husbands who love us and all of our insane, sometimes brilliant, ideas. We are blessed with husbands that are full partners in this journey with us. We are blessed with parents and siblings and extended family that are supportive and giving and available. On top of all that, we were blessed with each other, my sister and I. And so, when she told me she was pregnant, my husband and I got right to work. 9 months later, she gave birth to our beautiful Lillie and almost 3 months after that, my amazing Jacey was born. We set out right away just doing what felt right. We breastfed, we strapped the babies to us wherever we went, we paid attention to their cues, we co-slept, etc. etc. We did a million things that we never imagined doing. We found ourselves identifying more and more every day with that group we'd always called "crunchy granola."

And then, one day, I realized that all my plans for sending Jacey off to school and having another child that I could bond with while he was in Kindergarten, just didn't feel right anymore. I couldn't imagine sending him off to school to learn from people that may or may not have his best interest at heart. I couldn't imagine not seeing his face the first time he learned about butterflies and the awesome transformation they make. I just thought of all the things that I would be missing, that someone else would probably not even notice or appreciate, if he was in school away from me. And so I started doing research.

And here we are. Just doing what feels right for our family. Searching, like so many other parents, for the answers that sometimes come easy and are sometimes elusive. For me and mine though, at the heart of it all, is a need to revel in connections with one another. We will go to the ends of the earth (or just Round Rock, Texas) to make this happen. We will follow our hearts, not even giving audience to boundaries that might take us from our goals.