Glad To Be a Gladden: Week 27 - Homeschool Preschool

This week was something else! First of all, hello 80 degrees!! We pulled out the kiddie pull, swimsuits, and shorts, y'all!!

Here is everything we playfully learned this week:

Our bible verse of the month: Romans 12:12, "Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer."

Catechism point: "What is God?" "God is a Spirit, and has not a body like man."

Artist Study: still Vincent Van Gogh

Composer Study: Ludwig Van Beethoven

Marble art with shaving cream and food coloring:

Did I mention, 80F?!! Say yes to barefoot babies!!

We played with our counting bears. We counted, grouped, made patterns, told stories, and organized with these. Ellie lead the play and wanted to count too.

We began a new composer study of Ludwig Van Beethoven. We read a book on him, listened to his music, and painted while listening. We discussed how bold his compositions are and how they evoke different emotions. Sometimes the music made Ellie feel slow, dark, sad. (Not really, but she could relay that was the emotion the music evoked.) Other compositions delivered light, airy, jaunty feelings. Some were slow and graceful and others fast, quick, and made us feel we should rush around! She would listen while looking at pictures in books and I sat beside her sewing and she would listen and tell me what she gathered from the music on tempo and emotion. The painting during the music was meant to sub-consciously see if her painting sped up or slowed down and to ask how she was feeling emotionally as she listened and painted.

We took a field trip one day to Campbell's Covered Bridge for a walk, a nature study, and a pic-nic. We read books, cuddled, dug in the sand, and collected treasures.

We did a celery/ plant life science experiment. Using celery stalks in rainbow colored water (for March!) we were able to discuss and observe the flow of water in the vessels of the plant up to the leaves. They changed colors!

Often, Ellie tells me, "I have a good idea! I have something for you!" She loves when I tell her that I have a project for her and so she now loves to create projects and I love to give her praise on her good ideas, thought processes, and creations. She wanted to use her dolphin as a model at the kitchen table so that she could look at it and draw it. Still life drawing. As an artist myself I was so excited and proud of her interest and also her really awesome attention to detail.

I know that most people won't see what I see... but let me help you see how actually awesomely detailed this is and she free hand did this all by herself. the roundness is the body of the dolphin. On the left you see a small protrusion which is her dolphin's beak. I mean...dolphin's have long snout beak things...proper term??....anyway....She added that in with even a simple dividing line for the top and bottom part of the mouth. I mean the detail is awesome. If you look closely you'll see the dorsal fin, flippers, and back fin. She pointed them out and told me these things. Then, she even told me that a dolphin swims with its back tail moving up and down and not side to side like a fish. This project was simple and yet so deeply powerful. My 3 year old created the project, carried it out, added great detail; she was observant, took her time, and studied her "live" model by pausing and thinking before drawing. I was in raptures watching her.

Pond Study! We have frog spawn and tadpoles!! We gathered a few from our backyard and have been refreshing their pond water and algae to eat as we observe and watch them swim and grow.

Our pond turtles have also come out of hibernation and are back to basking on the logs!

What is a pond study without a little paddle boating and catch and release fishing?

Excuse our dock...still temporary...I promise! Haha, the real dock supplies are in the garage waiting on Eric (my husband to graduate in less than two months and get built!)

Took our friends out for a paddle and showed them beaver markings.

One frog spawn left to hatch out of the egg and become a tadpole. The rest hatched already!

A turtle on our log and a friend on the right swimming up to join!

Feeding the ducks greens from the garden!

Coloring the life cycle of a frog in her nature journal....she chose to wear the shoes and socks.....let it go, let it go!! 😂

Steering the boat

Pond study books we read:

More books read this week:

The girls were happy to play outside all day every day this week! So good and essential for Ellie's growth and development. I read to her while she swam.

Spring signs on our nature walk!

We read "The Little Rabbit" as part of her Before Five in a Row Curriculum this week and had so many activities to go along with that. There was a lot of baking, math, and art. Here is a link for the details: The Little Rabbit

Ellie wrote "B" with chalk. Working on our letters and writing new ones daily. But only as she finds it organically interesting and fun and is done in fun ways. Not like desk work, forced, and structured, free, fun, and playful.

Still learning the alphabet phonetically, we focused on our lowercase visual recognition this week with a fun game!! MY laundry basket, ping-pong balls with the lowercase letters written on them lined up. I'd call out a phonetic letter and Ellie would look and find it, then shoot a basket. This was SO FUN!!! We will do this again and again with both lower and upper case letters.

I'll never tire of reading her to sleep. These cuddles captured by my watching husband melted my heart. And the one with her holding my hand and she fell asleep...heaven on earth y'all.

St. Patrick's Day is upon us! We will do a big celebration on St. Pat's but we have been learning about and preparing for the celebration with a few fun things ahead of it. We sang a fun song/poem using Ellie's name, shamrocks gathered on a nature walk, and math. We sang and played with this a few times! She loved participating and playing with this.

We did a "Green scavenger hunt" I found on Pinterest. This was cool and she loves being a little sleuth.

1. Something green you wear:

2. Something green on the wall

3. Green snack

4. Something Green you build with

5. Something Green you eat

6. Something Green and soft

7. Something that grows green

Y'all, a Leprechaun came to our house and she...yes she...Ellie named her Sally...she left us some magic rocks!! Ellie had to take her bucket and go collect them and count them. I told her they seemed a little dirty so we should wash them off.....we washed them in white vinegar....the rocks were made from baking soda, so things got crazy! Ellie was TOTALLY NOT expecting for what happened to happen! There was a fizzing bubbly crazy mess! And guess what?! Inside those magic rocks, Sally Leprechaun left Ellie golden coins!! Ellie was indescribably happy and excited and surprised. Like this was actually just so awesome! That first time experience of this was so fun to watch on her face and I am so glad I also took video of it.

I made the rocks by mixing baking soda and water into a paste and coloring them with green food dye. I shaped them in my hands and covered a coin in each rock. I set them in a muffin tin to dry and hold shape. I'd do these a day ahead of time. When dry, they can easily crumble so do be careful taking them out of tin and tell your child, "Ohhhh those look very special and rare! We better treat them delicately as we collect them!"