Extraordinary Ordinary Life: Week In Review - Really more apples, a pyramid and more

School Stuff

Tot "School"

I don't actually do any school with her but I was noticing this week that she was loving to put her straw back into her cup so I grabbed something I had on hand to see if she might like to do it.

It is a busy bag filled with pipe cleaners, wooden spools and a sugar shaker thing.

She didn't care for putting them into the sugar shaker.

She did like to try to put them into the wooden spools though but she was easily frustrated and threw it all down when she was done. I don't know where she gets that from, lol.

Preschool

We did not do a lot this week because I am honestly trying to figure out the direction I want to go in with him. I want to do more Montessori inspired things but as anyone who has dabbled in Montessori knows it is very overwhelming and I'm trying to wade through it and get a plan. In the meantime we did this:

Writing in salt. I am going to start my kids out with cursive from now on. I will tell you why later in the post. I took some 3 x 5 cards and grabbed our Handwriting Without Tears Cursive book and drew some pre-writing stuff for him to try.

We did Lego guy math. I had 1-5 cards and had him count out his Lego guys and lay them on the correct card. He loved this.

He loves to dress up now in super hero costumes. This was a color sorting thing we did.

He is also very into play dough right now. He hasn't been into much before so I'm rolling with it.

He has also just started getting into Legos. I'm making him keep them at the table in a tray because we have a little girl who eats everything!

Miss M in Montessori School

She is going to a Montessori school half a day every day. This week was her open house and I was able to go and see more of what she does.

Here she is with the bead counters.

This is the brown stacking thing - see how much I need to learn. I don't even know technical names.

Homeschool

While Miss M was at school we do school at home - little guy is playing Legos and the big boy is doing history with me.

We were studying mummies and pyramids and found this mummifaciton game - so gross but very educational.

In co-op this week we made pyramids with hot glue and foam blocks.

In our science we made batteries out of tomato juice, a new penny, foil and alligator wires. It was pretty cool and the kids liked it. I use a DVD curriculum where she teaches us all how to do the experiments.

We finished up our art from last week - making rockets to put on our space drawings.

We studied percussion in music. My friend (and co co-oper is more musical than I am and she had some more instruments for us to use).

My friend's daughter also played the piano for us as we reviewed last week's stringed instruments. She showed us the strings on the piano.

And here is an update on our Nile river project - our grass is growing like crazy!

I also said I would tell you why I am in the cursive first camp now - this is why:

My son is dyslexic and we have been working on printing for about 4 years now and the above printing was done about a week and a half ago. We now do cursive and have been working on it for a few months and can you see the difference? I can! From the research I have read cursive is easier for little fingers and it makes you have good spacing because the words or separated. It is also much easier to draw curvy lines than it is to do ball and stick writing. Another benefit to cursive is the "b" and "d" look so different which a lot of kids have trouble with.

Very few curriculums do cursive first so I'm winging it right now for my younger set. We will get it though.

Life Stuff

When my hubby works second shift we get a little bored in the evenings so I head to Target and this is what happens:

My daughter can now make scrambled eggs for the family by herself. I always give her strict instructions not to start unless an adult is in the kitchen to supervise but she really does well. She can get everything down herself, turn on the oven, cook them and serve them.