We are always excited to start a new ‘school year’. It is such a wonderful time to review the previous year, set goals for the new year and plot out the practical steps to work towards those goals. If you have not read the panning and preparation blog, find that and come back here to understand this better.
Here is what we did over the first 2 weeks of June.
MATH– Reviewed counting felt X and Os from the tic tac toe DIY game board. We also completed patterns using the same.
LANGUAGES- We read a fair bit every day and do a Hindi book once a week.
ART– We have started with picture study this year. We look at pictures of paintings and nature photographs(printed out and laminated) and talk about it. We sometimes(depending on Ahnas interest) go ahead and use her techniques to practice the habit of imagination using these and take turns describing what we see. It’s a new method we are incorporated this year.
She also did a lot of painting with dad.
SCIENCE/NATURE STUDY- We read about birds, beaks, nests since our little BulBul birds were getting ready to fly the nest. This was our month long nature study unit based on observation and recording. It was more for me than her but she learned a lot too. We used a science activity book to learn about the cells inside some fruits that hold liquid in them and then we juiced some oranges. We also read about camouflage in connection to patterns and traced a flower that we had pressed and made into our nature bookmark.
LETTERS- Ahna traced some letters in her books through the weeks as and when she wanted to and we continued doing letter sounds through play. She is familiar with between 18-20 letter sounds now. She is also very into card making so we have been doing that every opportunity we get.
SENSORY PLAY- Sensory play ha been happening as a part of the gardening lifestyle and I’ve added an ice and water based activity for both girls to do together. It’s a fun time of bonding and gives me 10-15 minutes of chore time before cleaning up the melted mess.
These weeks were for establishing new routines and adding new practices to our home education this year.
Our favourite addition so far has been the family read aloud time! We do it with a snack and it encourages a wonderful rhythm for us all. Ahna cleans Hopes feeding chair before the snack and gives Hope a cloth too. We pray for the snack and what we read and start our wonderful 20 minute journey into different cultures and new little worlds.
Some other changes and experiences we had the past 2 weeks were a new bedtime for the toddler(8 pm), a thankfulness jar activity right before bedtime and a new letter (ABC) memory verse book, making her own chia seed drinks regularly and Ahna gets to feed Hope their morning fruit before breakfast. Ahna also came down with a fever so we skipped school for a couple days. Looking forward to new adventures next week!