Our home education this fortnight began with baby sisters first birthday! Ahna had been making cards for her almost every second day the previous month that we compiled into a book to give to her on her birthday. She would think of something she loved about her and I would write it down and then she would colour into it. It is such a blessing to be able to to witness their sweet sweet relationship develop.
ART
For art these 2 weeks we did a little painting with dad and some drawing.
We also did a picture study of landscape art. We used the CM technique here by looking at the picture long enough to form a mental image and then described it once the picture wasn’t visible anymore. Ahna and I took turns doing this.
HINDI
We do read a hindi book and do some hindi talking time a few minutes a day. This time, we went for a walk and spoke in hindi and read a book about a mango falling and the seed getting sown by natural methods and growing into a tree. How cool is it that she found a mango pit on one such walk herself!
NATURE
We went for several nature walks. With the little one beginning to walk, new excitement has entered this area of our lives. Ahna loves the companionship. They both play in mud together now.
On one walk, Ahna found a mango pit that had a seedling growing from it and she brought it home. We planted it in our pot on the terrace. Imagine if this grows into a tree that she climbs and plucks mangoes from when she’s older. What a beautiful memory it will make, God willing!
Ahna is learning about the root systems in plants during gardening. We removed all our spinach and cooked it over the past 2 days and we observed the roots. I explained to her how water travels through the leaf and we compared a curled up leaf to a flat one. She was able to observe the difference and point it out but not put it into words. We are practicing similarities and differences through many such practical opportunities.
We have also come across a lot of fallen fruit on our walks and have observed and spoken about the different stages of the fruit spoiling based on what we saw. She has understood the concept of connecting visibly spoilt fruit to it being on the ground longer. She knows that the ones that don’t have blemishes on them have more recently fallen.
READ ALOUDS
We have continued with our family read aloud time and we had a poetry tea party last this fortnight! It was such a fun gathering with some friends Ahnas age and it was a nice time for me to catch up with another home schooling mom too. We already have our next meeting planned out! I love spending time with moms who are eager to grow and learn themselves too. That, I think, makes all the difference in the home education life.
We read a few new books and Ahna narrates the story back in different ways right now. One great tool we have used is acting out the story. We have done it with a few living books now, I might have to make a different post on that. We did Anna carries water as a retelling this fortnight and it was so much fun! (For me to watch and for Ahna to do)
SCIENCE
We are reading about the human body(Focus this fortnight was on digestion). Most of what we read Ahna knew through situational conversations and talking as we ate but she did learn some new things about ‘stomach juices’ and ‘win pipe’. She also drew her first person on a chalk board and we did a human body puzzle with all the external parts too. By the end of our learning time, we had enough to arrange them bigger to smaller and that stemmed Ahnas interest for bigger and smaller.
MATH
We revised number names, did some counting, introduced numbers from 10-20 this fortnight(again stemmed from her curiosity by looking at the clock on ‘What is 11 mumma?(read one one). As she asked this, I was doing the dishes so we counted the dishes as I was getting them done and I could see how attentively she heard the new numbers. She ran out to the living room and brought the new numbers after looking for them on the puzzle board. She got the correct ones back on the 3-4th attempt most times. She traced the numbers on her number board and observed the pattern of adding ‘teen’ behind most numbers in this new series 10-20.
We made a cardboard clock and read about time. She knows how the hour hand moves and how to tell time looking at the hour hand (small hand) and I’m happy to grow this concept over this year and not introduce the ‘small’ hand till she has the concept of those larger numbers developed.
LIFE SKILL
Folding- Ahna loves folding cloths and is always eager to help when I am folding laundry. She considers this to be her job that she can help with when we are doing laundry.
Cooking- One of our neighbor friends mentioned missing Ahnas salad from a few months ago(when we grew our own basil) and upon going to the terrace we saw it is growing again from seeds that may have been buried in the soil! So we had to bring out her cook book and redo the salad to take to our friends home. Ahna had woken up crying from her very short nap and was elated when I suggested we could do this if she liked.
Next fortnight, we will be travelling for 2 weddings in another state.
Looking forward to learning on the go!