Preschool in Review - Post 2

Two days in a row, I am on a roll!

I realized last night that while I am glad to have just this little bit on here, that I did not take out their various notebooks from the past few months which are full of fun things, great narrations and crafts. . . at the end of this quick review, I may go back and record a few of those highlights as well. But, for now, I will pick up where I left off yesterday . . . the wonderful letter "E".

We took a second week for "E" the week of February 16-20th. Gregg had chosen so many wonderful picture books on engineers and I had found some really cute minit books on Homeschool Share to go with them, that we stayed with this topic for a bit. We reviewed all our previous Scripture memory verses, did some narrations of Bible stories and caught up on our occupations notebook, as well as learning about Thomas Edison and Benjamin Franklin. This week we also went to the park, spent a long time watching Nutria, had our Preschool Co-op where we made bird pizzas and chef hats, and went to the library for story hour. Friday of this week was our "Big Girl Day!" The Paci Fairy had heard how mature our girls were and thought it was time for their Big Girl Day (totally got this idea from an episode of John and Kate plus 8!). The girls left out a snack, along with their old pacifiers and blankets the night before, and when they woke up on Friday the Paci Fairy had left them a huge keyboard! It was totally approved by their musically gifted Godfather and has been a lot of fun! We started the morning with breakfast at McDonald's, followed by a visit to the Children's Museum and lunch and play at Chuck E. Cheese. :-)

At some point in February we took our co-op field trip to EJ's Pizzeria, where the girls not only had a wonderful behind the scenes tour of the pizzeria, but were then able to make their own pizzas! It was a BLAST -- for kids and moms!

The letter "F" brought us fishes, feathers (and birds), fire fighters, fairy tales, France, farmers, fairies, friends, Feathers for Lunch, The Little Bird (Mother Goose), Fishwish, Flotsam, DK Illustrated Book of Fairy Tales, Big Red Barn and A Chair for My Mother (book and Reading Rainbow episode that showed fire fighter training). The week before at story hour, the focus was fire fighters, so we learned lots of cute songs and it tied in so nicely:-). We had our Tea Party with our co-op friends where we did picture study, listened to Mozart and a cute Rossetti poem. This week we also went to The Depot to meet up with the cowboys riding into Houston for the big Rodeo. We got there early and parked to wait for the riders and before we knew it, we were literally surrounded by horses and riders on all sides! The cowboys were so sweet and let the girls ride the horses, feed and pet them, and it was simply a blast! We also went to several different parks and nature reserves this week.

The letter "G" week began with a small birthday party for Dr. Seuss! We focused on his books all day, reading Green Eggs and Ham, Oh The Thinks You Can Think, ABC, Mr. Brown Can Moo, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, and Hop on Pop. Along with our yummy cupcakes (which we baked while doing fractions lol) we watched the animated versions of Sneetches, Zax, Green Eggs and Ham and Horton Hears a Who. We played a game I found online for Pinning the Egg on the Plate, we created silly stories and did lots and lots of rhyming games! Cali enjoyed coming up with rhymes for Cat (hat, rat, that) and Sad (bad, dad), while Jordan came up with the following story -- I should note that the girl LOVES to tell stories and has been known to go on for over a half hour with stories that flow completely, have wonderful characters and everything but this was an assignment to go into a very small Dr. Seuss hat minit book, so I cut her off really short lol.


Once upon a time there was a cat in a hat. He was singing lots of songs until he bumped into something.
He thought he bumped into something . . . but, it was just lightning. It was going to rain and then he thought he was going round and round, but it was just the rain going Pitter, patter, pitter, patter

The rest of "G" week focused on gardens, goats, giraffes, Guinea pigs, gorillas, Greece, grandparents, The Golden Rule, Galileo, Planting a Rainbow, The Tiny Seed, Good Night Walk, Growing Vegetable Soup, Flower Garden, My Two Grandmothers, Good Morning Gorillas (Magic Tree House), gratefulness, grace, I Completely Know about Guinea Pigs (Charlie and Lola), G if for Goat, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, The Secret of the first one up (groundhogs), Gladys goes out to lunch, Good Night Gorilla, lots of nonfiction books on animals and geology, George Gershwin, Paul Gauguin, Van Gogh, D'Aulaires Book of Greek Myths, and Galileo for Kids. The girls also created stories this week that they asked me to type up and make books for, which was fun.

The beginning of "H" week began with a REAL TREAT! We went to a Family FARM! A wonderful woman in our co-op mentioned back in September that she was raised here in the Houston area on a farm, and how much her children enjoy going there. As I was planning the week for "F" and was trying to find a good farm to visit, I remembered this conversation and immediately reached out to her. While we had some scheduling conflicts, the wait was well worth it! This family was so gracious and kind, and we had a total blast! This was better than anything I could have found and we were able to do way more than a farm open to tour groups. We collected eggs, fed their chickens, sat and observed the chickens and roosters for awhile (and where they slept, how they got around, etc), helped them plant a garden (zucchini, tomatoes, and peppers), observed their TONS of cows and baby calfs, played in a creek (spent lots of time here, watching water flowing from higher ground to lower, examining rocks, skipping rocks), fished in their pond -- and caught 2 catfish(!!) -- played in sand, road bikes and skateboards, observed a wide variety of trees and just HAD A BLAST! Thank you so much Sinitieri family!!!!

The rest of "H" week focused on Hawaii, our read aloud was High Tide in Hawaii (Magic Tree House), horses, horticulture, history, Haydn, Handel, My H sound box, H is for Horse: an Equestrian Alphabet, My First Horse and Pony book, tons of Billy and Blaze books, Hans Holbein the Younger's painting of Edward VI as a child, Hooper Humperdink by Dr. Seuss, happiness, Luka's Quilt, Hula Lullaby, Grandma calls me beautiful, watching Hula for Children and having lots of fun dancing around, A House for Hermit Crab, Milton Hershey, Sam Houston, John Hancock, and hygiene.
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Well, I guess that is good for today :-) I am feeling better already having some of this on here as a record of our schooling, so I really do hope to have all of preschool updated and online within the week. Then it will be back to taking a week at a time and including posting our fun family moments in with the lesson plans!