SnowCone and her Preschool Adventures

I posted a video of SnowCone beginning to read on my Facebook page, and I have gotten a couple of messages asking what learning materials we are using for her since she is not quite four years old.  She WILL be turning four at the end of this week though.  Click on the link to hear her learning to read. VIDEO learning to read

For at least a year, she has been fascinated in watching any of the Leapfrog videos.  The letter factory video teaches beginning sounds which she picked up very early.  We also make it a habit to watch educational cartoons IF the tv is ever on during school time (which is rare).  We really like WordWorld for an educational cartoon.  We have also downloaded a BOB books app to her iPad.  It has been great to get her prepared to read as well.

We have been using All About Reading Pre-Level 1 to teach and reinforce letters, sounds, syllables, rhyming words, etc.  We started when she was a little older than 3 and used it as she was interested.  I do not believe that at such a young age children should be forced to sit and learn through curriculum because I believe that there are too many other opportunities for them to learn and be taught.  However, given that her older sister sits at the table for her school work, SnowCone wants to do the exact same thing.  It has become more of a daily occurrence now that she is closer to 4. Of course that has been my perfect opportunity to make it fun and worthwhile for her.  All About Reading has done a fantastic job at teaching her the things that she needs to know plus it throws in extra fun and games.  Some games are even played with our favorite zebra puppet, Ziggy.  She LOVES learning with Ziggy.  

I do supplement extras from the blogs & curriculum of Confessions of a Homeschooler and 1+1+1=1.  They are both exceptional blogs to find stand alone curriculum and any add ons to what we are already learning.

SnowCone loves to do puzzles, she likes to put things in number order, color sort, sort by type, and to do fun crafts that go along with the letter that we are using.  We play rhyming games, UNO, Spot It and many others.  Basically, she is a part of our every day education activities.  I have to admit that it has been my very favorite part of our homeschool journey.  The pleasure of watching them learn together and teach each other has been a precious treasure.  Again, she is not made to do school, but she wants to and she thrives in it.  At her age, they are sponges.  They happily soak up everything in sight.  She has also learned at least half of the 50 United States already just from being part of her sister's projects in learning about the United States and by playing Stack the States on her iPad or by watching her sister play.  My mom told me that as the girls were riding in the car with her, Mango asked, "What is the capital of Oklahoma."  Then Mango answered somewhat answered herself and said, "Oh it's Tulsa".  My mom didn't immediately correct her so SnowCone chimed in and said, "No it's NOT.  It is Oklahoma City!".  Amazing.  They are ALWAYS listening and learning.

Update on our school adventures. LOTS of pictures!

I am not doing so well in the blogging department, but I have to say that we make up for it in our homeschooling ;o)  That must be where all of my time is going.  LOL!  I'll keep telling myself that anyway.  The following is an update on our recent homeschool adventures.  I am going to do some photo dumping in hopes of catching up.  The following pictures are of a recent trip to the Children's Museum of Memphis.  We went with our homeschool group, christian home educators of northeast Arkansas for a field trip.  We stayed ALL day, and the girls absolutely LOVED it.  Mango & a friend spent much of their time in the "grocery store".  They enjoyed being cashiers. You can also see the little ones playing dress up.  They also spent they spent a lot of their time with the Magformer tiles.  They enjoyed building some neat "castles".  We all had a wonderful learning day.

Next, we have a couple of pictures from Homeschool Day at Graceland. We are some music minded girls.  Therefore, we just couldn't resist a special day spent learning about the King of Rock and Roll!  Seriously.  We are only 45 mins from Memphis.  We just couldn't resist ;o)  Grandma & Great Grandma also joined in on the fun!

Next you'll see us having some "screen" time.  SnowCone is playing educational games (I HOPE) on the iPad while Mango plays some Reflex Math on the Mac.  We LOVE reflex math as it has really helped us with our math facts!  Whitley also LOVES her iPad BOB books as they have started her out in her reading journey.

You will see that we LOVE science experiments.  Absolutely LOVE!  The jar with the yeast mixed with the sugar to create carbon dioxide to blow up the balloon.  The jar without sugar didn't blow up that balloon.
















In these pictures, we are working on our morning notebooks.  They each have their own morning notebook.  It consists of age appropriate things such as a calendar, weather chart, temperature chart, days of the week, months of the year, good morning songs, prayer, bible verses, birthdays, holidays, seasons, etc.

Somebody has been into the chocolate!

We also like to do cooking projects.  As we studies about different types of birds, we made edible bird nests.  

We made tricorn hats like in the days of George Washington & Benjamin Franklin.

You can't celebrate Fall without going to a pumpkin patch complete with pig races, hay maze, pony rides, and corn box (instead of a sand box).

We really liked making berry ink and using a feather quill to sign our "John Hancock" just as they did when the Declaration of Independence was signed.  

You can't study Pennsylvania without making your own replica of the Liberty Bell...even if they end up on your head.

We grew a crystal tree

Homemade pizzas for lunch make it easy on Mom ;o)

Another Science experiment determining how many different colors combine to actually make up a color when we only see one color.

FYI, a great way to teach money is to open up your own Ice Cream shop.  TONS of fun.

Dad is joining in on our school days.  The girls think Dad is a super cool teacher, too!!  Filling & hanging a bird feeder as our study of birds comes to an end.

The zoo is educational, and you can't visit our zoo during the holidays without some physcial education on the ice skating rink.

Jesus is the Rock, Benjamin Franklin & Composition of the Earth

This week has been so much fun!  Our Bible verse is "Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock." Matthew 7:24.  I made sure that the girls were familiar with the hymns "Rock of Ages" and "On Christ the Solid Rock".  We also sang, "The Wise Man Built His House Upon the Rock".

We talked a lot about Benjamin Franklin.  We watched the following Benjamin Franklin Video, and learned about what a fascinating individual he was.  SnowCone (3 year old) asked me today if we were going to get to watch the "Venjamin Franklin" video again.  She says she likes to watch it in "no school time, too".  I guess that's a good sign that they liked it ;o)  We also made our very own Poor Richard's Almanack and enjoyed reading so many of Franklin's famous quotes.  They are so inspiring.  I love this process of learning right along with them.  Franklin was a man that didn't like to waste time or money...sounds delightful ;o)

We were having some issues in math.  I found that Mango was not very good at her math facts as the curriculum that they had used in public school didn't require students to learn them.  A very sweet teacher friend of mine told me about a math game called Reflex Math.   Let me just tell you, I thank God for her weekly as we do our math facts drills via this computer game.  It is AMAZING.  Mango BEGS to do it every morning.  This is quite a different picture than when the flashcards would come out of the drawer & her head would immediately fall to the table in frustration.  She's begging to do it, and she is learning so much.  This is a true reminder that angels do exist...in the form of people.  There is a free trial on their website, and it seems to be well worth the $35 per year!

We also changed our pace in Spanish.  Previously, we were doing Speekee Spanish.  It was fun, cute & education.  However, you can only take so much of a spanish version of Elmo.  It was wearing on my nerves.  We still have Speekee until December so I may still let SnowCone review it on occasion.  We were having trouble with it freezing up or not receiving a proper connection.  Between the poor connection problems and the puppet voice, we just had to pull away.  I ordered Rosetta Stone Spanish, and it is really neat.  There is a free demo on their website so we were able to play with it before ordering it.  It is really user friendly so that my husband and I can both enjoy learning Spanish as well.  It comes with headphones so it is a listening and speaking course.  I can already tell that it was a good change of pace.