Preschool Homeschool | November and December Lessons and Activities

The months of November and December had been a difficult time for me to plan and have activities for homeschool because of my morning sickness. I confess that the kid applications on my phone were the ones who taught him how to read most of the time. Thankfully the approach worked for him, he can now read CVCs (consonant-vowel-consonant words), some even four-letter words. We are ecstatic with his improvement in a couple of weeks.

Let me share with you the activities we did for the last two months of 2014.





Phonics and Reading

I initially planned that we finish the first semester of Sing, Spell, Read and Write before the year ends. Although we have previously worked on the sounds of all the letters in the alphabet, we have not used the activities written in the curriculum. Interestingly, my son was able to learn to read three-to-four-letter words in a span of two weeks after working on two applications I downloaded for free. These applications were Kids Learn to Read Lite and Kids Sight Words Lite. Both applications were a hit to our little one because of the catchy graphics, adorable characters and games that are easy yet challenging.


Image courtesy of Google







We also used a learning printable from homeschoolcreations.com as a supplement to the book, Corduroy. 

Corduroy printables


Science

If you've been watching Disney Junior's Sheriff Caille's Wild West, you've probably met the cute cactus character whose name is Toby. This show opened the interests of Little V on cactus. We lightly talked about cacti - the environment where they can thrive and what those pointy thorns are for. My next project is to show him an actual cactus. 
 Image courtesy of Nuttakit, at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

In December, we received a creative activity box of Explore Sandbox through a milk brand and a PR company. The box included some activities and the subject was all about the night sky. We explored on the phases of the moon, the stars and constellations. The activities were well-thought of and these would be greatly appreciated by older kids. Nevertheless, Little V had a blast on the art activities.


My son accompanied me in all my doctor's appointments including my ultrasound scans. He is curious on how babies grow inside a mother's womb so I always keep him informed of how his sibling is with every doctor appointment I have and whenever I check my pregnancy apps on the phone. What do I tell him when he asks how did babies get inside a mama's tummy? I tell him God placed the baby inside of me. I think that would suffice for now and the next few years.


Math

We added a number train printable from livinglifeintentionally.blogspot.com for our counting activities. The printable is ideal for kids aged 3-7. We are still working on numbers 1-20.


Number train




Arts

For our Christmas tree's ornament, we made homemade air-dry clay using cornstarch and glue.  


Our tree ornaments. 


We also made fake snow using baking soda and hair conditioner. Cool, right? We don't have snow here in the Philippines and I haven't seen or touched snow in my lifetime so this activity really was one of the most exciting project I did last year.

Our fake snow!

Here are the activities we did using Explore Sandbox:


Telescope

Moon Paper Night Lamp




Religion

Jesus is the reason for the season. We focused on the story of Christmas using the Bible App for Kids and a pop-up book I purchased in a book sale a few months back. We also made our own nativity set using toilet paper rolls and printable from catholicicing.com


Our nativity set. We ran out of paper rolls we so
 just made the Holy Family, the 3 Wise Men,
and a couple of animals.



Life Lessons

In my last post on our homeschool journey, I have mentioned that our son has started taking a bath on his own. He still continues to do that, occasionally asking me to scrub. He removes his own shoes and socks now and been practicing to put on his short pants. He's getting independent!

He has also been curious on how to take care of a baby now that he has a sibling inside me. We talked about what he can do to help me while I am pregnant and what he can do once the baby comes out. He has been very caring to me and baby "Gotham." Such a sweet little boy.

One time, he has asked if he can help remove the stems of the Malunggay leaves we will use to cook dinner. I taught him what he should do and he's been helping me with it since.


Little V separating the leaves from stems



We can go ahead and jump to the next semester of Sing Spell Read and Write now that he has improved well in reading 3-4 letter words with short vowel sounds. However, I still want to exhaust all the possible lessons we can learn from the first semester so I guess we will just have to finish the first book while doing activities from the second book.


A year ago I was clueless on what I need to do to help him learn and be ready for school. Now, I can say that I've learned more than he did. Helping our son learn at his own pace, letting him lead and going with the flow of what interests him has helped us in our journey. The right time will come when a child is ready to learn. There's no need to hurry them. Play always comes first. Hubby and I are grateful to God for giving us an opportunity to be our child's first teachers. Little V is growing up to be a playful and naughty, sweet, caring and kind-hearted boy and we intend to continue to mold his character.




Comments

  1. I have to say my favorite lesson was the one with the malunggay. You are such a sweet gentleman, Little V!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. He is! :) The only chore I can't ask him to do is to put away his toys. But he's willing to iron the clothes for me. Haha!

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