Halloween

Halloween week! What a fun and busy week. I had a couple crafts lined up for this week but Sean wasn't interested. So, we just enjoyed the week. We had a few Halloween books checked out from the library and then the Halloween festivities.

We carved pumpkins. Maddy got into it more than Sean. Sean told us "It's too yucky".






Poor Maddy dropped a slippery seed and spent a good 15 minutes trying to pick it up.


The finished products:


We had a Halloween party Friday night and then Sean got to wear his costume to dance on Saturday morning.


And we can't forget Trick-or-Treating!! This was the first year Sean actually got into it. Maddy took right to it. She went running, trying to drag me down the street.








This week's reading:
Boo! It's Halloween -Wendy Watson
Dinosaur dreams -Allan Ahlberg
The three little witches storybook -Georgie Adams

School Days: Harvest Time

Fall is in the air! This week we extended our prior lesson on autumn with a lesson on harvest time. It was perfect timing because we ended the week with Autumn Fest at the arboretum.

Sean's scarecrow:


And tractor:


Autumn Fest
The kids had fun at Autumn Fest but might enjoy it better next year. They had many crafts for kids to do, including making a scarecrow, but Sean wasn't interested. They really enjoyed the tractor and hay bale maze though. And as always, kids love to make their parents liars and make us scratch our heads in confusion. Shy guy Sean who didn't want to do crafts b/c of the other people around had no problems with Woodsy Owl (mascot type thing who's motto is “Give a Hoot, Don’t Pollute”). He actually asked to meet him, walked up to him, said hi and gave him a high five.










*A little note; I'm going to start adding our week's reading list at the end of bloggings so I've gone back and edited past posts with the books I can remember.

This week's reading:
The Little Red Hen -Byron Barton
Strega Nona's Harvest -Tomie DePaola
The Scarecrow's Dance -Jane Yolen
Hello, Harvest Moon -Ralph J. Fletcher

School Days: Fire Safety

October 3-9 was Fire Prevention Week so that was our theme. We started this week with talking about what fire was and why it was dangerous. We did an experiment with a candle and water. Sean watched how the water put the fire out; like a fire fighter uses a hose to spray water on a fire. I tried to teach Sean stop drop and roll but he just laughed at me. We talked about what would happen if there was a fire in the house....smoke alarm, fire fighters... So I went to let him hear the smoke alarm. I pressed the button, nothing happened. Ooops. We got new batteries. Still nothing! Uh oh! Time to go shopping. We are now owners of brand new smoke alarm and carbon dioxide detector. And you better believe we'll check them often! We ended the week with a walk to the fire station a few blocks away. The bay doors were open so Sean got to see the trucks. There were a couple of fire fighters outside washing a truck but Sean didn't want to go say hi. Maybe next year.

This week's craft was making a fire with paint. I placed dabs of red, orange and yellow paint on the paper and Sean used a straw to blow the paint into shape.


This week's reading:
The Little Fire Engine -Lois Lenski
The Fire Station -Robert N Munsch


This past week was a no theme week. Sean just wanted to work with numbers and letters so that's what we did.

School Days: Week 4: Autumn

This we continued working on the letters A,B and C. Our theme was Autumn. Unfortunately, it rained all week so we couldn't do as much outside as I had hoped. We did manage to get out and collect leaves for leaf rubbings. We may revisit this theme a little b/c it's just now getting cool and the leaves aren't really changing colors yet.

Leaf rubbing:


Sean's art work this week. He loved making the hand print autumn tree.


He also loves his abacus. Right now we're just using it to count with.


This week's reading:
By the Light of the Harvest Moon -Harriet Ziefert
Fall is Not Easy -Marty Kelley
Fall -Ron Hirschi

School Days: Week 3: Butterflies

This week we changed things up. We went with my original idea for homeschooling preschool: a theme a week. I threw in the letters A,B, and C (A and B were more of a review) and numbers. Our theme this week was butterflies. The Monarch caterpillars we had that made their chrysalises last week were born and released yesterday. Sean has really enjoyed the butterflies so we're picking up more caterpillars tomorrow.

Sean's artwork from this week...he made a chrysalis out of leaves and a twig, a butterfly out of more leaves and twigs, and did some coloring and painting.


Making a butterfly with his hands


A look at our Monarchs becoming butterflies












It's time to release them!








This week's reading:
Gotta Go! Gotta Go! -Sam Swope
Waiting for Wings -Lois Ehlert
The Very Hungry Caterpillar -Eric Carle