Exploring our world at 30 below

Dancing with the music and silks. Loud baby Mozart + play silks equal a really good time. The trick is mommy has to be playing too or for some reason it's no fun at all.

Right, okay. So there is plenty of ice outside it's -30...but at -30 we don't go outside. Even in full wool long john and parks its COLD. So instead we are freezing / thawing a bowel of water in the freezer. 

What happens when we put water in the freezer? Take it out? Pour new water into it? poke it with a spoon?

Rice and sand in a tray with various scooping devices and containers makes for a whole HOUR of self directed learning. Loch kept coming back to this every 45 minutes or so. Hiding 'treasures' in it to re-find them was the biggest hit.

Sorting lady bugs by size is really old hat but it is still fun. We also practice counting each sized bugs. I think he just likes the fact that they are red - his favorite color.

Tricky cheap preschooling tips

See apple? See dry spaghetti noodles stuck in apple? every tried to stick dry spaghetti noodle into an apple? it's actually kind of hard. I'm not sure how this is 'school'....lets call it 'fine motor control' but it was totally fun.

Those paint chips in the paint section of home depot? Perfect for matching colors (grab two of each) for younger kids or for arranging by shade which is what Loch is doing here. I choose to grab red-pink, blue- light blue, & yellow - pale yellow to start with. As we becomes better at it I will add in non primary colors or other paint chips that include words such as 'tuscan' or 'beige'

Paper + crayons = letter practice! 

Color and print letters on paper, tape to the kitchen floor. We practiced letters by playing hopscotch & right leg E! Left hand D!

Piece of wood from old cut down tree makes perfect practice for nailing. This particular type of wood was a little hard so I had to start the nail but after that he got to nail it down. All sorts of fun. Who doesn't like hitting stuff?

Sometimes you need a break...

 
   So it was happening.. Loch was being wild, loud, and disruptive. He fought anything that even seemed like school. Even the slightest 'school-y' question would erupt in arguments between us. It was time for a good long break. A good long break.

So I took a leap of faith and we did no official school work for 3 weeks. The homework fairy had the holidays off and we took the week before, during, & after 'off'.

Today was are first day back to the books and it went well. Mondays have always been our light days to  help get back into the groove after the chaotic weekends and today we talked about the sound the letter M makes, M words, and the number 8. We made a block tower, read some stories, and watched too much scooby do.
But there were no fighting, no arguments, no mommy pulling her hair out.

Take a deep breath and get back to business.




(and when I find my cord thingy I will make a post with some pictures.)