ABC Jesus Loves Me: Year One, Week Three

This week Zeke completed week three in ABC Jesus Loves Me, Year One. His color this week was yellow. In his basket we put some yellow construction trucks, a big yellow car, a yellow Magformer, a yellow chicken, yellow lizards, and a yellow giraffe. He always enjoys this "color basket" as we call it. He likes taking the things out and putting them back in. He colored his train yellow, but it's really hard to see because he colored very softly this week.

 

 

His Bible story was Jesus Loves the Children. He placed yellow foam star stickers on a picture of a boy. I then glued it to a piece of yellow cardstock. He really likes putting stickers on! We sang "Jesus Loves Me" and "Jesus Loves the Little Children".

 

His book of the week was "When the Elephant Walks". He wasn't as in to this book as I thought he would be, but he did enjoy "counting" the bumble bees on the bear page. His animal this week was an elephant. He used a yellow dot marker to dot the elephant.

 

His song this week was "Jesus Loves Me", and his poem was "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star". He learned to point to his ears - he actually pulls on them. He wouldn't do the sign language this week of "more". He has a mind of his own!

His favorite activity by far was the pom-pom transfer. I put five large pom poms in a clear plastic container, and he had to move them to the other plastic container. He stayed interested in this activity for about ten or fifteen minutes! I'll definitely do this again with him.

I really enjoy having these structured times with Zeke each day. It does ensure that he doesn't get lost in the mix while we do school. Although, he is very vocal when he isn't getting the attention he desires! We also read dozens of books a day to him because he loves books, especially lift-the-flap books!

Weekly Recap: 1/20/20-1/24/20

This week, we "traveled" to Canada in geography. We did some mapping activities, labeling the provinces and territories among other things. We read fun facts and completed our country fact worksheet. 

The kids made a postcard from Canada.

We read in "Children Just Like Me" about an Inuit boy living in Canada and they filled out their "Children Just Like Me" worksheet. We also read "Very Last First Time" about an Inuit girl in Canada who "walked on the sea floor" for the first time.

We drew maple leaves and used geometric pattern to color them. We completed a flag worksheet, read tons about Canada in our atlases and books, and learned about many inventions that come from Canada or Canadians.

In science, we learned about amphibians and focused on frogs and toads this week. We made a Venn diagram comparing and contrasting frogs and toads. I found a few worksheets on SuperTeacherWorksheets.com that I printed out for them. They love puzzles!

In Bible Road Trip, we read Genesis 1-11 this week and completed our notebook pages. We memorized Genesis 1:27 and reviewed our memory verses from the past two weeks.



Titus learned about contractions this week. I found this activity on Pinterest and decided to see if it would help him - and it did! I used Mega Blocks and a dry-erase marker. I wrote the contractions on the double blocks and then the two words that make up the contraction on the single blocks. He had to match the single blocks to the double blocks. He really enjoyed this and it was so simple to pull together.

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Eli had a few basketball games this week, and he played great at both of them. My mother-in-law came to our house and sat with the baby and younger kids so I could go to the home game without having to take Zeke!

Mercie shot her first deer this week! She killed a doe. Mikaela got a buck and Eli got a doe earlier in the season, and Mercie was anxious to get her first one. She was very excited.



Reading Through the Alphabet Link Up: A

This is the first week of Reading Through the Alphabet, and we are starting with A.

I'm going to do this challenge with my younger children, reading picture books. This week I scoured our bookshelves and picked three books to read.

First, we read "Amazing Animal Alphabet" by Brian Wildsmith. This is a very simple book with beautiful illustrations. Each page has a letter and animal - A is for Alligator, Z is for Zebra. It's a fun book to look at! The last few pages have some facts about each of the animals pictured.

Second, we read "Angus Lost" by Marjorie Flack. This book is about a dog who is bored of the same yard, house, and cat and decides to go on an adventure to see what else was out there. It doesn't take long before Angus decides that home, with the same yard, house, and cat, is the best place to be. The pages in this book alternate between black and white and color illustrations. My 11 year old daughter thought it was a cute book!

Lastly, we read "Ask Mr. Bear", again by Marjorie Flack. This book is about a little boy who doesn't know what to get his mother for her birthday, so he asks all of the farm animals. However, none of them give him the perfect gift idea until he asks Mr. Bear, who tells him to give her a hug. This is one of my favorite books for young children. The illustrations in this book are so beautiful. Marjorie Flack does her own  illustrating, and she does a wonderful job.

I'd love to see what books you are reading this week (or even what you've read in the past, if you're linking up older posts), so please link-up below! All I ask is that you put my button on your page and link back to my blog. Thanks!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Reading Through the Alphabet Link Up

I have seen several different reading challenges starting this month, and I decided to start my own and make it a link-up! I love link-ups.

This reading challenge is called "Reading Through the Alphabet", and, you guessed it, you will link up books you read that begin with each letter of the alphabet. I'm going to go in order, from A to Z, and you can add any type of book you read. I'm going to do picture books, but you can do any genre you would like to or even a mix!

I do ask that you add my button to your page and link back to my page. We will begin this Thursday with the link-up, and each link-up will last from Thursday to the following Wednesday.

Let's get started!!

ABC Jesus Loves Me: Year 1, Weeks 1 and 2

My youngest, Zeke, is almost 14 months old. I started ABC Jesus Loves Me with him a few weeks ago, mainly to give him some structured time to practice skills and maybe learn a few things. It takes us around 15 minutes a day, not all at once, to do what we do. We are using Year One, the free curriculum.

I have been making a simple "lesson plan" each week. It's really just a chart that lists the activities and learning objectives. I have it organized into three days, but sometimes we do something different on a different day. I try to have all the boxes checked off by the end of the week.

Week One

His Bible story was Noah's Ark. I have a Bible storybook with very short stories (5 sentences or so!) and beautiful illustrations. We read the story, and he made his ABC Book page by placing animal stickers on an ark. He loved the way the stickers were sticking to his fingers!

His color of the week was black. He colored his black train for his Color Train. He enjoys coloring.

I also have been making him a basket each week with his book of the week and some different toys and objects from around the house in his color of the week. This week, he had black cars, horses, a bull, a cat, an airplane, and a black ribbon. His book this week was "A Color Game for Chester Raccoon", because his animal of the week was a raccoon. I pointed out the raccoons in the book and he colored a raccoon with a black crayon.

He worked on a few fine motor skills like playing Peek-A-Boo, waving Bye-Bye, and learning where his head is. His song was "The B I B L E" and his poem was "Row, Row, Row Your Boat."

Week Two

His Bible story was Baby Moses, and he colored the baby and basket with a brown crayon. I cut them out and helped him glue them to a piece of brown paper.

His color of the week was brown, and he colored his train with a brown crayon.

He had brown horses, a cow, a dinosaur, brown felt, and a brown puppy in his basket this week. His book of the week was "Brown Bear, Brown Bear", which he loved reading! His animal this week was, of course, a bear. He dotted a bear with a brown dot marker. He also enjoyed dotting his hands!

 

He played with a sorting toy this week, and he loves it. He knows right where the circles go, but he needs help with the other shapes. He will do this over and over again!

His song was "Oh Be Careful Little Eyes" and his poem was "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". He was supposed to learn how to blow kisses, but he refuses to do it! He also learned where his mouth was, but he doesn't like to point to it when I ask.

All in all, we had a fun two weeks, and I am looking forward to next week. Linking up with Littles Learning Link Up!

Blogging Through the Alphabet: O is for Overkill

I'm coming into this challenge late! But years ago, I completed a "Blogging Through the Alphabet" challenge and it was a lot of fun. I figured it couldn't hurt to start halfway through!

This week the letter is O, and my word is overkill.

It's easy for our homeschool work to turn into overkill. I have always worked hard to make sure that doesn't happen in our home. One of the reasons I homeschool is because I believe the public school systems kills the love of learning. I have two kids in public school that have proven my point of view. Don't get me wrong -  my two older kids are on the honor roll at school, participate in sports and other extracurricular activities, and generally like school.

However, they don't have the same love of learning they used to. They don't enjoy reading books because it takes them several months to get through one book, all the while dissecting every passage and answering the *dumbest* questions about the book. They don't enjoy math because the Common Core has destroyed the way they teach math and has turned simple problems that should take less than a minute to solve into complex problems that take way too long to find a solution.

In our homeschool, I try to keep our lessons focused and pointed. I try not to add in unnecessary worksheets. I try to find curriculum that isn't too teacher intensive and doesn't have an extreme amount of daily work. I do my best to only add in the crafts or science experiments that will be meaningful to my children. I don't assign them a ton of books to read, yet they read on their own. I am using an all-in-one language arts curriculum instead of a separate spelling, grammar, reading, and writing curriculum. I try to keep our school day short enough so they can have plenty of free time.

It's a constant battle against feeling like I need to add more to their day and knowing that their day is a balance that works for us. As Mercie gets older, it's more of a battle trying to find things for her to use that will enrich her without killing her love of learning. I'd love to hear from moms of middle schoolers on how they make that happen!

Baby-Led Weaning

 

 

My youngest child is almost 14 months old. He still breastfeeds for the majority of his calories and nutrition each day. He even nurses during the night a few times. He was never interested in baby food and doesn't eat any baby food now. (The only exception to this is the Gerber Puffs that he loves to snack on. These are a great first food for babies! They're easy to pick up and stick to baby's fingers so he doesn't drop them. They melt in the mouth pretty quickly and come in several different flavors.)

 

Zeke had not shown a big interest in any food until a few weeks ago, and I never pushed feeding him. He is interested in the food on my plate, and may or not accept a few bites from me. For the longest time, he would not even pick up bits of food from the table or his own plate!

 

The past few weeks, he has shown much more interest in food. He even accepts food from my fork and has been picking up bites of food from his own plate! He has eliminated a few nursing sessions  during the day and night with a little encouragement from me. This has been the key to getting him a bit more interested in food.

I have been trying to offer him food before he nurses. I never force it, and I don't make him eat a certain amount before I nurse him. I try to read his cues. If I can tell he is opposed to eating at that time, I let him sit in his seat for about three or four minutes. If he hasn't eaten anything, I will take him out of his seat. He may or may not nurse after that.

If he seems interested in eating, I'll leave him in his chair as long as he is still picking up food, playing with it, and is happy. Sometimes, he will sit there for fifteen minutes or so, even if he has only tried five or six bites. Sometimes, he will sit for five minutes and eaten ten or twelve bites. I sit at the table with him, sometimes eating and sometimes just talking to him. I do try to encourage him a bit by saying, "Let's try this carrot," or "These noodles are yummy!"

Some of the foods he has enjoyed eating are corn, peas, carrots, applesauce, small cereal, noodles, rice, toast, and potatoes. I have offered him meat, but he doesn't usually want it.

Cutting out a few nursing sessions wasn't hard, but it also wasn't easy. The first one I cut out was his first-thing-in-the-morning session. I try to put him in his chair with a few bites of whatever we are eating for breakfast, usually pancake or eggs or cereal. I also give him a cup of juice. (We use Motts for Tots, which is already diluted with water and has 40% less sugar than regular juice.) When he gets out of his chair, he has usually forgotten he wanted to nurse.

He nurses around 3-4 times during the day now. He nurses himself to sleep for his two naps, usually around 10:30 or 11 and 3:30 or 4. He also nurses himself to sleep at night. During the day, when he walks over and "assumes position" as my mom calls it, I try to distract him with a book or toy. He loves to be read to, so a book usually does the trick! If he is very persistent and fussy, I may nurse him for a few minutes.

Nighttime nursings are the ones I am having trouble cutting out! He sleeps with my husband and I, and he used to nursing anytime he gets woken up or even just semi-woken up. I'm trying to rub his back or sing him back to sleep, but sometimes he starts screaming! It's so easy to just nurse him back to sleep - it takes just a few minutes of quiet nursing as opposed to several minutes of loud screaming.  I'm trying to remind myself that I will feel much more rested when he sleeps through the night, but it's not easy to remember when he's crying.

I am hopeful that he will continue to try new foods and cut out most of his nursing sessions by himself.