Our Plant Unit

I loved putting this unit together! We started yesterday (Monday is my long workday so we have school Tuesday-Saturday).

Letter: Pp for Plant and Prayer. We are not working formally on letters yet- we will start that in September. Big Kid already identifies all of the upper case, so we are still talking about lower case and the letter sounds. We will be very specifically working on those things along with writing in the fall, but for now we're using whatever letter goes along with the unit we're studying.

Bible/Character: We are continuing to focus on Prayer and the types of things that we say to God- why we pray in Jesus Name, specifically. We are also focusing on Thankfulness in prayer.

Book of the Week: The Parable of the Lily. We read the book each day and talk about different aspects of the book each day.

Plant books: I ordered about 20 books from the library based on books that I used in my pre-mommy days of teaching preschool and referals from friends. I ordered a few I wasn't sure about and read them before- hand to be sure they fit my objectives. My favorite new discovery? Books by Penelope Arlon. They were written for DK and these are colorful, fun, fact-filled books. We are using "Plant" and "Tree" by Ms. Arlon and we've already read them several times in the last 2 days because my son loves the lift-the-flap aspect of the book.

Tactile: Big Kid is a very "hands-on" kid, so this is an important facet of my lesson plans. We've been using a pile of pinto beans for the last few days to do just about everything. We've been counting, doing small addition, forming shapes, making letter Pp, measuring, pouring and pretending to cook. If I had known how busy this little pile of beans would keep him, we would have brought them out ages ago!

We also planted our own flowers in a pot on the back porch. Big Kid is doing a great job taking care of them. We have planted seeds for sunflowers as well, and he is anxiously watching for the first little hint of green to show up.

Resources: I love many of the suggestions at homeschoolshare.com and we are using many of their ideas, specifically their unit on the Parable of the Lily. I also found a fun lily craft at enchantedlearning.com.

Pictures from this week in homeschool will come on Saturday when we finish the unit.

Scheduling

Our schedule is in flux again. My work schedule shifted to 3 longer days instead of 4 shorter ones, so we're trying to make the adjustment. Trying to rearrange my household duties around this new schedule has been challenging! At the same time my husband started a new contract and is temporarily working 6 days per week so he is not around as much to do his usual tasks.

I'm trying to get some of my old habits going again and I spent the last week working on my morning routine. My boys get up between 6:30 and 7:00 each morning and I've been trying to get back into the routine of starting a load of laundry and emptying the dishwasher while the boys are eating breakfast. I've been doing pretty well with it this week, so I'm going to try to add another one- I want to get up at 6:00 a.m. so I can get my shower and breakfast before they get up. It will make my morning go a bit more smoothly. I got a new one-cup coffee maker for my birthday last week, so I'm going to be setting that in the mornings- that will encourage me to get out of bed if I know a great cup of hot coffee is waiting for me.

The next step after this is to get back into weekly routines.