Halfway there

It was a milestone week at the Preschool of Mommy. With 15 weeks behind us, we've passed the halfway point in our at-home preschool escapades. And to celebrate, we added some brand new adventures.

Inspired by If You Give a Pig a Party, Abby had a special request for reading time this week: "May we build a fortress out of blankets, Mommy?" The answer, of course, was yes, and she didn't seem to mind that we substituted beach towels for blankets. (And I'd like to add that the grammarian in me is quite happy that both Abby and Caleb use "may I" and "can I" appropriately about 90% of the time.) We dragged the beach towels out of storage, redesigned the layout of the living room to suit our fortress-building needs, anchored our roof with clothespins, and set to work selecting just the right reading material for so spectacular a space.

The fortress was a huge hit, and our reading time turned into a reading hour as the kids lugged everything from Dr. Suess to Beatrix Potter across the treacherous terrain of the living room into the safety of our custom-built book nook. The towels lived downstairs for the remainder of the week, and I caught the kids constructing their own little lean-tos on more than one occasion.
A while later, I lured the kids outside for our first-ever scavenger hunt, which was really a sneaky way of teaching Abby to read a few more words and an excuse to wander around in weather that is just warm enough to thaw the remaining snow. Armed with their own scavenger hunt cards and a few specific items to locate around the neighborhood (ball, dog, cat, flag, cloud, etc.) we bundled up, sounded out our words, and wandered around the block until we'd checked everything off our lists.

Abby was like a little detective, furtively checking every yard and tree for something that matched the words on her card or Caleb's. Caleb, for his part, ran ahead of us at every turn and found huge puddles of melting snow to jump in while he waited for Abby to check items off her list.

Caleb and I spent a good bit of time this week arguing over whether or not he will hold a crayon properly. His debating skills are quite advanced for a 2-year-old, but he underestimates my persistence. I introduced him to the pencil gripper I found for him, and he was less than delighted with it. He has a lot of opinions for such a young guy, but given time, I'm pretty sure I can win this one. Maybe.

Abby, who enjoys being in charge much more than she enjoys being told what to do, still continues to amaze me with how well she is learning to read. We owe our success this week to Pinkie Pie, the tiny plastic pony, who was willing to review some sight words when Abby wasn't so keen on the idea.

With Caleb's help and some wooden blocks, we constructed a tiny village guarded by a large baby, and built a road leading to it out of our sight word flash cards. Every time Pinkie knew the word on a card, she could move forward until she reached the village. And since Abby is the only one who can hear Pinkie speaking, it was up to Abby to tell me the words that Pinkie knew. See what I did there?

We also started in this week on some more focused number recognition with some dot-to-dot worksheets from our Kumon numbers book. Abby is really into these, and after we finished the pages from her workbook, we had to flip through every coloring book we own in search of more connect the dot activities for her.

With half of our school year completed, I can happily report that the kids and I are still loving this home preschool thing. Planning and execution has gotten easier, and I'm finding myself more willing and more able to adapt to make our learning goals and our family needs mesh well. I've already picked up a few additional resources, and am eagerly looking forward to planning next year's Pre-K Lite.