Preschool Corner- Week 3- Getting in the Groove!

We're not totally in the groove, but man oh man are we getting a lot closer!  School is starting to feel more a part of normal life and not this new exception to what we typically do.  Rhythm isn't really fighting it at all anymore.  He just knows that this is what we do everyday and has actually been getting excited for it many days.

Working on his Raising Rock Stars "Honor Your Father and Mother" cut/color/glue craft.

This week I definitely noticed a difference in his ability to work independently- especially with our Raising Rock Stars Preschool curriculum.  Since the same basic activities repeat each week I see a confidence growing in him that he knows what he is supposed to be doing and I am able to lay him out with 1-3 tasks at a time while I take care of Lion Cub or attend to some other urgent need (of course I prefer to sit with him but it just can't always happen).  I love coming upstairs from putting Lion Cub down for a nap to find that Rhythm has actually completed a good portion of work and is excited to show me! We are still struggling with some concentration stuff, but I already see an improvement when he is working on things and knows what to expect.

Reading his reader from the Raising Rock Stars Curriculum.

We added a few new things this week that I have been beyond thrilled with.  The first of which was incorporating the Character First website into our morning calendar time.  You can do a trial run on their website and it goes through the lesson on attentiveness, which just happens to be the character quality we are focusing on right now.  Along with great stories of animals and characters from history who have exhibited the particular character quality you are working on, it has wonderful audios for a little memory chant about the character quality and a song to help get the meaning and application of the quality into your head.  Of course, we did have a little word mix-up in which the song, "I'll be attentive, so very attentive" turned into "I'll be distracted, so very distracted."  It was a completely honest mistake that he made, but oh so funny (and telling!).

Working on his writing for his 2nd lesson in Teaching Your Child to Read.

The second thing I worked in was actually not something that I intended to try for another good 4-6 months.  In fact, I wasn't even sure that I would be working it in at all, it was just a book I had put on hold at the library so that I could check it out and see if it was something that I would want to try.  I am sure many of you have heard of it- Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.  Rhythm saw me looking through it when we got home from the library and we decided to give it a little trial run.  To my shock he just took off with it!  He sailed through the lesson and actually enjoyed it!  The lessons are very short, which is perfect, and it is so well spelled out for you that there is very little (if any) prep work.  I am very excited to continue with this curriculum and see how he does.

I wish I would have gotten more pictures for this week but our schedule was kind of odd and we were so engrossed in our work I simply forgot to pick up the camera!  Next week I hope to get more shots and share more specifics of what we really love about Raising Rock Stars Preschool.  All in all though, I am very pleased that we are three full weeks in and I haven't dropped the ball!!  Each week we have completed all the work that I planned on absolutely getting done (there were a few things that I let slide just because they weren't fitting in or working yet) and we are both enjoying it more and more each week.  I am so proud of how he is learning and taking on new challenges!

Preschool Corner- Week #2!!

Hmmmm, what is there to say about this week?  We did make it through all of our Raising Rock Stars work, but that pretty much sums it up!  Drat!  It started off with just not getting as prepared for the week as I should have on Sunday evening.  I then found out that an old friend of mine died over the weekend- a big emotional hit even though I haven't seen him in years.  Follow all that up with the boys and I all getting colds, leading to erratic sleeping schedules and general crankiness, and our week couldn't help but culminate in routine and school FAIL.  Arg.

Well, let me show you what we did do:

Rhythm is really enjoying doing his Weekend Report each Monday.  He has taken to coloring much more than he ever has before, and what you see him doing in this picture is actually dictating what he is "writing" about his weekend!  Very cute and funny!  He literally talked and "wrote" for 5 minutes straight!

Here he is taping his verse strip up on the wall behind his chair.  He loves all of the cutting activities in the Raising Rock Stars Curriculum- right up his hands-on alley!

We found a Phineas and Ferb (big fans here!) folder at Target before school started and he loves putting all of his completed work in it during the day.  At the end of the week we then put all of his work from the week into his Raising Rock Stars binder as we review.

At the beginning of the week we did manage to complete the assessment sheets that Carisa has to offer on her Raising Rock Stars site (I think they are in the members only section- which is only $10 for a lifetime membership!!  Yeah- serious deal!!  It may be going up slightly soon though so get in while the price is still this crazy!).  Rhythm did better than I expected with some things and other he was right about where I expected.  It was very helpful to have this gage to mark his progress on and will be nice to compare back to and keep a record of throughout the year.

He is so goofy!  Here he is coloring his Ten Commandments craft. He kept getting very distracted (or perhaps he was dawdling- I'm still deciding) by his crayons!  He had to have them all perfectly lined up next to each other and desperately wanted to get out one of his truck and trailers to haul them on (which he did later do!).  

I can see that distractions are going to be a constant battle for him (even the leaves blowing in the wind outside the window have the potential to completely sidetrack him!) and the more organized I can be the easier this battle will be to win.  I have to get back in the game with our routine this week!  Even though our first week was rough, I can so see the difference there was in his ability to follow the flow and stay on task week 1 vs week 2.  I am hoping we will all be feeling better by Monday and I will be able to get everything in place for a much more smooth week!  Wish us luck- better yet, pray very hard!

Just to wrap things up I thought I would include a little video of Rhythm saying his memory verse from week 1! Enjoy!

I have linked this post to Homeschool Creations' Preschool Corner- go there to find lots of great preschool ideas!