Z is for Zoo!

We went to the Zoo last week and spent over three hours visiting the new polar bear, differentiating between all the different penguins and puffins and exploring the herpetarium. Then we read Zin, Zin, Zin, A Violin and A Sick Day for Amos McGee (which doesn't have a Z in the title but is about a Zoo and as one of my favorite modern books, we couldn't possible skip it) and today was our last tea time to finish up Museum A-B-C with a page about zig-zags.

And with that, Lucy's preschool years are over. Kinda. We are doing a light kindergarten year but I still don't consider it "real school," with all the pressure on the mom to actually get it done, until first grade. And I'm not having to pack her a lunch and put her on the bus so no tears yet.

But before we talk about kindergarten,we need to wrap up preschool! As I mentioned here, we followed Elizabeth Foss's Along the Alphabet Path guide. Looking back on my excessive plans, we did pretty much what I set out to do. With the exception of the worst of the worst of hyperemesis, we kept up with table time (although we combined breakfast and lunch table times into a mid-morning, no food table time to leave me free to address Jonah's food throwing issue - an ongoing battle) and a weekly/semi-weekly tea time with our art book.

Some weeks we did several fun activities to go with our letter, some weeks we did whatever fun activity we wanted but often I was able to stretch it to make the letter fit anyway, and other weeks we just read the fairy story and poem and a picture book or two. We discovered lots of great picture books, enjoyed a variety of poems, and sang many fairy songs. We did a great job of going outside and exploring new places like parks and museums. And we spent so much time outside. So while this year hit me with more healthy issues and struggles that I expected, looking back, I think we did pretty good!

With each letter, Lucy would make a page with the letter and drawings of things that began with that letter. I loved watching her drawings and writing improve over the year. I didn't do nearly as good a job at documenting what we did this year (other than my post for the letter A and B) as I did last year for Worlds of Learning so I want to take those papers and find a way to put it together into a book (maybe have it comb bound at a teacher supply store?).

I do hope we get to do the Alphabet Path again. Lucy was three when we started Worlds of Learning and while Jonah is turning 3 this fall but doesn't need anything structured at all. He's just such a different kid. If he's up for it the next year when he's 4, it would be fun to do Worlds of Learning with him and that would leave us a year to do the Alphabet Path again before he starts first grade. Those plans are very loose but I do like the idea of revisiting this "curriculum" because it was a lot of fun!