Preschool Priorities #2/#3 - Interests and those pesky Rs

If you missed Part I(plans and priorities) or Part II (A Rich Feast), check them out.

As I said earlier, my second priority is learning about what the kids are interested in followed by reading, writing and arithmetic for Lucy. Right now, for Lucy at least, those are often the same thing. 

Writing – This is her subject of the day season. She loves to write. If you come over to our house you’ll see tiny pieces of paper and notes all over the place. She’ll sound out words  by herself. Her CVC words are pretty accurate but the rest gets interesting. I just love sounded out some of the things she writes down because it normally makes a lot of sense auditorily although not visually. She also loves to write silly words such as “lulululubababawee” and then laugh hysterically when I read them to her.  And sometimes she actually asks for my help so I always take that as an opportunity to reviewing or teaching some phonics.

I’ve been hesitant to start anything in terms of lessons when it comes to actually handwriting because I know as soon as I do, she’ll move on BUT she consistently writes certain letters incorrectly and I don’t want her to learn bad habits so we’ll be working on writing. (She draws an e in three parts, first with a line across, then a swoopy bottom and lastly a curve at the top. This is probably the least efficient method possible. But it does look like an e!) While she’s interested we’ll do the copy work part of Alphabet path but if she starts to baulk, it will get dropped, especially the fine motor work.

Math – MEP 1 when requested (plus all that general everyday number fun we have). She's not in as much of a crazy math period as she was but she still asks for it a couple times a week. 

Reading – She got to Lesson 60 of The Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Reading and stalled out. I tried not to ask if she wanted to do a reading lesson and just let her request but we had finished one of two lessons on the voiced and unvoiced th sounds and my ocd self couldn't take it and tried to at least finish up that but nope, when she was done, she was done. The little stinker wouldn't even finish the last half of a lesson! But letting that go, I realize that if where she is now is all she knows when entering first grade, I’ll still be happy and since we are getting review in with writing, at least for now, I’m content with letting this rest for now. 

If she or Jonah have other big interests that come up, I can probably fit them into a letter somehow or just take the week off to do fun stuff with that topic. With a whole year and only 24 of so letter weeks (a couple are combined), we should have plenty of time even if we take december and april off. And that's my plan.

I know it took me a long time to say it, but honestly, it isn't much at all and leaves us lots of time to play outside and in.

• Daily Table Time with bible work, hymn, poem, folk songs and French song practice (probably not each subject each day though).
• Music – Opera!
• French – Get me caught up, read few French picture books.
• Art – Daily open ended art time plus weekly picture study
• Alphabet Path Extension – Read lots of books and maybe do a few activities
• Monthly Preschool Co-op 

I think that's really reasonable. We shall see. I'm getting really excited for fall now - and not just because I'm ready for some jeans weather. 

WOL Changes

I know several of you have mentioned that you plan to use Worlds of Learning next year which is great! We've really been enjoying it and I hope you do to. Alas, Scribd seems to be changing its terms of service and now charges a subscription fee. Boo, I want you all to have this for free! I'm not making money off of it, I don't even have Amazon Affiliates right now.

So if you have a Scribd subscription for other reasons, feel free to use it for downloading but if you don't, rest assured, I will be moving it. Probably to Google Docs but if any of you have another site that you would recommend, please share. In the meantime, if you've viewed it at Scribd and like what you see, just send me an email and I'll be happy to email you the files directly until I have this worked out.

World's of Learning Year in Review

We still have about 6 weeks of Worlds of Learningpreschool work left. I'll be back with June/July and August monthly reviews later but I’ve recently started planning next year and I wanted to take some time to think how it went, what worked, what didn't, and what I would do differently before I plan for the next year.

Overall, we had a great time learning together this year. I had pretty much the right amount of stuff planned, the daily work got done probably 80% of time and having 1-2 activities a week during the spring and fall, a bit more in the winter when we start to get stir crazy was just what we needed. I always had options when I needed them but rarely felt overwhelmed or behind.

What Worked Well:

Table Time

We loved Table Time. It’s not even really “school” now, it’s just what we do at lunch for fun – and to keep everyone in their seats until a reasonable amount of food has been consumed. And if we missed it at lunch because we were gone or ate outside, we would normally make it up during afternoon snack time. We didn’t get everything done every day but we did since it was a daily thing, I never felt bad about skipping or missing if life happened.

As far as the work we did (hymns, poems and folk/fairytales), Lucy memorized most of the poems just from repeated exposure. When it came to hymns, we all improved a great deal. When we started, neither kid would sing along but enjoyed listening to me. This past month, both kids sang the hymn (Jonah’s version was  “may may bread may may KNEES!” but the rhythm was quite clear – and adorable).  And both kids request some of their favorite hymns at bedtime and since I had been practicing I could sing all the verses instead of just repeating the first and last over and over again. The story was longer so it become the first thing to get dropped but it was still Lucy’s favorite part. I’m sure it will change a bit but we will definitely be keeping Table Time.

Lots of books. 

We love books and I like having quality books around to pull out.  The weeks we didn’t do preschool and just relied on picking things up on the library, we ended up with a lot more twaddle and reading time because more of a chore for mom.  I know there is some “controversy” in CM circles over having too many picture books for preschoolers but I’m confident that our reading time doesn’t replace outdoor or free play time and we keep things in balance.

Lots of outdoor time.

At the beginning of the year I read Charlotte Mason’s recommendation for 4-6 hrs outside and just thought there was no way I would make the happen. But with concerted effort, we’ve made it up to 2-4 hrs average and have even made it to 6 several times.  We normally eat one or even two meals outside on a nicer day.

Art appreciation/Picture Studies

Simple but perfect and I know we both learned a lot. Lucy even spotted a few works she recognized and told me the artist while we were in Hobby Lobby once. My favorite art memory of hers was probably when she saw The Little Dancer in person and was shocked by how small it was. Honestly, even though I had seen it before, I was too. It just seemed bigger in our books and print. We had some issues with review which was an issue with our Table Time work as well so that will be its own issue.

What didn't work:

Relying on the library

We’ve got a fairly decent library and the ILL normally works pretty quickly but several books I had looked up earlier were not available (disappeared!) from the library by the spring time and other times it just wasn’t a good week for me to swing by. It was frustrating not having them right when I wanted them. The plan I’m working on for next year will be a bit more flexible but the few books that I need at a specific time I will just plan on buying. There is always room in the budget for books. If not, we’ll cut our food budget and eat less dessert. I’m only partially kidding.

Review

I didn’t have a plan for reviewing our table time work. We need one. And I've got a plan. It involves Evernote and is based on the Charlotte Mason review system we've used for bible memory. I’ll let you know if I get it all worked out.

What needs some tweaking:

Classical Music 

The semesters were we listened to specific works were perfect. I wasn't sure how this would go because I didn't have much planned in terms of activities. Turns out, we didn't need them.  Just having a specific piece picked out that we listened to over and over was fun and the kids learned to recognize and love it. Carnival of Animals and Peter and the Wolf were both big hits and are still requested on car trips. But the semester we focused on an artist (Vivaldi) wasn't the same. I don’t think this was an issue with Vivaldi himself but we listened to too much so the kids didn't really learn any piece or care. It just became background music. Nice background music but there wasn't the same interaction. 

WOL - May

May was a super busy month for us so we didn't get everything done and I knew that would happen but we still managed to squeeze in quite a bit of preschool fun. I just couldn't help it, these are some of my favorite books of the whole semester. I did not however, do an excellent job of taking pictures of the fun.

I stared with Ferdinand because that was my favorite childhood book and I was worried we wouldn't get to it. Lucy loved this book too which just made me so happy. I know people in these days of gender issues read lots of things into it but I think it is just a simple story of how you don't have to fit in. And when I was reading it to Lucy and we got to the part where Ferdinand doesn't want to play with the rough bulls, Lucy looked at me with eyes wide open. She was so excited she couldn't even talk so I said "Hmm, who do we know that doesn't always want to play with other kids, especially if they are being loud or crazy?" and she could barely contain herself before shouting "Me! He's like me!" It was a great chance for us to talk about personalities and differences between people and how God made everyone different.

I was also waiting on The Gardener so I lumped all the flower activities together until it arrived. We took a morning to go out and look for flowers in our yard. I had challenged Lucy to find 3 kinds and we found 4! We drew picture of each. Lucy's favorite was a little purple one that she called a bunny flower because its petals were funny shaped and it really did look like a bunny. I need to find out its real name though (Update: I'm pretty sure its a dead nettle. See how those little things on the bottom could be ears?).

We also collected dandelions another morning and made pancakes. The kids though it was fun and they didn't taste bad - but they didn't taste great either :-) We ate them all though, apparently before I even got pictures, so nobody starved. Maybe we'll try dandelion lemonade next time.

We planted Sunflowers but unfortunately, only one came up and the next day we had a big storm and it got smooshed. Lucy didn't seem to mind because we had lots of dandelions and mushrooms to explore but I really want sunflowers in our yard so next year I'll be putting Craig in charge, my thumbs are too green to be trusted, even with such a great helper.

Our chalk flowers turned out better! This is the kind of plant projects I'm good at.

I completely skipped Babuska's doll because I knew we would't get to everything and it isn't tied to a season like the others. I think its a fun story so I'll just save those activities for a rainy day.

Peter and the Wolf was on the schedule but remember, I did the a little switcheroo earlier this year so we got Carnival of Animals and read the poems and listened to it quite a bit. We have two versions. The Bernstein version that we own tells a bit more about the music, how the tortoise section is really just a slowed down version of "the can-can" and other fun tidbits like that. I enjoyed that one but the kids liked the poems from the book version. We didn't get to either of the activities but we did get out our set of musical instruments and play them together. Even without the activities, this book ended up being a huge hit with Jonah. I think its the first longer picture book that he has really taken to and I'm very excited to finally be moving away from The Very Hungry Caterpillar (not that it isn't a good book but there is only so much a mama can take!)

And that's it for May. June is pretty busy as well but we'll see what we can fit in.

WOL: March/April

I didn't post about it but I did get the summer schedule of Worlds of Learning up on it's page a few weeks ago. It's starts with May. I'll go on record and say that even though it's not as full as the other semesters, I still don't think we will get around to doing it all. But I'd rather have stuff planned that we don't get to, as long as I don't put pressure on myself, than have time to fill. It probably depends on how hot of summer it is. We've got lots of plans for May and June so if July is nice, we'll probably take it easy and spend a lot of time outside. If July is brutally hot, school it is!

We didn't end up doing everything in March/April for various reasons, and I was fine with that. I can really tell Lucy missed it though and is very excited to start again next week.

But here is what we did get done. Most of this was in March so the details may be fuzzy.

For the Clown of God we made a rainbow for God using circles of colored paper. She wrote ways we can give a gift to God on each one. She came up with some good ones like "Obey," "Not hurt" and "Pray." We talked about how don't give gifts to make God loves us, He will love us no matter what, but we give gifts because we love Him.

I'm 100% sure she's not unhappy since this is when she finally got to use the gold glitter glue. I guess that's just a concentration face.

I told her the story took place in Italy and we looked at Italy on the map and in her atlas. Later on, she showed Craig and he told her it was shaped like a boot so every time we mentioned Italy the rest of the month, she had to tell me that it was shaped like a boot :-)

We made bagel face sandwiches for lunch and I'm not sure if I lost the pictures or they ate them so fast I didn't get a chance to take any. We actually ate this several times for lunch this month. They loved it, sprout hair and all!

Another day we talked about the illustrations and did some pen and watercolor paintings of our own. She wanted us both to make turtles so we did!

This was not Jonah's favorite because I refused to let him dump the watercolors everywhere.

For Gabriella's song we made a really simple pasta recipe. It was simple but quite tasty!

Then we played sink or float. It's funny how with Pinterest, I think us moms can get caught up in finding a really cool activity for our kids but in reality, the tried and true ones are popular for a reason. Both kids love playing in water at the sink every single time I suggest it and they play for so long. This time was probably at least an hour.  I started with probably 5-6 items but Lucy kept asking for more and more and then started suggesting things to try. The blue towel is floaters, the green towel is sinkers. Jonah just dumped water everywhere but he had fun too. It gets messy but a few towels clean it up and it isn't like water stains.

And yes, the one time her dress isn't backwards, it's inside-out.

For Miss Rumphius, we picked out some flowers and she arranged them herself. She picked one flower for her small vase to go in her room and the rest she put in a mason jar and insisted they go in my room.

We had planned to do fence weaving but the weather was awful and by the time it was nice, I forgot about it. But this post reminded me so we really should try it. I think she'd enjoy it.

We almost didn't get to do Papa Piccolo. I had it marked as a library book and I know I had checked it out before to plan this semester but it was gone when I went to reserve it. I got it ILL a few days before Easter so we read it, and she loved it, but I didn't have time to do anything with it other than make pizza for dinner (which, if I'm being honest, was already on the menu :-) She also went on a "daddy date" when I sent her along with him on a errand but I can't remember where they went. I think it might have been to pick up chicken feed which probably certainly isn't as fancy as the symphony but that doesn't matter too much when you are three years old.

We also did a few other school-ish activities. These aren't WOL but they were fun and if I don't mention them now, they'll probably get forgotten. Lucy got an egg full of jelly beans. She sorted them by color then graphed them. Jonah held a jelly bean while he colored. 

Then we played a game with 5 jelly beans. I hid some under half the egg and she had to count how many were left and tell me how many were hidden. When she could do it without counting, we moved up to ten. Starting with ten was harder so she had to use fingers to help her out but she understood the concept and loved lifting the egg to see if she was right. And she really loved it when the answer was 0 or 10!

This isn't really Easter related but she recently finished MEP Reception (review coming) so I was printing out the Year 1 materials and she saw the numbers cards while I was laminating them so I had to quickly come up with something. I had just read a greater/less than activity using eggs with various numbers of jelly beans but the duplos were out so we did that instead. She picked two cards and made towers than had the greater than or less than "monster" eat the bigger tower. Then she would "read" the sentence: 1 is less than 6! This was her first introduction to signs in Math since MEP Reception is all oral. She hadn't even seen an equals sign yet so I introduced that when she tried to be sneaky and pick two of the same number. Oh, she really thought she had me! She has asked for this game several times since then and I enjoy it too because Jonah will happily build towers next to us instead of destroying whatever we are trying to work on. Win-win!

Worlds of Learning in January

Our "winter" display. 

This was a fun month but we were stuck inside so much, we used up all my plans too quickly. Note to self - January is boring! Keep those kids occupied so they don't drive me crazy!

So our new year started off like most of yours probably did - with news of a big storm coming. So what did we do an hour before the snow was expected to start? Go hiking!


It was a bit chilly but we knew we'd be cooped up, so why not? The most important part of this hike is that Jonah did almost the entire 0.8 miles himself! The only times we picked him up was when he was too engrossed with the rocks to keep walking. And while I'm normally all about stopping and smelling the roses playing with the rocks, there was a storm coming so we really need to keep moving. But seriously, 0.8 miles? What a little hiker!

Then the storm hit and the kids and I were stuck at home while Craig was stuck at work so we did a whole week's worth of activities in those two days. 

Over the month we read Katy and the Big Snow, Zin, Zin, Zin a Violin, Stopping my woods on a Snowy Evening and The Snow Children. I mixed and matched the books and activities according to the weather so they don't match up one to one but nobody seemed to mind.

We  made a "map" of our town. Coincidentally, the week before this she had gotten all excited about directions and asked me what direction we were traveling any time I turned. We mostly drew the big highway and whether things were North or South of our house.

So she did really well with directions but not so much with scale :-) "Anna's house" is actually much bigger than ours and both are larger than a 4 passenger vehicle. And let's not even get started on the goat on the road...

We brought some snow inside to play with.

Tasty!

Made "snow balls" from dates, nuts and coconut. They might have looked a little more snowy with powdered sugar but coconut is yummy and healthy. 

Our next book was Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. We made snowy woods with contact paper and watercolor and salt. Originally the contact paper was going to be painters tape but I couldn't find ours. That was a good thing because contact paper worked really well and was much easier to cut into tree shapes than tape probably would have been. 

I wasn't sure the salt was doing much as we painted but once they dried, you could see the effects and it was quite pretty.

Craig and Lucy had a special Daddy daughter date to go see Peter and the Wolf. The next day we read Zin Zin Zin a Violin and she told me and Jonah and anyone who would listen all about what a symphony is like. We had attended a music class the week before so I skipped the homemade band. I still want to do that sometime though. 

Of course, we did lots of playing in the snow, 

built a super cool snow fort. 

and Craig taught the kids important life lessons - like how to properly finish a snowman.

We also did a scavenger hunt of sorts where I would tell her what direction, how many steps and what kind (jumps, big, tip toes, twirls, etc). I was planning on "being a compass" with my arms but after the first time, she knew what I meant so I didn't need to. 

Hot chocolate snowlady waiting to be found!

And to go with our hot chocolate - tortilla snowflakes. I wasn't sure if she would be able to cut these herself but folded in quarters wasn't too thick so she could. Yum!

And that's what we did last month! Whew, no wonder I'm so tired. 

Worlds of Learning - November

We started and ended November with colds and germs abounding but still managed to fit in some fun.

The first book of the month was Ox Cart Man which Lucy had read before but absolutely loves. We made candles just they did in the book.

I loved watching Lucy make these, she was concentrating so hard her little tongue was sticking out the whole time. Adorable!

A half sheet candle was just right for putting in our leaf lanterns. Dinner time candles are going to be a regular feature here. The evenings we used them just seemed a bit calmer. I still have to get up half a dozen times to refill glass or get the ketchup or clean up something that got spilled but every little bit helps.

We also made "wintergreen peppermint candies." I first made these in high school but it had been a while and this time I realized that these are basically really thick chunks of frosting that you let dry. But I love that they aren't baked so I don't have to worry about the sizes being similar. Lucy started out cutting big ones and they got smaller and smaller as she kept cutting.

She loves getting to use a real (butter) knife so perhaps she didn't want it to end. She also decided they didn't look pretty enough so she started rolling them afterwards. I think this was the first time she was able to successfully roll a ball so our playdough options are about to burst open!

Craig took over for part of the month (I was taking Jonah to a doctor's appointment) and he and Lucy made cranberry bread to go along with Cranberry Thanksgiving. We used the one in the book and to be honest, it wasn't a very good recipe - too crumble and dry. Then we made dye out of cranberries and dyed some linen to be a table runner. Lucy thought the dye was magic because it was dark pink as a liquid and we thought it would dye the fabric pinkish but as it dried it went from pink to purple to blue and eventually ended up a weird blueish gray. Even I was surprised with the final color but she loved it.

We also did some cranberry painting to decorate the front of note cards which we were going to send to relatives but instead they sat in the armoire while I stayed in bed trying not to die while the kids ransacked the house and/or watched too much Daniel Tiger. This was probably one of the worst colds I've ever had so I'm just happy we made it through.

So we didn't write notes to our relatives but we did read The Relatives Came and made a family tree on the wall.

 

 The family tree was then converted to a Thanksgiving tree. Here are her first three "leaves" which read God, home and princesses.

 I was expecting her to draw the things she was thankful for but she insisted on writing them so I used her magnet letters to spell them and she copied them down. I think this is the first thing she wrote that is actually legible! (Well, Craig and I can read her name but I don't think the average person on the street could).

I'm not really sure what to do with her and writing. She loves to write but I worry about it being such a fine motor skill and her learning bad habits. We try doing salt writing, or making letters from play dough or air writing and she'll do that and seems to enjoy it but she really wants to write with a pen. About half the time she wants to do art she ends up just filling a page with "writing." It used to be just lines and scribbles and has gradually become actually letters but she writes a lot of letters bottom to top or willy nilly. I don't care if she can't write well but I don't want her to have to unlearn things either. And that's my overly worrisome parent dilemma of the month.  And now Jonah is obsessed with pens too - and he knows when you try to cheat and hand him a closed pen. No fooling this guy.

Anyway, back to thankfulness. She was also thankful for bunnies, cheese, pots and pans and light switches. My leaves were a little more traditional with things like family members, friends, daddy's job, etc.

We didn't get to Little Babaji and not just because of the sick week. Our library says they don't have it anymore. I know they used to because we've checked it out before. It might just be the website. I don't think I'm an idiot but I really have trouble with it sometimes. I normally search for each book by title as well as author because sometimes it will only work on one of the two but both times came up with nothing. I have a hard time believing they got rid of it in the last two months though  so I might go in person and hunt. I can't do that with Jonah though, his new favorite game is take every book of the shelf as fast as I can and if you try and stop me I'll screech and scream. I'm loving the hold shelf right now!

And that's about it for November. First semester down!

Worlds of Learning Winter is here!

The Worlds of Learning Winter printables and activity charts are done. They are embedded below and added to the Worlds of Learning Page. Keep in mind that this semester doesn't start until January as we'll be busy with the holidays until then. But I might have something fun for December circle time to share if you ask nicely :-)

  Wol Winter by MacKenzie Limesand

Worlds of Learning - October

This month was all about animals and how they contribute to our lives - except for when it wasn't. Yes, only two months in and I already made a major change, but we'll get to that in a bit.

Snipp, Snapp, Snurr and the Buttered Bread

Up first was Snipp, Snapp, Snurr and the Buttered Bread. Lucy loves the Flicka, Ricka and Dicki books by Maj Lindman so I knew she would probably enjoy this one as well and she did but not quite as much as the FRD ones. I think because the story was a little less involved.

We made some butter and after impatiently waiting for our pumpkin bread to cool, ate it all up. Delicious! 

Both this book and the next were based in Sweden so we colored the Swedish flag and decorated a dala horse. The original plan was to use homemade puffy paint but that requires a microwave and I had forgotten that we got rid of our microwave. I know that seems like it would be kind of obvious but we had kept it in the basement on a shelf for almost two years before we finally donated it for good so it isn't if I just forgot it wasn't on our kitchen counter anymore. But I thought fast and remembered that just a few weeks ago Lucy had seen a mosiac and thought it was really neat so I decided we would decorate our dala horse mosiac style. I cut thin strips of blue and white construction paper which she then cut into little squares and glued on. 

We both made and hers probably ended up better than mine, she was very meticulous and wanted to make it just like the picture I showed her of a large one from Sweden. She even saw that it had flowers and drew those on to match. We made a deal to try to go visit one "someday, even if it can't be for a while that's okay mommy."  She loved them so much was going to the horse and flag to show and tell at the library so she could tell them all she knew about Sweden but we didn't end up staying.

We also had a whole meal of Swedish food. The Swedish meatballs were just a happy coincidence since they were on the menu for that week anyway (it's a regular favorite, I use this recipe) but no need to tell her that. She thought it was a Swedish feast just for her!

Swedish thumbprint cookies are a great kid recipe. Just a few ingredients and she really enjoyed each of the assembling steps, rolling the balls, making the thumbprints and filling them with jam. You might notice that I had another mommy brain moment and we had to fill our thumbprints after baking instead of before but why don't you pretend not to notice that before this becomes the post where MacKenzie forgets stuff. 

Pelle's New Suit

Full of swedish food, we moved on to the wool part of Pelle's New Suit and used wool roving to make felted soap bars. She really enjoyed this. I thought she might poop out leaving me to finish it but she kept scrubbing and rubbing until it was nicely felted. I have more roving left over and we might have to do this one again because she is quite insistent that it is for her use only and not to be shared with any little brother that might want to get his grubby little hands on it.

We then went back in time to finish September's activities and go on a leaf picking hike.

We then did not make leaf lanterns but instead make jars with leaves that we could put candles in. This may seem like the same thing but I am not to utter the phrase "leaf lantern" in this house. For some reason, Lucy freaked out when I said that was what we were doing. She thought it sounded really really scary. I don't know why, I never do. So instead I just said we were decorating jars. She thought that sounded nice. And then later I asked if she thought it would be good to put candles in them which she also thought was a good idea. Okay then.

She asked to do more leaf activities so we found some more in our backyard and dipped them in beeswax. It wasn't until she asked if the beeswax was made from honey that I realized this activity really did tie in nicely with all the other benefits from animals we had been talking about. These turned out so lovely, soft and protected but moldable and they smell wonderful.

To make this activity small kid friendly, I melted the wax in a bowl over a pot of hot water, then moved the bowl to the counter and placed a pot holder over the edge so she could dip the leaves in and if her arm dropped it would only touch the potholder. The potholder got covered in drips but better than a burn. And I only let her do the leaves with long stems, the small ones I did. I didn't get any pictures because I thought I should keep my eyes completely on the activity.

This is probably my new favorite fall activity. They dried quickly and within 20 minutes or so were ready for arranging on the piano as part of our fall display/nature table. We don't have a mantel so I'm really enjoying the decorating side of the piano ownership although we use those books daily so it gets rearranged quite frequently.

Peter and the Wolf 

This was supposed to be Carnival of the Animals to fit with the animal theme with Peter and the Wolf being a summer read. That still makes the most sense thematically but when Craig and I saw that our local symphony is putting on a children's matinee of Peter of the Wolf in January, we knew we had to take Lucy and I thought it would be more fun if she knew it beforehand. We shall see if that works because while she loves listening to it (we've been using the David Bowie version that's on Spotify) and knows the story well, she absolutely refused to watch the short video I had planned for us to watch. She thought it would be too scary. I'm now hoping the tickets we have already purchased don't go to waste.

She tolerated the book. She didn't want to read it but if Jonah gave it to me, she would listen in and peek over his shoulder at it. But even after that, if I suggested it, she'd say it was too scary. So instead we made Russian Tea cakes and had an an afternoon "apple cider" (I was chastisted for calling it a tea because we didn't drink tea - silly me :-)

But she did enjoy coloring some pages and putting together little stick puppets. Mostly because scissors and glue were involved. She's obsessed with glue and scissors these days and she's starting to get the message behind the "dot, dot, dot. A little glue does a lot" song she is so happy to sing.

One side of the puppet has the character's picture, the other side has a picture of the instrument it represents and we glued them around Popsicle sticks.  She told me this was her favorite activity but once they dried, I tried to use them and she said no. Any guesses why? Too scary!  I'm really getting tired of the "scary" stuff. And no, I don't think she's just using that as an excuse, she'll start shaking with worry over the strangest stuff and it stops her from doing things she enjoys. Example: She loved Mary Poppins but wouldn't watch unless I promised to skip the "fire" parts where the admiral shoots off the canon.

Dogger

Lucy wasn't frightened by anything in this book. Which is funny, because of all the things she could possible be scared about, you'd think losing a beloved toy might be on that list. But no, it was fear free for once. 

This is one of the few books I selected sight unseen but I had heard glowing reviews from several people and took a chance and I'm glad we did. We all enjoyed it. Even Craig, who was especially excited to discover a Dalek on the costume parade page. It's the early exposure to things that truly matter that sets a quality preschool experience apart, don't you think?

We washed her favorite stuffed animal horsey and were supposed to take him on an adventure and make animals out of bread dough but came down with colds instead. We'll get to it sometime.  

And that was October. I felt like we didn't do much at all which is why I love these recap posts because I can look back and see that we did in fact have a lot of fun and do a little bit of learning.