Nature Walk and Leaves

Last week we enjoyed a walk around the neighborhood collecting fallen leaves.  We tried to find as many different ones as we could.  Today, we used the book, Crinkleroot's Guide to Knowing the Trees to identify which leaves we had found.  We made a poster board and labeled them.  I'll try to take a picture of the final project once the glue is dry.  =)

Learned About: Identification, Observation, Trees, Fall,
10/8/09

What can you learn from a Tea Party?

Water stages - liquid and steam.  Heat transfer.  Boiling water.  Temperature.  Manners.  Carefulness.  Patience.  Sharing.
=)
9/30/09

What Makes a Magnet?

A few weeks ago we studied magnets. We used the book, What Makes a Magnet? Carlee really enjoyed the little magnet experiment in the book and had fun "fishing" with her own magnet.

Ignore the messy homeschooling room... it wasn't near finished then.  We've made progress.  =)  Can't wait to have it done.

Ballet Classes

Carlee's been taking ballet for about a month now.  She's loving it.  It's so awesome when she comes home and is so excited to show us what she learned in class.  She is going to Maureen's School of Dance.  They have great prices if you are in the Western Branch area (Portsmouth, Suffolk, Chesapeake.)  They will have an end of year recital in May, and we can't wait to see it!

Current Preschool "Curriculum"

Carlee's 2009-2010 Preschool "curriculum"

How to Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons

God's World and Me:  Boz the Bear's Big Book of Bible Fun

Children's Bible read daily.

Scripture memorization.

Attending Story Time at the library twice a week.

Reading books checked out from library.

Ballet class once a week.

Arts & Crafts at home.

Children's Church on Sunday mornings.

Helping mom and dad around the house with age appropriate chores.

Learning while out and about, i.e.:  grocery store, bank, post office, gas station, park, etc.

Various field trips.

Native American Books

Daily Life in a Plains Indian Village 1868 - The text is above Carlee's level, but the pictures led to discussion anyway. I read and explained in 4 year old terms how the Plains Indians lived, what their family roles were, their food, jobs, etc. This is a really good book, they have awesome pictures of so many things that their life involved.

How Thunder and Lightning Came To Be - This is a Choctaw story and I was so excited that I found it at the library. We are part Choctaw (a small part, but a part nonetheless.) So, it was fun to read this to Carlee, it's also a cute story.

Legend of the Indian Paintbrush

Ankle Bells

While watching the dancing at the pow wow last Sunday, Carlee loved the bells that some of the dancers had, so today we made her a pair. This was really simple. I just used some ribbon and bells I had on hand, and voila! Ankle bells. (Guess I could have taken the loops of the bells, lol. The bells I had found on sale a while ago, at a craft store in the wedding section.) She's dancing to Native American music as I write this. =)
Example of pow wow dancing where you can hear their bells: