Today I was browsing around Instagram. I’m fairly new to IG, I love getting and sharing ideas with others when it comes to teaching. What did I find? Perfectly pictured home school situations. Is this even real? There was a challenge I stumbled upon to “share your home school space.” You should see these rooms. We are talking picture perfect, taken with a professional camera.
Let me tell you a little something about me, what you see, is what you get. I do not “stage” anything. I don’t own a $3,000 camera. I’m the real deal. When I’m teaching my son, I’m often changing laundry, tending to a one year old, cooking, unloading the dishwasher and whatever else needs to get done. There is nothing perfect about my homeschooling. I also viewed a few “crafts” and “activities”. I have a Master’s Degree in Teaching and never once during my education did the professor suggest doing the projects for the students. Our art projects aren’t picture perfect, because they were made exclusively by a four year old. I don’t have time to make everything look perfect. My four year old is learning and thriving. My older child is now in first grade, I taught him two years of preschool before he entered Kindergarten. He is reading chapter books (not perfectly, but he is reading) and he is a bright little guy, too! So, I’m guessing my way of teaching is doing something positive. 😉
I’m not here to judge any one else, or their situation. I’m not sharing my homeschooling because I think it is perfectly photographed and deserves to be put in a magazine. I’m sharing to help other parents that want to work with their preschoolers, in a real, manageable way. I don’t think homeschooling preschool is for everyone, but I do hope that my posts give parents some ideas of how to play or work with their kids.
One more thought. When I see these blogs or Instagram posts, I want to quit blogging. After seeing these beautiful posts, I thought, “What the heck am I even doing in this blog scene?”
Walking away from my phone with my head down, I thought, “DUH…this is why you are doing this. 90% of parents DO NOT have time to make every experience perfect and magazine worthy. Keep sharing, so that other busy parents can see that they too, can work with their kids in a REAL way.”
I’m done with my picture perfect rant. 😉
Let’s talk about our school day. This was again two school days crammed into one. (I’m a real farm wife with a lawn to mow, field trips to attend, and about 900 other things on my weekly list.) I’m just thankful we had time for school, today!
We started off our day by tasting the letter O. O is for Orange Juice, Sam’s favorite!!
I needed to gather all of our supplies for school, so I had Sam watch a KidTube video on the life-cycle of a butterfly. (Download KidTube, its sooo much safer than YouTube.)
Cutting and pasting, as well as recognizing pictures that start with the letter O, was next. Cutting is a difficult skill to master. We have made leaps and bounds since September!!
Our next activity was outside. I call this Rock Letter Tracing. Make any letters or numbers you desire, and have your little one trace with pebbles. Our pebbles were wet from the freshly fallen rain, so we did this outside on the porch.
We had a craft activity, next. This is supposed to be a butterfly. 😉 Sam said he just wanted to use buttons and wiggle eyes to decorate his butterfly. We also discussed the video he had watched earlier as we completed this.
Buttons:https://amzn.to/2IexTes
Wiggle Eyes: https://amzn.to/2JSEatK
Our next actitvy was an opposite game. Heavy or Light. Sam had to decide before he weighed each item if it was heavy or light. We talked about density in a very preschool way. 😉 He LOVED playing with his old scale.
Scale:https://amzn.to/2wccRIZ
I printed off some pictures of animals that start with the letter O. Then I attached sticker things (gosh I wish I could think of what these are called!!) and we used our felt board to tell stories.
Story telling is SOOOO much fun for kids. It’s simple, and its evokes so much imagination. Kids LOVE it! Just be silly and go with it!
Magnetic Felt Board, I leave ours on our washing machine:https://amzn.to/2wbmibw
O is for Orca, is an alphabet book: https://amzn.to/2FHSkeL
This printable is from Abctwiggles.com
Building the letter O was next. I love these wooden pieces!! We use them, quite a bit:https://amzn.to/2FKg2Xw
Ok, this is about the LEAST picture perfect thing, ever. But I live so far from town and I wanted to some how show a description of the butterfly life-cycle. I’m setting the bar very, very low. Surprisingly, a four year old doesn’t care, AT ALL. In fact, he loved this and completely understood what I was trying to demonstrate. 🙂
The last thing we did was a butterfly puzzle. Again, my son is not used to this large of a puzzle, and this was his first time trying it. We discussed strategies, and talked a lot about colors as we completed this together. Puzzles are GREAT for kids, but don’t expect them to be able to figure them out alone, the first time.
Invest in good puzzles, they will last a LONG time.
Melissa and Doug Puzzle:https://amzn.to/2Id5LIR
That was it for school, today!
xoxo,
-k
Adventures in Farmlife 