In the span of 10 days we had upper respiratory infections, stomach bugs, an ear infection, a stolen truck, and delayed flights.
My husband was out of town for work when this little man went down.
Then we found out the truck was stolen and towed
Boy oh boy has it been a crazy few weeks.
Currently I am sitting in a rental car outside my aunt’s house while the kids catch a quick nap in between the funeral of my grandmother and the open house after. But let’s start back at the beginning.
A few weeks ago my little man stayed the night at his Grammy and Papa’s house for some one on one time, before going to pick him up I got the call that my stepdad died suddenly. Then comes the flurry of activities to try and figure out a last minute trip for the funeral.
At the last minute my son got an ear infection so we didn’t go……days later, very few days later my grandma went on hospice and went downhill FAST!
Enter another flurry of plans to try to get down and see her before she passes…….I booked plane tickets for a 2.5 week trip to hopefully spend time with her and also make the funeral that was probably soon to happen. I booked the tickets and 20 minutes later got the phone call that she died.
We are 2 weeks into the trip, just finished the funeral and fly home midweek……I cannot wait to go home. 2 weeks is a long trip with kids when we don’t have a schedule and have moved houses twice.
We have spent a lot of time outside looking at nature, have done a little bit of workbook stuff and spent lots of time with family
Did I also mention I am solo parenting this trip? Lol. This mama is TIRED!
On the plus side we are going to Disneyland before we leave….had to throw some fun in.
Science!!!!!!
We mix Blossom and Root’s nature study with The Good and The Beautiful’s little hearts and hands science Wind and Waves and Fields and Flowers. I try and pair them loosely to the seasons and things we might see or experience.
My oldest is a smidge young for both but if I find a good connecting book or something he really gets into it. My youngest is just a long for the ride at this point hahaha.
For example we just did the water cycle. I found a great library book that my son loved about a drop of water going through the water cycle and that brought it alive for him.
Reading
We are doing All About Reading pre-reading which is learning his letters and the beginning of phonics.
I am supplementing it with Get Ready for the Code.
This seems to be working well. He points out a lot of letters now and asks what every sign we pass says hahahahaha
For math we started with The Good and the Beautiful level K and weren’t doing too bad but I did not feel like he was getting any mastery from it.
After thinking that, I decided to check eBay for a used copy of right start math to hopefully add some mastery in. Now we are switching back and forth between the two curriculums to go back and review some instead of continuing on.
This curriculum is about our grade level for sure but I am using it as an introduction to geography and other cultures. Basically we just find the country on the map, watch a few YouTube videos, read a few books from the country and make a recipe from there and try and do a simple paper craft.
We do one country every few weeks. No rush for us to get through it.
This is another curriculum I use with both kids
This curriculum has
A seasonal song that we don’t do- the kids just weren’t feeling it
An emotional intelligence section that I really like. You never think about needing to teach kids to identify their feelings and the feelings of others.
Weekly inquiry – this is a short section on something in nature that they say you can feel free to explore further at the library. I try and find a few simple picture books each week on this at the library that we can read through
Literature, Literacy & Poetry- there is a weekly book to read with a question or two to ask in response to the book, an excerpt out of a seasonal poetry book ( i did the poetry at first but the kids weren’t into it so I stopped) and a letter to study from a book called doodling dragons but we already have a pre-reading curriculum we use so I didn’t get that book.
Art- some of the projects from the art book are really cool but they are a little advanced for my kids. I have the art book but don’t really use it. I do like a lot of the projects though so I think in a year or two we will start working our way through it as an extra fun thing to add into our weeks.
There is a math curriculum they suggest but we use a different one I’ll tell you about in another post
Science – they use the ‘look I’m a scientist’ and ‘look I’m a ln engineer’ books which I have but I only sort of like them. Some of the experiments are a bit older for my kids and some just seem like a waste of time.
Connections project – each week there is a little something to do to connect to the week’s theme and reading.
They also suggest some videos you might like and some supplemental reading on the main subject
I am constantly adding, subtracting and adjusting our schooling to work best for our family. I also pull from a lot of different sources and curriculums so each week I will tell you a little about what we are currently doing/using for our 2024 pre-k/super early preschool with my 3 yrs old and my 21 month old. Almost everything I do is with both kids because my youngest wants to be included in everything so I just bring her along.
This is a 36 week curriculum. Each week there is a section for Nature study, math and science (which is anything from counting blocks to talking about sunscreen safety and use.), art, music, community/kindness, literature/read together and kitchen classroom.
We usually at least touch on the nature ( we have other nature curriculums), the math and science are hit or miss for us sometimes we do it and sometimes we don’t (we have other math and science curriculums).
I love the art and music sections. This is broken down into 4 week chunks and in each chunk you learn about a different artist and musician.
Community/kindness is hit and miss for me. Most of them we don’t do. I enjoy the literature selections and we cook together anyways, I wish the kitchen classroom gave you suggestions.
Getting back to school and routine after the holiday chaos
This was our first full week back.
Monday
Tuesday
We did a pond study
Thursday – we studied spiderwebs
Friday
There was also gymnastics, a trip to the library, letter recognition, a little math and so much more thrown in.
The week went much smoother than I thought it would. We did have normal young kid tantrums and issues like that but the school part went great!
Trailing the blonde 