Today was a day of trial and learning! I had an idea in my head about how the day would go, but after an immediate disagreement with Penny, I realized something: who cares! Kind of a ridiculous realization, but it turned out to be so important. As adults, we have an idea of what learning should look like, and that idea is likely closely aligned with how our school system functions. That is not the only way to learn. We do not have to ring a bell to move onto the next subject. We don't even need to separate subjects! When our kids get wiggly, we can go for a walk or send them outside or say it's free play. I changed my mentality, and our day turned out amazing! Feel free to read the entire post detailing our morning, or if you're just looking to copy what we did, I've attached a png. of our lesson plan at the bottom. Here's how it went: Sight WordsAs I mentioned in the last post, P has been doing a lot of phonetic spelling, and just last week she asked me when she'll finally be able to read. She has repeatedly expressed interest in this, which is signaling to me that it might be an appropriate time to work with her. I want to emphasize that I do not believe earlier is better in reading. I believe in a slow cultivation of a love of reading over anything else. If your child loves to be read to, you're doing the best thing for them. The rest will follow. Even if your child can't sit still through a book right now, that's OK too! Everyone moves at their own pace. That being said, I am definitely a proponent of child-directed learning. She's been asking so forward we march. I downloaded a list of the top 100 sight words, and I figured we would start with the first four and slowly move our way down. I showed her the words "The" "A" "And" and "Of." She immediately read them to me. So, my second mistake of the day: see where my child is at before making assumptions. I brought out the list of words. She read off the first column, stumbling over three words, then began a few words in the second column. So, now I know where to begin. Adding School to the Morning RhythmAfter P wakes up for the morning, she plays with her sister for a little, eats breakfast, gets ready for her day, and takes out the recycling. She's always ready to greet the day so I knew the morning would be the best time for our preschooling. After she finishes her morning routine, she'll start her sight words. She builds them with the letters then copies them into her book. She can do that all on her own. If you don't have letters, your child can write in sand or dirt, trace, or build with playdoh, toothpicks, or sticks. HerstoryToday we read about Hatshepsut. She is the oldest figure in the book, which is why we're starting with her. We read slowly through the story, pausing to answer questions, hear her ideas, and explain some bigger concepts. We're in no rush. Her full understanding is key. Then we moved onto our first activity: writing cuneiform. I brought out playdoh and a toothpick to pretend like we were carving in clay as the Egyptians might of. I found a simple image of cuneiform letters on the internet, and she started by writing her name. This exercise was tricky for her. She wanted to give up. So I sat down with her and practiced it myself. I was sure to laugh at my mistakes and commiserate over the tricky letters. It's all about the process. We are enjoying trying something new together! She ended up loving it so much that she went on to write all of her loved ones names in cuneiform and then write them in her notebook with markers as well. She spent over 30 minutes enjoying her cuneiform activity. PyramidsIt is nearly impossible to talk about ancient Egypt without diving into the pyramids. P was immediately drawn to the drawn images of the pyramids in the book so we decided to build our own pyramids. I initially wanted us to start by building with toothpicks and playdoh, but, once again, I realized P didn't know the difference between a pyramid and a triangle so we did a little comparison. After we used magnatiles to explore the differences between the triangle and the pyramid we decided to try building our own pyramid. I honestly had no idea how to do it so we navigated it all together. We made so many mistakes, but then we got it! We were so excited. Penny decided we should try to make a bigger one then an even bigger one! Getting AntsyI anticipated our lesson to last us maybe an hour. We went well past 2 hours! As we were building a larger pyramid, I started to notice her getting antsy and chatty. I was starting to feel drained, too. She wanted to keep building, but I decided we should pause here to take the dog and baby for a walk, and we could get back to it after quiet resting this afternoon. After a lovely walk, a nice lunch, a couple chapters of our book (we're enjoying the Sophie Mouse series), and a quiet rest time, I think we'll feel refreshed to finish our pyramid and move into some free play. Thanks!If you have any ideas on how to alter the lesson or feedback on how it goes in your home, please share in the comments! Please note that this post contains affiliate links and any sales made through such links will reward me a small commission - at no cost for you. For more information, click here.
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AuthorEmily Barstad ArchivesCategories |