2nd Time through P3/4 First Trimester

Hannah has finished the first seven weeks of P3/4 again. She’s been continuing her read aloud times with our nanny in the morning. She doesn’t seem to mind the repetition. They would almost always read more than the one scheduled story anyway so she’s probably read all of the P3/4 books at least 4 or 5 times already. Kathy has been supplementing their book selection with library books and was really excited the other day when we were supposed to be doing Sleeping Beauty and she had picked up a library book that was the “sequel” and called Waking Beauty. 🙂

We’re still maintaining the same science and social studies from P3/4 as last time around, and are attempting to actually read the P3/4 recommended bible. It is nice in that the stories are shorter and it has some question prompts at the end of each one. But Hannah really likes one of the other children’s bibles we already had, so its hard to argue against reading from that one.

Last time around we worked on Handwriting Without Tears Preschool (all capital letters). So at first I thought we would just go on to their next book which starts with capitals again and then adds in the lower case. But recently someone gave me a hand-me-down version of the Sonlight Language Arts for K (LAK) and after I looked through it and realized that Hannah was probably ready for it, we decided to shelve the HWT K for now and do the LAK instead. So we have been doing a letter a week, working on the sounds and words that start with it, looking it up in the dictionary, and practicing writing it. She really seems to be soaking it up and I don’t feel like I’m pushing her. Though I do give her m&ms when she writes her letters correctly. 🙂

The only other thing I try to fit in each week is some math skills. I found this site. It is supposed to be a membership, but they let your computer IP do 20 questions a day. That is just the right amount for Hannah. We probably do it 3 times a week. She is already proficient in all of the pre-K skills except money. She loves to click the right answer and see the green chekmark when she gets it right. I’ve been working through the sections to prove to myself that she has mastered them and then I’ll move her into the kindergarten level.

– Identify circles, squares, and triangles, Identify squares and rectangles, Identify cubes and pyramids
– Count dots (up to 20), Count shapes (up to 20), Count objects (up to 20), Represent numbers (up to 20)
– Compare groups (fewer or more), Compare in a chart (fewer or more), Compare in a mixed group
– Inside and outside, Left and right, Left, middle, and right, Above and below, Top and bottom
– Same and different
– Classify by color
– Long and short, Tall and short
– Light and heavy, Holds more or less, Compare height, weight, and capacity
– Wide and narrow
– Pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters, Count pennies

We went on our first field trip to the Children’s Museum with our friend Ashby. The kids had a good time checking out all the interesting things and Ben really like the little race cars! Pictures here. We’ll probably be trying to do a few more trips together this fall. Considering the fire station and maybe post office.

Still doing lots of fun crafts (see more here):

Overall, we’re still probably only spending about an hour on school each day if you add up all the stuff we do. Of course, she’s getting lots of other learning time in the course of her play and TV time and other book reading times. She’ll be taking a tumbling class this fall starting on Wed. And we’re taking this week off to play with Grandpa and Grandma.