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Mommy School

Since Camille is not in school this year, and she loves to learn, I decided to do a little preschool home schooling with her.  We call it "Mommy School", and she asks for it a lot.  I do a different theme each week, along with a letter.  We try to do some sensory activities, fine motor practice, art, practical life, and books each week.  I started this with her right after Labor Day (when I really think school should start!).

Our first week was all about apples!  She surprised me how much she wanted to do and for how long! I had to plan a whole bunch of extra activities after the first day because we had done almost a week's worth of work in one day!

She calls this "shiny sheets" because it is a wipe off board.  I put worksheets in there and we can do them over and over.  This one is one I try to do with each theme.  I call out a shape and she colors the right one.

She also really likes to use the dot markers in lots of ways.  When we first started I just sort of let her go crazy.  She has refined her use of them a bit now :)

This is great pre-writing practice - working on drawing lines, left to right

We love sensory bins.  I love to make them and she loves to play with them!  The rice was Apple scented.  She had cinnamon sticks, "worms", green apples, scoops, and a big plastic apple.  This got played with a lot, in many different ways.

With this work she was given a number card and then (with some help) she counted out that number of "apples" for the tree!

Lacing cards are great for fine motor skills.  She worked really hard to get hers just right!

We did an apple taste test and let the boys join in.  We tasted several different types and had the kids make comments describing each one.  The adored it.  We listened to a favorite song about apples as we did it.

For art she made an "a" apple.  She loves to glue!

And for our recipe of the week (I try to do one when it makes sense), we made slow cooker apple sauce

The second week of "Mommy School" was "b" for birds

We made Cheerios bird feeders, which was great for fine motor

Proud

Bird sensory bin, with so many fun little objects.  The base was birdseed

Our art project - she glued feathers to a bird shape

As another fine motor activity she pretended she was picking up worms with a "beak" (clothespin) and putting them in the nest.  It was challenging, but she got the hang of it.

I tried doing play dough a new way - with lots of "props".  It was a huge success with her and the brothers

Making birds

After school the boys got in on it!

Our Adventure in Georgia - Part 2

Our second full day in Georgia we decided to head to the zoo on Atlanta!  It's a large, really nice zoo, with lots of animals the kids don't get to see very often (or have never seen!)

We got to feed some birds right from our hands!

They have rhinos - considered the most dangerous animal in the world!

They have a very large gorilla exhibit, with several separate families

The naked (nudie) mole rats are surprisingly entertaining, at least to my children.  They laughed hysterically at them

We got to see the baby panda twins!

The daddy was in a separate area

There was a very nice play area and a splash place too (we didn't partake since we weren't ready to get wet).

The farm area (goats!) were very popular with our kids too!

The goats thought Camille's hair was straw, apparently, because they tried to eat it at one point!

Anson really wanted to ride the little train while Grady did the special climbing wall

This was the result of all that activity

That night we went to eat at the golf club

Grady apparently has his very own riverboat

We fit in a little more fishing the next morning

Then we checked out the historic mill before heading out

The kids really loved this area and the campground.  We will definitely be back!