H is for Hunting

Today I'm grateful we live close to the DMV (not at all about the title, but I'm getting there).

When I woke up I was looking forward to a morning spent at home, doing laundry, cleaning up, and possibly planning more preschool. After my busy Wednesday and watching baby J on Thursday, my house needed a little TLC (check out the pictures below).  But at about 10:00, as I was going through my errand/bill pile I remembered our car had to be registered and I needed a new license. So I packed the kids up and ran to the DMV. 

I had to come back home two different times for documentation. They needed my current driver's license, social security card, birth certificate and marriage license -- all to renew my ID. The kids were pretty fabulous through it all, so I rewarded them with some A&W when we were finally finished. I also may have been rewarding myself. I needed a black cow at that point. 

We came home and put Nell down for a nap and Reid immediately asked what we were going to do for Preschool. Sigh. I'd already used up all our casual and prepped letter "Hh" activities on Wednesday and Thursday. 

 These pictures are from yesterday, when he snuggled up to me while we played Duck Hunt on Wii Play. Don't you just love his camo?

He refused to take a normal picture. But I probably love ^^^ this one even more than a normal one. 

On Wednesday I introduced letter "Hh" with the above pictured puzzle (which I bought at Little Miss Teacher's TpT store), and we made letter Hh's out of play-doh using The Printable Princess's alphabet play-doh mats (which I love and highly recommend). We also talked briefly about hunting and gun safety. 

So far letter Hh was awesome, but also a flop. And I had nothing prepared for today! I knew I needed to step it up if I actually wanted Reid to learn anything about the letter Hh. So we headed to the basement (office) and found some great ideas on The Measured Mom and In My World

Because we'd only briefly practiced our letter Hh identification on Wednesday, I thought we'd better do a handful of letter Hh activities. We started by filling in Measured Mom's block letter with stickers. This was the perfect activity for Reid and I plan on using the block letters a lot in the future. 

 Next, I used a butter knife to draw the letter Hh on some play-doh and then Reid used a straw to poke holes in the play-doh -- following the outline of the letter. The best part was that I did the dishes while he worked on these letter "Hh's".

For one more bit of practice I used glue to outline a big H and little h on to a piece of construction paper and let him glue some Applejack's onto the paper. I didn't get a picture of that, but he obviously loved it. 

 Finally, I handed him this letter find page and gave him the least amount of assistance possible. I was actually impressed by how well he'd learned to recognize the letter Hh in such a short period of time.

And this is where I explain why I could never do homeschool. There is just too much Educational Theory in me! I'm too driven by the standard to assessment model. Only, I'm not working with any standards here (just curriculum I make up as we go). Even without a standard or a formal curriculum, I still have to end with an assessment. Now, this is just good teacher practice, but it'd take so much effort to do this with all of my children for some 12 years each. Hats off to homeschool parents who do a thorough job.

Also, you see how messy my house is in all these pictures, right? I knew I could push the papers and toys out of the way for pictures, but really I wanted to show any potential at home preschool mamas that at home preschool can be super easy. I said it earlier, but I had nothing planned for today. Reid came downstairs with me to look for and print off the activities he completed. I did the dishes while he worked on them at the kitchen table.

Personally, I'm really grateful we are doing this little ABCs of Autumn at home preschool. This time next year my little boy will be in a public school preschool program for a few hours each day. He just stopped napping (at nearly 4 years old!) a couple months. This small window of time is really my only chance for quality one on one time.

I feel blessed to have 30 - 60 minutes in each day set aside for "preschool" with my little preschooler. Just the two of us. I'm already excited for this time two years from now, when Reid will be away at kindergarten and baby #3 will be napping soundly in her room and Nell and I will get to do her own at home preschool unit.

They are just so precious at this stage. And I can handle a little (okay, a big) mess while I sit down and enjoy their curious minds.