Back to School

This week we read all about going back to school and learned about some of the things kids are taught in school.

We started the week with some general books about going back to school.  Foxy is about a little girl who is nervous to start school the next day.  A fox with a magic tail comes by to help her get everything she needs, like pencils and notebooks.  When she is nervous that she doesn't know enough, he tries to help but she realizes she would rather learn all these things at school.  Lulu's Lost Shoes isn't really about going to school, but its about a little ladybug looking for her shoes so she can go to school.  It's a We Both Read book, which means it is designed for the parent to read one side of the page and the child to read the opposite page.  My New Teacher and Me is by Weird Al Yankovic and stars a precocious little boy meeting his new teacher.  His new teacher is very strict and by the book, and doesn't take to the brilliant, imaginative mind of Billy.  But by the end, they realize they can learn from one another instead of being in opposition.  If You Take a Mouse to School is another in the series by Laura Numeroff.  This time the mouse heads to school where he does math, spelling, science, building and writes a book.  Pete the Cat Rocking in My School Shoes follows Pete through a day at school.  Even when faced with all sorts of new experiences, Pete doesn't worry and just sings his song while rocking in his school shoes.

We started the week with some art, talking about colors and how they can be combined.  We played with colored sand and glue, glitter glue and dot markers to create our own works of art.  We also read Pete the Cat I Love My White Shoes and Mix It Up.  Genevieve loves identifying the colors in Pete the Cat and the interaction in the Herve Tullet books.

We sang the alphabet song and identified what letter different words start with as well as played with our alphabet foam flooring.  We read Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready for Kindergarten, one of many in the Miss Bindergarten series.  Joseph Slate found a different animal for each letter of the alphabet, and these children all attend Miss Bindergarten's class.  This one is an introduction to the animals and school.  We also read Bill and Pete, in which Bill is just starting school and learning the alphabet and how to spell his name (William Everett).  Finally we read Animalia.  Animalia is amazing for its artwork, its alliteration, and its hidden images.  Graeme Base included many examples of each letter hidden in the scenery for each letter.

We practiced counting 1-10, used our balance scale, divided our cake and identified shapes in our foam floor tiles.  She loves to count 3-1-7-8-9.  Genevieve asked to play her matching game a few times.  We listened and sang along to They Might Be Giants Here Come the 1,2,3s.  We read The Very Hungry Caterpillar, which is a great text for an introduction to metamorphosis and includes counting up to 5.  Amazingly we found a caterpillar Tuesday too.  In Miss Fox's Class Earns a Field Trip, the class practices addition and subtraction as they stumble through earning the money for a field trip.  We read two Miss Bindergarten books - Miss Bindergarten Celebrates the 100th Day of Kindergarten and Miss Bindergarten Takes a Field Trip with Kindergarten.  The first celebrates the number 100 and the second is a shape hunt as they travel through the town.  Genevieve loves Pete the Cat, so we read Pete the Cat and his Four Groovy Buttons.  This is a fun introduction to the simplest of subtraction.

Wednesday we practiced health as we walked to the park.  We read Miss Fox's Class Shapes Up and Miss Bindergarten Stays Home From Kindergarten .  Miss Fox teaches her class methods to stay fit while Miss Bindergarten and some of her students take sick days.  Thursday we went to the zoo, making a hypothesis that we would be able to see more animals because we were going earlier than the week before.  We read Dig In, a book about observations in the dirt of the yard and Miss Fox's Class Goes Green, where they learn to reduce their footprint, reuse, and recycle.

Friday, we read worked on our calendar and looked at photos from our family past.  On Saturday, we went to our first nerdy convention, but didn't have the patience to stay long.  Seeing so many grown ups dressed up in costumes was a little overwhelming for Genevieve and the lines were to much for Tobias.