Lets start at the very beginning

This week was the first day of school for all of the big kids! How excited we were to see big yellow school buses drive by all day! My current group is made up of 1, 2, and 3 year olds, so nobody is going off to school this year, though I have started to homeschool my 3 year old daughter in a relaxed child-led way for JK. She is devouring everything I give her ask asking for "More! More learning, please, Mommy!" I hope her passion for learning never dies.

Our theme this week was fairly simple: Lets start at the very beginning
We didn't do much "seat work" because the weather still allowed us to be outside all day, and so we learned in nature, as usual.

Our week at a glance:

- I introduced the letter A
- We practiced writing A's
- We learned a song- "Do you know the Apple Man"
- We found 'A's and 1's in nature
- We counted ants and made them houses in the sand
- We learned the A note in music
- We learned the song "Do-Re-Mi" from The Sound Of Music
- We did an alligator craft and read "Alligator Pie"
- We sang "The Wheels On The Bus" every time we saw a bus (they started it, as you can guess)
- We learned about the number 1
- We learned about the beginnings of plants- the seed

Tuesday was our first day back at playgroup. We brought along some friends. The kids didn't remember it at all and had a blast with all the new toys!

On Wednesday we received our fruits and veggies from Ottawa Organics. We got peaches, pears, kale, heirloom tomatoes, lettuce, beets, carrots, green onions, zucchini squash (Sera described it as a long yellow sunburst squash!), strawberries, and turnips. Every week, we bring the box to the kitchen table and all sit around taking turns pulling out an item. The child who's turn it is tells us about it: what it's called what it looks like, whether they like it or not, what colours it is. If we dont know, we write down a description and look it up online or in a book.

We did music time loosly while some children played and others participated. This week we sang songs, I showed them the guitar, and how the strings are put on (I was in the middle of changing them, so it was a good opportunity), and I showed them an Amp. They sang into the mic to hear it work. Next week we will hook up the Bass (B for Bass!) to see what it sounds like plugged in and unplugged. We learned "Do Re Mi" while we sat under the gazebo in the park.

We practised cutting with safety scissors and then glued them onto alligators for teeth. We read "Alligator Pie" by Dennis Lee, practised writing A's and found objects outside that started with the A sound or looked like A's.

We learned about seeds: What they are, what they can become, where they come from. We found seeds in our food and outside. We will continue this theme next week when we try panting beans again.