Hanson's Ridge
“I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.” ― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables L.M. Montgomery is one of my favorite authors because I identify so much with her characters, especially Anne. I'm glad to live in a world with Octobers too, and it's been a good one so far! We kicked the month off with our family photo shoot by Karen Papadales Photography. She was actually my mentor teacher when I student taught in fourth grade, and she has become both a good friend and an excellent professional photographer since then! We've also taken a couple of field trips. We went to a local fall festival with our babywearing group. We went on a hayride, played a lot, and ate apples. Then, as a whole family, we went to a great orchard and pumpkin patch. This orchard is great for our family because the apple trees are all dwarf trees. The kids were able to pick apples all by themselves, and they were so proud! Once a week, we go to the science center for their preschool class. This month's theme is measurement. I'm really proud of AW because she has done a great job estimating with nonstandard measurements (how many blocks do you need to make a line as long as this other block?) DC had a good time in the class too. He's working on his counting skills. We've also been busy at home. We made an apple mummy and decorated a sarcophagus with one of my test boxes from History Unboxed. We had a weaving lesson from AYOPS, an art lesson from the book The Way They See It, graphed our family apple tasting, and worked on journal writing. Apple tasting and apple picking were both activities from A Year of Playing Skillfully, as the monthly theme is apples. We would have gone apple picking anyway since we go every year, but it was fun to have some pre-planned activities to go along with it. We've also done apple patterns (pattern making with pictures of apples) and microwave applesauce. We used apple life cycle cards to talk about how apples grow and compared it to the pumpkin life cycle with books and songs. We especially liked the book Apples and Pumpkins by Anne Rockwell. We're planning on doing some art with apples this week too--coming soon!
Speaking of patterns, our work with the apple patterns reminded me of something important this week. I had done some work on patterns with AW awhile ago--maybe starting a year ago. It just didn't click. We took a break. We haven't done any work on patterns at all since then. But I handed her the page for doing the work with apple patterns (from 3Dinosaurs Apple Pack). I asked her what came next and she answered correctly each time and was able to extend the pattern verbally. It was a great reminder that when a child is not ready for a certain concept, one strategy is to take a break and come back to it later. It might be that they are not developmentally ready for that particular concept. Let's talk about 3Dinosaurs. It's a good resource. The printable packs can be worksheet heavy at times, but there are days when that's what AW is in the mood for. Some of the activities work well for on-the-go learning, like clip-and-count (matching a numeral with the number of objects in a set). I don't print the whole pack, because there are a lot of pages and not all fit our needs, but I go through and print out what I like. Sometimes AW likes to do pages during quiet time, like matching or finding what is different. She also really likes roll and count. (Note: the activities are generally the same from pack to pack). That about wraps up our month so far. Until next time!
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AuthorHi! I'm Stephanie Hanson. I live with my husband, Himself, on Hanson's Ridge in Virginia. Archives
September 2017
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