Back to School!

Last week, we started second grade and preschool! The girls have had so much fun so far! Here's a photo roundup to record our set up and activities from the first few days.

Science Unit: Rabbits

I recently gave G a chance to choose the next science topic, and she chose rabbits. So off I went to collect (and create) some resources for a Rabbits Unit Study. It has been a blast and I am so excited to share it with you now that we wrapped it up today.

I used the Rabbits Rabbits Research mini unit from 1st Grade is Weinerful (link takes you to her Teachers Pay Teachers page). It's a $4.50 digital download with TONS of awesome activities and printable pages. We did a bunch of the pages, including the KWL chart, a Venn diagram comparing wild rabbits to Peter Rabbit, some of the math and ELA pages, and the rabbit life cycle interactive flap book.

I also downloaded both the Rabbits vs. Hares nonfiction passage and the Rabbits science unit from Mrs. Thompson's Treasures. Her blog is one of my absolute favorites and I use her resources all the time. I've bought plenty of stuff from her, but these two were free from her blog. I particularly loved the kangaroo v. rabbit Venn diagram activity. Generating facts in writing is still challenging for G, so it was great to have the sentences printed out for her to sort into the Venn diagram, especially since that was her first experience using one. She caught on pretty quickly, and she loved the gross motor aspect, since I tied two small hula hoops (hul-y hoopies, according to S, the 2 year old) together to represent the rings.

I also made a felt playmat with a couple of bunnies, grass, carrots, and flowers. I had to make two, because S wants to do everything G does.

We made a trip to the local pet store to observe some bunnies. Even though it was SUPER busy, they were very kind and pulled a couple of bunnies out for us to pet. We all agreed that they are very soft and warm and twitchy.

I ordered a Playmobil set (apparently it's discontinued) with a hutch, 9 bunnies, carrots, a person, and all the necessary accesories. S delighted in carefully counting each bunny, and I marveled at her grasp of one to one correspondence and her ability to count items accurately to 9. I didn't actually know she could do that!

It was a delight to share one of my childhood favorite novels as a bedtime read aloud. We giggled our way through Bunnicula by James and Deborah Howe. It's funny, offers many great opportunities to discuss point of view (the story is told by the family dog), and chances to make inferences and predict what will happen next. It's only 9 chapters, but it took us about two weeks to get through because our lives are ridiculous sometimes. I had my old copy of the novel, but I also bought an easy reader version for G to work through on her own.

I also ordered out of print copies of Leo the Lop and Leo the Lop Tale Two by Stephen Cosgrove. I loved them so much growing up. They are sweet and innocent and full of good.

We watched a few videos on YouTube. One was about keeping rabbits as pets, which was very interesting and kind of made me want a bunny. A few were just cutesy videos of bunnies doing bunny things, like eating flowers. And finally, when it was time to compare wild rabbits with Peter Rabbit, we ended up watching a short video of the original Peter Rabbit story being read aloud, accompanied by still illustrations from the book. Both girls are somewhat familiar with the stories already, both from various books we have around the house and from Alexa's bedtime stories.

Today when we finished working, we bound all our work with a nice rabbity colored beige cover and decorated it with some rabbit stickers I ordered. S enjoyed incorporating the stickers into her toddler art, too!

Purpose

I'm starting this, my millionth blog, to create a record of the things we do in school. I have a 7 year old, G, who is just finishing up first grade, and an almost-3 year old, S, who is desperate to do paper work like her sister. We have been doing homeschool for two full years at this point. I'm hoping to share awesome things we have done, struggles we are working through, and cool resources I've found or created.

I have a degree in Elementary Education and 8.5 years of classroom experience, although most of that has been focused on older children. My last full time job was as a librarian in a K-8 school, and I loved it so, so much.

When we started, G was a kinder, newly five and accustomed to playing and doing what she wanted all day long (I hadn't worked a full time job in over two years at that point) and S was a very fussy, Mama-milk obsessed 13 month old who never slept and refused all solid foods and bottles. My Mom had just retired, so she came over twice a week to attempt to distract the baby long enough for G to get some real school work done. 

Both my girls love to learn, but their very strong little personalities insist on most things being done on their terms or not at all. Finally, after two years of painstaking struggle, G is reading pretty well. She loves to giggle over Elephant and Piggie books by Mo Willems and anything by Sandra Boynton. It has been one of my great joys to find her reading after bedtime (I know, I know). My whole philosophy of education centers on the idea that children learn best through play, so it's been challenging to engage my toddler in play-based learning when she is insisting on paper school work. I've found some great preschool activities that seem to satisfy her most of the time.