“C”hallenging “C” Week

Our “C” week was one of those weeks where you find yourself glad you homeschool because nothing works out quite like you plan, no matter how hard you try to keep to a schedule, it just doesn’t happen, and yet, despite it all, your child learns everything you hope for simply because you can make it work however it fits best.

We read about the Columbine Fairy this week and Alex took a particular interest in the lovely illustration in the flower fairies book (first time he’s really looked at the book).  He loved it when we got to the part about this week’s saint, St. Cecelia.  He pronounces it “Ceeeee-sila”!  Funny because I know he can say Cecelia if you ask him.

He now starts his week with a request for his Do-A-Dot art page, even though we don’t actually color it until Thursday.  In fact, he is so insistent that I started printing him out other Do-A-Dot art sheets and he proudly hangs them on the wall with his letters.  Here is this week’s C Do-A-Dot art:

I found a super-cute Ten Commandment’s Train Set at Christian Preschool Printables that I printed on milk filters for the felt board.  Of course if it goes on the feltboard, Alex loves it:

We did a Montessori exercise of carrying a chair, which at first I thought would be a little silly since he’s been carrying around his little blue chairs for months.  It was very interesting to see how closely he attempted to lift and move his chair, just like I did, once I actually demonstrated the proper way to carry a chair.  It’s hard sometimes to remember that many of the activities I do around the house without much preparation or thought, are learning tools for little minds.

We did the Catholic Icing craft “C” is for Crucifix.  I found the cross for $1.00 at Michael’s Craft Store and Alex really enjoyed coloring and gluing the picture of Jesus onto the cross:

We had a great time exploring a few of our new Usborne Books including the Picture Atlas where we learned about the Universe, and the Look Inside Science where we learned a little about what science is.  He did the lessons all over again with Daddy this weekend and without missing a beat he can tell you all the planets, in the correct order.  Maybe he’ll grow up to be an astronomer.

We had some great reads this week which included:

• Curious George
• The Cat Club
• Castles
• Inside the Castle
• Clever Aisha (from Stories Around the World)
• Camping Out (from Farmyard Tales)
• Caps for Sale
• Crictor
• Chicka Chicka Boom Boom (we’ll never get far away from this book)
• … and the list goes on

We baked chocolate chip cookies, which Alex proudly proclaimed were for “when daddy comes home".  He waited all afternoon to hear the garage door open so he could share a cookie!

And of course we couldn’t have finished “C” week without a few dinosaurs starting with C…we played the dinosaur fishing game and we haven’t quit since.  My version of the dinosaur fishing game was ridiculously easy – we have a sea creatures puzzle that comes with a wooden fishing pole that has a magnet attached to the end.  We have a dinosaur memory game that has a bunch of small cards with different dinosaurs on them.  Put a paper clip on the cards, take the wooden fishing pole, and Go Fish!

So ends our C week along the alphabet path…it was with great excitement that we opened our box of Scholastic books today, just in time for D week!