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Monday, August 1, 2016

Preschool Report: July

This month we focused on the joy of interest and curiosity. This month was a little hard to plan since I wasn't exactly sure what to do besides science experiments. But we ended up doing more than that.

We did do several science experiments with water and light. The experiments never went as planned, but I think the kids learned a few things from observation. One example of an experiment that didn't go as I thought it would was when I put a napkin in a cup and turned the cup upside down inside the water. I asked Helen what she thought would happen. She told me that the napkin would get wet. I was excited, since I thought that she'd have to rethink her answer because of the air bubble that would be trapped in the cup and would keep the napkin dry. Well, the napkin ended up being wet on the top, so when I asked Helen to touch it, she said matter-of-factly, "It's wet." I redid the experiment, but I kept getting the napkin wet. I tried to explain about the air bubble, but I don't think it had as much of an effect as it would have if the napkin was completely dry. Oh, well.

We also had several discussions about questions, such as why they are good, types of questions how to get answers to questions. We also talked about praying about questions.

Since the Boxcar Children try to be observant and ask lots of questions to solve their mysteries, I picked out a Boxcar Children book and read it to Helen. At first I wasn't sure if she liked it. But she always wanted to read more. I let her pick out two more the next time we were at the library. She enjoyed both of them. Just before the climax in The Mystery at the Fair, I stopped at the end of the chapter. Helen looked up from what she was doing and exclaimed, "What did the man in the baseball cap say?" She was dying to hear more. I just had to laugh.

We also started a new tradition. I bought a hardback book, and we are keeping a "Family Interest Book." It was a suggestion from Teaching Children Joy. When we find something interesting that we learned or observed, or that we are just curious about, we write it in the book. I write them for Helen. Here is one of her entries: "Sweet potatoes are hard. I tried to touch one. I saw them at Broulims." I have yet to write one for Eric, but I am sure we'll find something for him to contribute soon. I hope we can keep this book going the whole time the kids are growing up.

Eric has his colors and shapes down pretty well. So for the second part of the month we started focusing on numbers. He's been excited about that. He wants to know numbers and letters like Helen. We've been reading number books and singing number songs. I used star stickers and a piece of black construction paper to make him his own number book.

Helen was having trouble focusing through a whole reading lesson last month, so I decided to put that aside for a bit and work on potty training. My theory is that if she can focus enough to potty train, she might be able to focus enough to read. She was reading two letter words, but then she started guessing and looking everywhere else but at the page in front of her. So we'll just wait on that.