I'm back!

I apologize for my extended vacation from blogging. A few life altering events have taken place here and we are adjusting to our new "normal".  I am excited to get back to this site and continue to share with you our homeschooling journey.

To kick us off, here is how we celebrated Purim this year:

Our Alice in Wonderland theme Mishloach Manot (food basket given out on Purim).

Packaged in a bakery box and sealed with our queens.

Red velvet trifle queen of hearts.

Mini grape juice with drink me tag.

Mad hatter tea.

White bunny's time piece.

Eat me cookies.

Chocolate skeleton key. 

Missed you all and hope to see you again soon!!

Parshat Vayishlach, Division, and Odd & Even Numbers

Some heavy concepts in this week's parasha: Yaakov preparing for what he thinks will be a war with his brother, Yaakov fighting the angel,the rape of Dinah, the death of Rachel during childbirth, and some genealogy.

We mainly focused on Yaakov's preparation for the fight with Eisav and then the surprisingly loving and peaceful meeting with Eisav.

We discussed Yaakov's tactic of dividing his camp into two groups in order to keep one group safe in case of an attack. This lead into a discussion on grouping and odd and even numbers.

We pretty much took any assortment of objects and placed them all in one group and then divided them into two groups. We assessed if the groups were equal or not. This branched into a conversation about odd and even numbers since not all of our groups could be made equal.

This is a fun book about cousins who are driven by their love for anything even or odd. 

Here is a cute little video on the topic: 

Vayetzei and Classifying Rocks

My apologies, we are behind again with our parasha work. Here is an interesting extension activity to be done with Parashat Vayeitzei. Rocks seem to be a focal point in last  week's parasha. Yaakov rests his head on rocks before he  the dream of the ladder and rocks are used in the pact made between Yaakov and Laban.

So here are some preschool Earth science activities all about rocks I found on teachpreschoolscience.com:

Classifying Rocks

Photo Source

Learning Experience

Possible Discoveries

Craft Activities

   

Go on a neighborhood walk  to collect rocks. Ask children to  search for a variety of sizes, shapes, and colors.  Set out your rock collection and examine the rocks. Describe their features: texture, color, size, etc Sensory activity- Dump a bucket of dirt from outdoors into a box. Sift trough the dirt to pick out all the rocks.

Discuss fossilized rocks. Submerge rocks in water and track the changes over time. Try to guess by looking at the rocks, which one is the heaviest and then weigh them.

Paint a “Pet Rock”,  Glue pebbles to decorate a card or frame.

Simplicity Parenting

Thank you to my friend and colleague who recommended this wonderful book to me. Simplicity Parenting is about just that, simplicity. Our society has become too rushed, too complicated, too stimulating and our children are feeling it. Kim John Payne provides a step by step approach on simplifying almost every aspect of a family's life, from toys to clothes to meals to extracurricular activities. 

I am currently reading his chapter on simplifying the child's home environment. The author states. "As you decrease the quantity of your child's toys and clutter, you increase their attention and their capacity to play."

Now I have always prided myself on not owning too many toys. We only have a few toys from the major kid toy categories, but we are nothing like the families Payne writes about...or so I thought. As I read on and started to really think about my girls' play habits, a few troubling observations came to mind:

They rarely are engrossed with their toys.

They spend way too much time fighting over or about toys.

They often walk into their toy room and come out empty handed with no clue what they want to play with.

Could it be that even our "small" toy collection is too overwhelming and contributing to their negative play behaviors? 

I figured, I would give Payne a try and did as he suggested: pile up all your toys in the living room and just gawk at your toy accumulation.

So here is our toy collection (plus a suitcase full of books) which I still think is not "that bad". 

But I figured, I'd continue with this process and wean out the toys Payne calls "Toys Without Staying Power":

1. Broken Toys
2. Developmentally Inappropriate Toys 
3. Conceptually “Fixed” Toys 
4. Toys that “Do Too Much” and Break Too Easily
5. Very High Stimulation Toys 
6. Annoying or Offensive Toys 
7. Toys that Claim to Give Your Child a Developmental Edge 
8. Toys You Are Pressured to Buy
9. Toys that Inspire Corrosive Play
10. Toy Multiples

 

So let's have a look at the before and after of our play room:

BEFORE:

AFTER:

So the differences are pretty huge:  less clutter, less choices, easy accessibility, and clear labeling.

My post-op observations: 

1. They ACTUALLY played and played imaginatively and attentively

2. Having toys in cubbies without a bin was great for my 2 year old. She just pulled her toys out and really played with them. No help needed from me.

3. The girls spilled out tokens from a board game and poured them back in for like 10 minutes while singing the word "teamwork"--I kid you not!

4. Choosing books for "library time" was quick and easy due to the lack of clutter and easy visibility of books.

5. Clean up was a breeze for the kids to do themselves, because there wasn't as much to clean and they knew exactly where everything went.

I'm a believer: simplicity might just be the answer.

Stay tuned for other ways we will be simplifying our existence.

Great Resource for Jewish Montessori Activities

A Jewish Homeschool Blog deserves mention again for a great resource created for Sefer Bereishit.

Click here to find a link to download Montessori Activities for Chumash Bereishit. All of these activities are wonderful and engaging.