Hello friends! It was our first week back after our two week holiday break, and while the first day left us both exhausted, we had a pretty good week.
This weeks focus was on winter, which was appropriate as winter came roaring in fiercely the past few days, with weather temps in the teens and lower. Our curriculum, Blossom and Root, gave us the choice of three different books for our language arts this week – I decided to use two of them, Grandmother Winter and The Story Blanket. I had not ever read either of them myself before this week, and wow, I loved them! Wyatt enjoyed Grandmother Winter more than The Story Blanket, but I adored them both. We love using our storytelling basket this year, which is a new addition. Wyatt loves listening to the books and then using manipulative and figures and scarves and such to act out the stories. We put tiny paper snowflakes in a scarf and then Wyatt shook it, causing it to snow, just like Grandmother Winter does in the book. It was cute. Then we also added snowflakes to our Family Tree mural wall – and I snuck in a bit of OT while we were at it.
Since our books were winter themed, we learned a bit more about winter itself, from snowflakes to hibernating animals to just random fun facts. We of course did all of the “basics” as well, reading and phonics and math, and I found a fun “Forest Friends Math” that we have used in addition to our normal lessons as well.
Art this week was creating a winter themed fiber arts scene out of wool roving. This ended up being a collaborative piece as Wyatt did not enjoy the feeling of the roving. So he directed me and I placed it where he wanted it. He seemed pretty happy with the result.
Thursday was a cozy day of learning. We finished our work in the morning and in the afternoon, we read together and created another collaborative art piece. I call it our “kinda quilt”. It was a good way to spend a freezing cold afternoon!
Now, the resource roundup!
Books Read:
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Rabbit’s Snow Dance || Winter Walk || Poe and Lars || The Snowflake || Snowflake in My Pocket || Walking in a Winter Wonderland || Snow || Sneezy the Snowman || How to Catch a Snowman || Little Owl’s Snow || The Big Book of Snow and Ice (this one is fantastic!! I highly recommend it)
Next week is more animals less winter, then after that we are beginning a few week long unit about Russia! I am extremely excited!! I took Russian language classes in college, and so so many Russian history courses as well. It’s going to be a good few weeks!
Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs.. 
I love the books, the mural wall, and that cozy stove in the bottom photo. Very enjoyable place to study and learn!
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Thank you Laurel-Rain! I love our family tree mural wall. We put it up in November and we all liked it so much we decided to just keep it up! And our little stove – I love it! We have to have just an electric one, but it keeps us warm when I don’t want to turn up the heat more, and it does add a nice ambiance!
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Sounds like a wonderful unit with lots of fun activities and good books!
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It was a perfect start to school again after break!
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I love his snowy trees art; that came out fabulous.
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Thank you! It was fun to do!
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I’m sure that there are moments when homeschooling is very challenging and difficult, but I also think that it must also be very enjoyable and fun for you. I love the idea of discovering all sorts of new children’s books and the activities involved. You get to learn right along with Wyatt. I’ll be interested to hear how the Russia unit goes!
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It is definitely all of those things! I wouldn’t change it for anything, even on the hardest days. 🙂 I have seen my child really thrive through homeschooling – Wyatt has cerebral palsy, which presents as mobility issues and a speech delay. Since we started homeschooling his speech has taken off like wildfire. I think in school he was just overlooked and fell through the cracks, not their fault. It has to be hard to meet all the needs of a classroom of special needs kids, even a small class. Here I can give him that close attention and help he needs and an environment in which to really thrive. And wow I wrote a book!!!! LOL. Anyway, I do love it, you are right! And I do learn along with him. Some of this stuff I haven’t thought about it years. I am really excited about our Russia unit!
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How wonderful that you are able to provide such a great environment for Wyatt to learn and grow! I guess there are silver linings to this pandemic. 🙂
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