Before Five in a Row on Goodnight Moon

I suppose my homeschooling style is not turning out to be "unschooler," since I keep buying curricula and my daughter is only eighteen months old. I just adore books, and anything that gives me more ideas for how to introduce and discuss good books is too hard for me to pass up.

My latest curriculum purchase is Before Five in a Row, which suggests activities to accompany twenty-four different children's books. It is geared towards ages two through four, or "two thru four" as the cover reads. I will shrug off the insipid cover art and street sign spelling and move on to the content. The book-related activities comprise the first half of Before Five in a Row. The second half of the book is devoted to more general ideas for educational play.

Goodnight Moon is not the first book listed, but I'm planning to begin there since it is the one we are probably most familiar with. I really am surprised by the ideas I am taking from Before Five in a Row. Why didn't I think of that? Because I am reading this story for the thousandth time from memory while planning a blog post and praying today will be the day Ladybug takes a nap? Yeah, that's why. So a book to help me out a little is welcome.

Ideas from Before Five in A Row that I will be using for Goodnight Moon:

• Point out the colors red, blue, yellow, and green in the illustrations. Ladybug is excited by all things color these days. I don't think I could offer her a piece of candy without a discussion of its color.
• Point out that a painting from The Runaway Bunny can be seen in Goodnight Moon. We have both books; it will be fun if she can see the connection. We can talk about how the same person drew the pictures for both books. Correction, I can talk about that. Maybe she'll understand it.
• Point out all the different animals in the book: Rabbits, kittens, bears, etc.
• Talk about the nursery rhyme "Hey Diddle Diddle" and the illustration of the cow jumping over the moon. Bug has heard this rhyme. Here's a good chance for me to recite it a few times and connect it to a different book. 
• Point out that the three bears sitting on chairs are the same three bears she knows from the Goldilocks story. 
• Talk about all the different shapes in the illustrations. See if she will point out circles, squares, or triangles. 

Okay, that's a pretty good haul of ideas from three pages of a book I wasn't sure I should buy. However, here are some things Bug is too young for or that I have my doubts about:

• The Bible activities. We are not practicing Christians, and while I want Ladybug to learn biblical stories for cultural literacy, I don't need to connect them to every storybook.
• The discussion of the room appearing darker relative to the sky outside. We can talk about light and dark, but this is a little subtle for her age. Not a fault of the book, we're just not there yet.
•  A memory game where you try to remember the items in the great green room. Again, good activity; Bug is too young.
• Have the child tell a story using the pattern of  Goodnight Moon. For example, say "Hello" to everything in her room.
• Vocabulary lesson explaining the use of the word "great" to mean big. At eighteen months, every spoken word is a vocabulary lesson. Does she need me to explain a specific word? Maybe I need more education on this point.

Based on the Goodnight Moon recommendations, I'm happy I bought Before Five in a Row. There's enough here to keep us busy for a while.

Blogging a Rainy Morning

The weather for yesterday morning was predicted to be nasty thunderstorms. When I woke in the morning things were sunny enough, but by 9:00 am the sky was looking ominously dark. Darn. Our play date to go swimming is cancelled, and the best decision I can see is to spend our day inside. We are sans car around here, and getting caught outside in lightning and thunder is not my idea of a good time.

Rainy days in a small apartment with a small toddler have a way of dragging on and on. So I thought I would blog all the little ways we passed the time. Or at least as many of them as I could remember and document. I should mention that watching the rain became a continual source of delight, and she returned to the window many times throughout the morning.

After breakfast, we sat with crayons and colored. Ladybug is beginning to get the idea. And yes, that is a ladybug magnet on our fridge. Thanks to a sweet aunt for that gift!

Then I thought I would try pointing out colors in Goodnight Moon. I got this idea from Before Five in a Row, which I will do a post on soon. We looked at a few green walls and yellow lamps before Bug requested "plo."

Then it was potty time. She requested the potty by bringing me a baby instruction manual and saying "Ah-pah-pah." The instructions for her own operation got boring quickly, but the Fruitominoes were at hit. Lots of stacking, talking about bananas, and general crazy swiping. Plus, she used the potty. Yay!

Then this cute Christmas ornament kept her busy for quite a while. It's a good thing I'm not organized enough to get all the ornaments back into storage, huh?

Right around now, I start asking myself if it's lunchtime yet. It's not.

I decided yesterday I might like to have Bug's bookcase outside of her room and in our living room, near her toys. This is about as close as you will see me get to a DIY project. So I shuffled some books around and slid the bookcase into its new home.

While moving the bookcase around, I notice that there is some board book repair I've been putting off. By the time toddlerhood is over, I think I should have attained some kind of certificate in board book repair.
Before, in pieces:

And after, all fixed:

At various points while I've been shuffling and taping books, Ladybug has been playing with her fish colors puzzle. I just love this thing, and she's into colors lately. She will take pieces and announce, "Blue fish! Black fish!" For some reason though, green is always blue. Oh well, this is imperfect homeschool.

 

Clock check. It's after 12:00! Lunch, anyone? 

Seasonal Planning - Summer

Ladybug is only 18 months old, but I already do some homeschool planning. While most of it is spent on Amazon wish-listing books and curriculum ideas that will certainly change before Ladybug grows into them, some of it is beneficial to me now. Earlier this year I was inspired by a post on City Kids Homeschooling about homeschooling rhythms. I immediately started working out a similar schedule for my days with Ladybug. I have been updating them at the beginning of a new season, roughly corresponding with our music class. It helps me to take a step back and more deliberately choose how our days will flow. And it really helps me to have something to lean on during my 3:00 pm slump!

This is our summer routine. One of the best things I was able to do was recognize my 3:00 slump and plan to get outside around that time. The weather is usually wonderful, and I can't think of a better season than summer for frequent playground time.

Of course, like anything with a toddler, this routine is flexible. I adapt it to meet our needs. This is the basic outline that serves us well.

A Few Moments for Nesting Bowls

In my mind, Ladybug and I have been working on stacking nested bowls. That is our weekly activity from Slow and Steady: Get Me Ready. What that really means is when she is trying to slide her entire body through the back of a kitchen chair or turn drawers into stairs, I realize I should come up with an activity. "What is our Slow and Steady thing? Oh yeah, the nested bowls," I think to myself. That will buy me five minutes!

I grab the measuring cups and line them up smallest to largest, left to right, as the book instructed me. Then I begin nesting smaller cups in larger cups. I think Ladybug stacked (not nested) a couple of them before realizing that the metal cups make an awesome sound when banged together or on the tile floor. And she was off making music!

This is often how our activities go, and I think it's cool that I can't predict where she will take them. The sixty or so seconds when she is on the task I presented add up when repeated over the week, and I see her engage with the game for longer stretches once she is familiar with it.

So many different strands of learning work into these brief moments of directed activity. One of Ladybug's newest books is The Three Bears by Byron Barton. So we also talked about big, medium, and small nesting bowls, just like Papa, Mama, and Baby Bear have.

This afternoon she climbed eagerly onto the bed and quickly nested the three bowls, then turned her attention elsewhere. Did I mention that this activity was scheduled for an 8 month old? Good thing I've only spent a few moments on it!