Okay, Some Fall Planning

Just days after writing my post, "August," about how I'm not going to think about Fall yet, I have placed a large order of books in anticipation of this homeschool year. I'm thinking of it as our first year of preschool. I just love learning things! The other homeschool moms got me all excited posting their curricula, lol.

So here's what I'm thinking. Unit studies based on children's literature. Books selected based on seasonal appropriateness and from lists of recommended books.  Move forward with pre-reading at a very gentle pace -- whatever works for her. I'll try to borrow most picture books from the library, but I did purchase a lot of curricula today.

Math
Count on Math: Activities for Small Hands and Lively Minds

Math Play! (Williamson Little Hands Series)

Twelve Hats for Lena : A Book of Months

Pre-reading - I went a little nuts here. I have no intention of sitting Ladybug down in front of the "Learn to Read" curriculum and doing a phonics force-march. Many of these are for me to read so the ideas are in my brain to be adapted when the moment is right.

Letter Sounds (Rock 'n Learn)

Hape Happy Puzzle Alphabet Puzzle Wood Toy (and the lowercase one too)

Sounds the Letters Make or A Phonic Alphabet

The Reading Lesson: Teach Your Child to Read in 20 Easy Lessons

The Monster Book of ABC Sounds (Picture Puffins)

Teach a Child to Read With Children's Books: Combining Story Reading, Phonics, and Writing to Promote Reading Success

Art - I loved First Art for Toddlers and Twos, so I bought the author's preschool program (ages 3-6).
Preschool Art: It's the Process, Not the Product!

Science
Project Garden: A Month-by-Month Guide to Planting, Growing, and Enjoying ALL Your Backyard Has to Offer

Autumn Board Book

Poetry
Julie Andrews' Treasury for All Seasons: Poems and Songs to Celebrate the Year   

Literature - I'm focusing on Winnie-the-Pooh in Easy Reader format. I blogged about this here. I ordered four more Pooh readers today. Maybe early next year we'll do read-alouds from unabridged Pooh.

Pooh Invents a New Game: (Dutton Easy Reader)

Eeyore Has a Birthday (Easy-to-Read, Puffin)

Christopher Robin Leads an Expedition (Dutton Easy Reader)

Winnie-the-Pooh and Some Bees (Dutton Easy Reader)

...And because I'm a sucker for anything matched up to seasons: Five in a Row Holiday : Through the Seasons. I might put the word out on the homeschool lists that I'm looking for the rest of the Five in a Row books as well. 

The one thing missing from this order is a bookshelf! There's no way I'm springing all these books at once. Some will need to be stored for later. That shelf will also give me a good place to put all the out of season holiday books. I will have to carve out another corner of basement for this!

Blueberry Unit Study

So it turns out that if you borrow every book you can with the word "blueberry" in the title, you wind up with a pretty well-rounded blueberry unit study. This is what we've been doing for the past few weeks. Blueberries are in season, and we planned a trip with friends to go blueberry picking. So I hit the library. There were several books that weren't favorites for one reason or another. Here are the ones that stuck:

Blueberries for Sal. A classic. But I guess I either didn't read this one as a kid, or I have a short memory, because I hadn't realized that Sal is a little girl, not a boy! Excellent, since I have a girl. Sal tromps around blueberry picking in overalls, with no girly pretensions like hair bows. In terms of fitting into the unit, this book is literature, with opportunity to discuss science (how people and animals save food/fat for the winter). There's also material there for social studies (family relationships) and art. I know Blueberries for Sal is a Before Five in a Row book. My copy of BFIAR is still packed away in a box somewhere though. (Um, yeah it was over a year ago that we moved). Anyway, you can't "do blueberries" without this book.

Peter in Blueberry Land is your Scandinavian, Waldorf-y fairy tale, and it's delightful. There is so much to talk about on each page. We enjoyed this book purely for the literature, but you could launch into math discussions about relative size, as protagonist Peter is shrunk down to the size of the fairies in the story and sees nature from that perspective. There are also obvious science tie-ins. I didn't go there this time, since I'm doing this unit with a very young child who is not yet 3.

Blueberries Grow on a Bush by Mari Schuh. Ladybug has surprised me before by enjoying nonfiction, and this one was no exception. It's straight science, the life cycle of the blueberry bush, including pollination and winter dormancy. The photographs are simple and beautiful. There's very little text on each page, making this great for a toddler. Bug chose to read it several times. 
 
One Little Blueberry is a simple counting book. I almost disregarded it when I saw what it was, but I'm glad I didn't because my daughter loves it. I am less than charmed by one blueberry, two red ants, three ladybugs, etc...But that doesn't mean Ladybug won't enjoy it. What saves this book from being an ordinary counting book is the little plot: the one blueberry stays in the story for the whole book, as the increasing insects chase it, all hoping to get a snack. Insects are a nice tie-in for this unit, and my Ladybug (led by her Daddy) wound up observing a wide variety of insects on our actual blueberry picking trip, including a very cool blue dragonfly. For unit purposes, check off math. We counted bugs, and Ladybug read me the numbers on each page. 

Blueberry Mouse is just plain cute. It's a rhyming story of a mouse who lives in a blueberry pie, and tells how she eats up her delicious house. For our purposes, I'm counting it as language/poetry because of the rhyming. You could take a social studies angle that talks about the houses we live in, friends, and neighborhoods. I didn't feel compelled to analyze this book, so we just enjoyed reading it. 

To me, something just as important as the unit is how it came about. My daughter is young, and I'm still feeling out our homeschooling style. Yes, I borrowed all the books and decided we could have fun learning about blueberries in a way that enriched our blueberry picking day trip. That's me planning and directing. But I borrowed a ton more books than we actually read, and I took her lead on what to really focus on. One Little Blueberry is a good example: I almost left it at the library, but I saw how Ladybug liked it, so I brought it home. And it really filled out the math part of the unit. The unit was gentle, always fun and always following Ladybug's interests. And that's the child-led part of joyful learning that is so important to me. 

Blueberry picking is my new favorite summer tradition. There are no thorns (raspberries) and no stooping over (strawberries). I highly recommend it!

August

This morning around 7:00am I opened our back door and it was quite cool outside. Not "Not-yet-hot" with humidity that promises a scorching day as soon as the sun gets a little higher. No, crisp and cool. 59 degrees, according to Google. It feels beautiful, and I left the kitchen door open to enjoy it. But I'm not sure I like it. August. Since when does August mean cooler mornings? Since you moved to New England, silly. I grew up in the Midwest, with Augusts so hot you could fry that cliche egg on the sidewalk. Opening the back door could often be mistaken for opening the oven door.

Summer here is so short and precious. It will give way to fall, and New England fall is the most glorious and spectacular experience. But I'm not ready yet. The back to school commercials are running on the radio. Another homeschool blogger I read is writing about Fall planning (rightfully so). I just can't do it. Ladybug's playmate turns 3 this month, followed by this cascade of autumn celebrations instantly followed by Ladybug being 3 and then winter celebrations. Then before we know it 2013 is over! Did I mention I just can't do it yet? Last year I wrote "It's Still Summer," so I guess this is a thing for me around this time of year, hanging on to the last bits of heat in an otherwise chilly climate.

I'm not ready to entertain fall, but I will acknowledge late summer. The sunflower seeds we planted in spring have formed fat buds, and one is showing off tiny yellow petals. Instead of getting ahead of myself like I usually want to do, I'm reflecting on late summer as a time to savor. This heat and those flowers were so dearly anticipated back in the winter, when we were buried under 3 feet of snow in our March blizzard. This month, now, is the one we've been waiting all year for. I believe I will play in the hose and walk to the park.