Completed: Flowering Baby Curriculum level 4

What a delightful curriculum! I wish more parents could experience the joys of this flexible, developmentally based curriculum. I have level 1 for baby F and am looking forward to using all five with her. Highly recommend any and all moms to try this out. It's thorough, flexible, and unlike any other I've seen. Now that we're moving on to the final level (prek level 5)  I thought I'd share some highlights.

http://floweringbaby.com/Three_to_Four.html at the bottom has a link to a one month sample
http://www.currclick.com/index.php?manufacturers_id=444&term=Flow.  <~~~Has different samples
and the option to buy 12 or 6 month versions in PDF form

When T started out I was pleasantly surprised by how Flowering Baby helped refine the rhythm of our day. It's so natural. There's no need to sit down and do school. You can so easily spread the activities throughout your day.

Another thing I learned to appreciate is how it takes you beyond. Flowering Baby  uses items found around the home or at the library and then it guides you as to how to best use those items based on where children are naturally developmentally at that stage, and then grow them developmentally further. It is a very developmentally based program. If your child is like mine, you will see him flourish.

There are themes in Flowering Baby. Unlike some unit studies learning does not become forced into an unnatural box surrounding these themes. Just because you are studying frogs the program doesn't require you to only count frog or pond related items, or do everything you can with the letter F. You can certainly and it encourages you to help make association. Write frog or pond related words, count those lily pads. Great! But it doesn't tie you down to only learning around one theme at a time and forcing everything to fall under that theme. The program is filled with variety, and each theme will just be a part rather than the driving force.

Now I did make a mistake I think with T. Towards the end of the twelve months I noticed he was starting to find the work easier and easier. He turned 4 in Early March by the way. I went back and forth wondering "Should I advance him to level 5 now," (it's the pre-k level) "or finish out the twelve months?" Well, I should have advanced him at the end of April at the latest. Doing May and June in level 4 was way too easy for him. At least the activities were still fun. So if you havea gut feeling your child is ready for the next level, or say your child is beind and needs to stay in a level longer please follow it! You'll be much more satisfied. It's developmentally based after all.

Pre-Literacy Skills

Letters are taught contextually and reviewed with nice variety and variation rather than in isolation as letter of the week programs are set up. This makes learning a bit more natural and less forced.
Rhyming is covered, along with story sequencing.

Phonetic sounds and matching introduced, reviewed. A little writing without worksheets too if your child is ready. We used all kinds of materials like chalk, pudding, shaving cream, cereal, pipe cleaners to help us form letters.

Books, books, books

There's little way to grow  up disliking reading with Flowering Baby. From level one on books are read. Level four has you read picture books, award winners, non-fiction, and one large chapter book or poetry collection each month.

T's favorites were Mr Popper's Penguins and Paddington Bear followed by Charlotte's Web and Curious George. Some books the program suggests applying pre-narration skills after reading.  I have noticed a definite increase in T's ability to remember and retell stories over the last year.

Mathematics

  







Counting forwards/backwards,
skip counting









measuring and cooking










making patterns

 











sorting


identifying shapes









 




 




writing and reading numbers





Ordinal positions are covered and reviewed. Again it has used  things  found  in  our  home.



Blocks




Puzzles















Even board games.

Fine and Gross Motor

Safety and Culture

Personal safety is discussed and important numbers memorized

 Labor Day was just one of the many holidays we studied. Independence Day, Thanksgiving, Father's Day, Christmas, Cinco de Mayo and many others. On average one holiday a month. You read about it and usually do a hands on activity. For example for Chinese New Year we ate Chinese food with chopsticks and wore red! For labor day we wrote thank you notes for the mail carrier etc.

Running, jumping, balancing and more!

Nature/Science

Each month has 2 or more "themes" you study alongside the main curriculum. A few follow.

 Forest animals.

 Bees

 Rocks

Aquatic life

Zoos

Human Body

 Fall

Spring

 Bodies of water




We also had various science topics we discussed in the middle of the main curriculum. Like magnets.

Seeds

 How water is absorbed

Arts

Each month you listen to a different style of music. It's not a sit down and listen time. Just on in the background to expose the child to a wide variety of music. Besides this you do a lot of hands on activities with music and art.

This is a very small sample of our year. It was so enjoyable. Can't wait to see what the next year brings as I do Level 5 with T and Level 1 with baby F.

Wordless Wednesday: Matching fun

Babies Love Bellydance

 One thing  is  for  sure:  easing back in a  routine  post  baby  two  it's  more  of a  challenge.  First  difficulty  was  grocery  shopping  with  two.  My initial experience had me thinking it could now only go smoothly with another adult along or watching T at home while I shopped. Four months later we're over that.
Then housework. I  think  we're  getting  there. New rhythms and rojtines are coming. The evenings especially are still rocky.
Getting places on time. Really. It's so hard now. Something always seems to come up!
  The  most  difficult  seems  to  be a consistent time to exercise. A full routine. Then this week I discovered babies love bellydance. At least mine does. I still have to split up my exercise time. If though I start doing a belly dance or Tahitian based exercise routine with F nearby watching...She laughes. She finds it amusing. Yesterday I discovered if I just do some modified moves while rocking her to sleep I can incorporate exercise in my day too. Seems more soothing.

Spring Theme for Preschool/Prek: books, art, science and more

Spring! Spring! Spring!

Spring in the Wild

It's amazing to think a few weeks ago we had snow. The weather has been perfect to study spring both with books and up close and personal with long hours outdoors. A few of the books we read were on trees. One in particular stands out. Love it. Still have it home from the library. It's called One Small Place In A Tree. Written by Barbara Brenner this book tells the story of a little chip in the bark of a tree. A bug gets in, a hole is made, tunnels bored,  fungi grows as a beetle colony takes over, woodpeckers come making more holes, the tree keeps losing bark and dies, animals move in, it eventually falls...and the story continues. 

T and I found a tree that reminded us of the book.

As time has passed we've noticed more

and more

wildflowers.

You might enjoy reading Wildflower ABC: An Alphabet of Potato Prints by Diana Pomeroy and Planting A Rainbow by Lois Ehlert.

Listening to a bird songs CD is slowly starting to work. We're starting to recognize more songs!  Heard the song of this red-wingled blackbird before we saw it landing on this fence post.

It's exciting. 

Farming

A few miles from here is a dairy farm so one day we headed over. T got to stand next to a farmer as he milked the cows. It was fascinating. He can't wait to return!

We read some interesting books on farm life. "Farm" and Tractor by DK, "The Milk Makers" by Gail Gibbons, and a book on the different kinds of farms also by Gail Gibbons were particular favorites.


We even tried making our own butter and freezer jam.
Pour cream into a jar.

Shake.

And shake.

And shake.
 Keep shaking until solid.

We built our own farm. Twice.

One way we did this was to take cut animal shapes out of play dough with cookie cutters. He arranged them on a piece of construction paper we'd written the word "farm" on together. 

Another way was with model animals and building blocks.




 First he separated farm animals from non-farm animals.





Then using his blocks he built his own barnyard.

Weather

 Another activity had to do with the weather in spring. We listened to "The Storm" and he was to draw whatever came to mind. He didn't like the piece one bit! "The music is scary," he said, "and angry! It's red, and fast!" Then he scribbled away with a red crayon to "The Storm".

We did a little spring science experiment all about water, rain, and evaporation.

He wadded up a tissue. It became our cloud. Also filled up a small cup with water. Our pond.

Here's where evaporation happened. He dipped the tissue into the water. The water slowly soaked the tissue, making it become heavier. It was evaporating, and the cloud would soon have enough moisture to...

Rain!

I thought it was funny a few days later when they did the same experiment with cotton balls on homeschool class day.

Plants and Water

We learned about how plants need and absorb water.

Spring Sport

Enjoyed playing a warm weather sport- T ball!

Eyewitness  has a great book on baseball your preschooler might enjoy. 
Gail Gibbons has a fine book on the sport introducing the rules of the game to littles called My Baseball Book.

 Arts and Crafts

Project 1: Spring placemats.

We made spring-themed placemats. A very simple project but he loved eating from them.

Supplies: crayons, construction paper.
How to: Cut construction paper in desired shapes. Color if desired. Glue on a larger piece of construction paper.

Project 2: Fruit and Vegetable Prints

We also read the Lois Ehlert book Growing Vegetable Soup in Spanish and English.

 Project 3: Plant Print Shirt

We put fabric paint on flowers and leaves. Then we pressed them on the front of a plain white T-shirt to make a "spring shirt". It's now one of his favorite shirts.

Project 4: Flowers as Paint

 More fun: we painted using the natural pigments in flowers and leaves.

Field Trip To A Farm

This was a lot of fun. We've been twice to this dairy farm. First to watch the cows get milked. Another day to tour the land.

Watching a cow graze.

 Comparing tire tracks to his shoe size.

 Figuring out where to go next.

Linking up at Preschool and Kindergarten Community and Living Montessori Now