"Home" school

So besides the pre-school co-op thing Tyler's doing right now, I also do "school" with him every day for 30 min. I totally flaked out and bought this Hooked on Phonics Learn to Read set when it was on clearance. I knew I wanted to start getting more into depth with his learning, but had no idea where to start or what to do and this came highly recommended so I thought we'd give it a go. And I have to say, it has been perfect for us! The lessons are set for about a 15 min. time frame, but I add in my own things to supplement the lessons cause he has a pretty good ability to sit and listen so our lessons go anywhere from 20-30 min. Kylee takes about an hour and a half nap in the afternoon so we do it for the last half hour of her nap so that Tyler and I get some quality one on one time. Tyler LOVES doing it and when Bobby asked him if he liked his pre-school or mommy's "school" better he said, "Mommy's school!" without hesitation! Ha ha, I guess that's a good sign right?!

Using Nilla wafers to make the letter "A" (this was our first day and nilla wafers are his favorite snack so I wanted to make sure he'd enjoy "school" and want to do it more)


Playing the "find the letter A game" after our lesson.


Making the letter "B" with brown bears! (chocolate teddy grahams)


Playdough to fill in letter "C". And how much are we loving the crayon behind his ear?! Totally his doing-he said he wanted to be like Handy Manny!


And so on and so on. We do a different letter everyday with a review of the letters every so often. Since he's known his letters for quite some time we're mainly focusing our lessons on phonemic awareness and writing. He writes A-H (and a few other random ones; L, T, O, P) because that's what we've done so far and his handwriting has become so much better just over the last couple weeks. I think this has helped his fine motor skills a lot as he's learning how to control making small, precise movements.

I guess since this is a "school" post I'll go ahead and throw in some pictures from his first field trip to the zoo! We've been here quite a few times but some how he seemed to love it so much more when he had a bunch of friends to run around with!

Kylee desperately wanted to climb in with the pheasants. They are pretty birds.


Most of the kids and their moms/siblings.


Always a big highlight of a trip to the zoo-feeding the ducks!






She was yelling at them, "Ducks!! come ere! Ducks, come ere!"


That's teacher Hannah (who just happens to be 3 weeks away from having a baby!)


Lots of learning going on in these parts of the woods! I hope Tyler always has a love of learning and an eagerness to discover like he does now. I sure do love him.