(Home)schooling: Week 2

Things are going very well.  As much as I’d like to focus on academics, something else (but even more important at the moment) is stealing the spotlight: POTTY TRAINING! Yes, I am so happy that we are making a lot of progress and hopefully, he’ll be out of diapers (during the day) in a few weeks or months.  I’m not holding my breath, just hoping, haha.

We have two potties, one in each of the rooms mostly used during the day. For some reason, whoever designed this house has never had a pregnant wife or has a kid because it was a pain being pregnant and having to run to the back of the house to pee every five minutes (almost) and this house isn’t potty training-friendly either.  I wish we had a half bathroom by the laundry room at the front of the house. 

Anyway, to make a long story short, we had to put him on every 15 minutes and we’d have a pee here and there, but now, he is actually letting us know when he needs to go (most of the time, but not always). I don’t feel confident enough to put him in briefs yet, maybe in a few weeks.  He’d be having numerous accidents still, so we won’t push it.

He also started swimming lessons. He fought it for a few minutes during the first lesson, but after that, he absolutely loved it! He went every day last week for half an hour and we decided to enroll him for another week.

Going into the academics part of this blog, here are some of the activities we did. I can’t take pictures or recount every single thing we did, but these descriptions and images will give you an idea about what we are studying.

Studying colors. He loves stickers!

Hot or Cold? He got every single on right! Impressive.

For part the Montessori training this week (Sensorial), he had the Pink Tower Presentation and a couple of Extensions.

First, we sorted the blocks from smallest to biggest (and vice versa).

Then we made a tower.

First, we sorted the boards from smallest to biggest.

Then, we started building the tower.

 

He kept building it over and over! He loved these activities so much that I left these in his room for him to play with them anytime he wants.

We also had Bible class every day (reviewed the Creation story, The Fall, and introduced the story of Noah and the Ark), Circle Time (including Calendar and other activities like singing), Snack Time, Outdoor Time, and Art (he played with play dough).  

In Math, we traced numbers in a sand tray. 
In Language Arts, we traced letters in the sand tray (upper case and lower case).  
In Science, I introduced magnetism. 
In Culture, we talked about globes and how the world is round like a ball. 
In Music, we explored vibration and used a tuning fork. He absolutely loved this lesson. 
In Chinese, we learned the numbers from 0-10 and in Spanish we reviewed 0-5 and introduced 6-10.
In Practical Life, we practiced how to walk in a circle, walk along a line, walk around a mat, walk around a vase, walk with a vase, walk with a tray, walk with a cup, walk with a book, and walk to music.  He also practiced how to carry, unroll, and roll up a mat (used a lot for Montessori activities).

All in all, we have this kind of fun for 2-2.5 hours daily.  He loves channeling his energy into purposeful activities and he loves the attention and he enjoys learning, too.

Please let me know if you are interested in knowing more about any of these activities.  As you can see, we do so much that it’s hard to post every single detail, but I don’t mind going in depth if someone asks. 🙂