Whispers and Shouts: Learnin'

Late last Friday I began writing about the good day we had just had. For some reason I woke up that morning wanting to teach the boys everything I could. That was the day that they wrote their stories. It was a good day, full of unusual patience by all parties involved. All day I wanted to be teaching the boys new things. I don’t know that I’ve ever had a day like it before. I didn't care that the house was a giant mess, I just wanted to keep going. The boys were fun and focused and they soaked up everything we did. It started when we were talking over oatmeal and sprinkles about The Gruffalo, as is common for us to do. I told them what a main character is and they figured out that in The Gruffalo, it’s the mouse. I even said the word protagonist to them, but then thought they might get beat up in kindergarten for saying that word, so I toned it down.

They dictated their stories to me, with main characters, settings, conflicts, and resolutions. We did a sorting activity that had them figuring out what various groupings had in common with each other, We did a reading lesson where they learned the sound th and read more and more words. We even did an “engineering” game that I thought up with wooden blocks. And they stuck with it for an extraordinarily long time.

For the sorting game they came up with some silly categories, like "Things I Like," but also "Things with Wheels" and "Things at a Pond."

Pile of cut-outs for our sorting game

Things that go up in the sky

Felines!

Things with wheels

Trying to make towers the same height with the same blocks

Copying each other's patterns

Cityscape!

We watched Sid the Science Kid, which was about eating healthily. So we talked about the food groups and nutrition. Clark ate an entire apple and a half to show off his balanced meal. Cal ate just one slice after first pouting in bed about having to do it. We were going to work on their martial arts moves but ran out of steam. When Brian came home he took the boys to the grocery store and to the driving range while I went running and vacuumed. I did not do those two things at the same time, just FYI.

All this made me think that I really need to record here some of the learnin’ things we’ve been up to. So here are the ones I took pictures of from the past few weeks or so.

In our little preschool group we did an activity with the book Eating the Alphabet by Lois Ehlert.