Blueberries for Sal

Our book of the week was Blueberries for Sal. This was the first that we read the book, although I remembered it from childhood. Both of the boys liked the story, the yummy blueberries, and our week was sprinkled with books and valentines! 

On Monday, we started out by checking on our seeds that we "planted" just two weeks ago. The have grown crazy big! The most amazing thing is that new seeds have sprouted from our old seeds. How did all that happen in a plastic bag?! I'm not really sure how long we should let our pinto beans grow, haha. 

After we checked on our seeds, Silas began working on our valentines color by number book and Ezra worked with making his own valentine by deconstruction one of Silas'. Silas, has really turned a corner in the last few months and now LOVES to color and really focuses on coloring well. Color by numbers is such a great way to get him to focus on coordinating numbers and colors and he really loves it. Each day this week, he spent some time coloring in this valentines book. 

Next, we read our story. While we read, I had a tin of blue pom poms so Silas and Ezra could pretend to pick blueberries while we read. We also enjoyed a blueberry snack.

After we read, we practiced writing the letter B. We also colored blueberries on a letter B. Ezra really wanted to work too, so I gave him the little B. He mimicked everything he saw big brother doing. This was really cute since he is so independent.

 

 Once the boys finished their B sheets, we moved on to using corks as stamps and made a blueberry painting. They really enjoyed this and Ezra is warming up more and more to using finger paint. One of the best aspects of today was, how often the worked side by side and got along! I love that and it made me pretty excited about working a little more with Ezra in the months to come. I know he is still a little guy but I want to encourage his exploration of learning!

 

Tuesday we had bible study resume so our morning was full of learning for mommy and the boys got to play with friends. After lunch, Ezra took a nap and Silas and I worked lightly in the playroom. We read our story again, and we talked about how Sal should have been safe and stayed with her mommy. We talked about in the Bible how Ruth told her mommy (in law) that where you go, I will go, and that's the helpful way we need to be too. We did some more coloring which took such a long time because we didn't just color but we wrote our name, 5- since we are almost five, drew arrow so our cupcake was the best one ever, and a candle on top. I felt anxiety rising because I had so many things I wanted to accomplish both in school and outside of school and I just felt like God was telling me- stop. Just stop. Who cares if school today is mostly coloring this one picture for what felt like an hour. This is your time together. And he is learning focus. And how to do a job well done. And how to create, and how to have vision to make things even better. And he is learning that mommy can be still. Mommy can wait. And she can give him her undivided attention. So this day there was no workout, even though I hadn't missed in 2 weeks- he isn't going to remember that? And there was no dinner plan or meat defrosting- because everything needed to stop and he needed to color this cupcake, and I needed to sit and watch him do it. Not look at my phone, or plan, or be in and out of the room, but this was the most important thing we did and what a mighty good cupcake that turned out to be. After that we learned the difference between little b, and little d. We found a song about how we can remember which one goes which way and now he knows it so well. We colored, and cut, and glued down b's and d's in categories. And then we did a little bit of blueberry addition, even though Silas really wanted to color one blueberry red to be a tomato because it just would make a perfect tomato, we focused on our assignment the way it was suppose to be done. After this worksheet, brother woke, and dad came home so we went to the park and ordered burgers for dinner. Tuesday was a great day.

Wednesday, we did color by numbers together. We read our story and watched a read-a-loud version of it and turned the pages as the person read. We ate even more blueberries and then baked blueberry banana muffins. Silas helped measure, mix, and pour. Then he helped eat :) They were apparently really good too because we made 24 muffins on Wednesday and by Friday night there are only 8 left...I think little hands keep reaching for them every time the fridge opens. While our blueberries baked we made a basket of finger printed blueberries. We also worked on number 6 and we realized how similar 6 is to both little b and little d.

Thursday was a field trip day for us. We went with friends to story time at the library. We picked out books, we listened to story time, sang songs, played games, read books, watched a book on video, and even had a craft. This was so much fun and took most of the morning that we ended up letting this be most of our study time and in the afternoon, we colored and played. This week was really neat because it felt like a week of progress- I can see so much growth and it makes me excited for next year. I'm trying to wait to plan until we get to May where I can see how our first year went, what stages all three kids are, and what areas I need to improve in for a whole well rounded school year. Next year is Kindergarten and it's REAL, but I am starting to see we CAN do this, we ARE doing this. I'm so thankful that this is our life and that these are my people.