Cricket and I had a fabulous summer, that included a lot more school than I had planned at her request. We did some fabulous 4th of July and Olympic theme packs that we found floating around the blog-o-sphere. This was probably a favorite for both of us though:

I found this simple Patriotic activity at No Time for Flash Cards. Cricket really had a blast doing it, and we just kept adding more paint and more glitter,  until we were done with the messy joyousness.

I also finally made Cricket a sewing basket like she has been asking for. She has been sewing, and sewing, and sewing some more. So far, realistically, she is doing embroidery with yarn, but she loves it! The best part is she is sharing her love with three other generations. Cricket has been showing her work to, asking questions of, and stealing supplies from me, my mom, and my grandmother. I think she probably has the best button collection in town after raiding all three of us! This is a picture of her very first stitches (she quickly moved on to fabric after this day).

Cricket has a continued passion for Legos and has been busy building with Daddy and independently.

Lighthouse Project

Alligator creation

We have also been busy getting ready for the new school year, which starts tomorrow, and we updated our Word Wall together.

My favorite thing that we did together, by far though, was reading Charlotte’s Web. Our first real literature! We laughed together and cried together, and discussed the book to great ends. Cricket also picked up some great new vocabulary words, like salutations! When we finally finished the book we watched the movie together. As we watched we discussed differences in the book and the movie. Neither of us like that they changed the final scene between Charlotte and Wilbur. Cricket also learned a valuable life lesson: read the book first, because it’s better than the movie anyway!

Blessings!

Cricket and I didn’t disappear or stop homeschooling. We just decided to change things up a bit and experiment some with our final “preschool homeschool” time.

I found that easing off on the photographing and documenting made the educational side flow better for us. I do want to go back to a weekly summary for our records, but I’m not going to stress over blog content. This all started as a memory keeper for us and I want to get back to that.

I am finally getting involved in our local homeschool group too and that is helping tremendously.

Anyway, here are some of the highlights we missed when I was taking a blogging break.

 Cricket is still very taken with completing puzzles. She is completing increasingly difficult puzzles, independently, and with more confidence. This was her first completely independent 100 piece puzzle!

 We have also experienced a Lego explosion in our home. Cricket and her daddy are seriously into building sets together. Cricket also loves creating on her own. The back one was a Star Wars inspired space ship.

 Cricket really got into Easter this year, the real meaning of Easter that is, and she did a great job with our Easter based work.

 

 She continued to enjoy our geography study, using Expedition Earth. Here she was doing one to one correspondence using Chinese numbers.

 We did not complete our work with You Can Read, but I plan to continue it next year.

I am really looking forward to Kindergarten and I am in hard core planning mode at the moment!