Tots and Me... Growing Up Together: School Time Week 33: Starting Weaver Interlock and letter C

This was our first week of using the Weaver Curriculum's Interlock program. I have been debating for a while what curriculum we are going to be using as the children get older. I've contemplated unschooling, piecing together curriculum from sites online plus the crates of books I found at the thrift shop a couple of years ago. I've talked to a friend at church who has used the Weaver Curriculum successfully for years with her 4 children. I have looked at Sonlight now and then because I like the idea of a literature based curriculum. As I was discussing homeschooling with my friend at play group several weeks ago I brought up the Weaver Curriculum. Surprisingly she had a couple of volumes she said I could use as they were given to her and she wasn't using Weaver. What she had was a Volume 1 and the Interlock, which is the preschool/kindergarten curriculum.

I decided to use the Interlock while continuing to debate what the future will hold. More on that in another post. We have had quite the productive week. I am trying to stay nice and organized. I put the first week's lessons in a binder and have been working on the Interlock in addition to our letter of the week. More or less it has added Bible to our day. The curriculum includes a Bible story, Language arts, Social Studies, Preschool or Kindergarten arithmetic, Music, and Physical education. I have decided to do the "kindergarten" option for math as even that is review for the girls right now.

The Interlock program starts at the beginning. Our Bible verse this week is Genesis 1:1. We talked about how God is our loving Father and like our earthly father he has given us a gift.

Daddy gave the girls a gift (he got them little cars so it would go with our C lessons) that they were to open during our lesson. Then they made him special cards on which they each drew a picture of themselves with their daddy. Then I printed out the answers they gave me to the suggested questions in the lesson book so they could glue them in the cards.

After a busy day they gave the cards to their daddy after dinner (which was a special dinner for daddy. We made one of his favorites, lasagna.)

They also got to share a special song called Daddy Daddy We love You, sung to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

On the second day of our lessons we talked about how Jesus is God and was with God when he made the world. Then we discussed how Jesus is in heaven preparing a place for us:

And God has provided us a home to live in here on earth which daddy helps provide for by going to work.

Amelia's house has a spider

And Tabitha's house has puppets in the windows and a bee on the flower outside.

For math, we are to be reviewing the shapes. I chose the kindergarten over the preschool because the preschool option has the children learning one shape per week. Seeing as it is review for the girls I decided one a day is slow enough. Though the girls did enjoy finding the shape of the day and coloring it.

Not sure what was going on with Amelia's shaggy outlines.

They were supposed to go on a shape hunt, but I decided to make the above sheet instead.

I actually rearranged the order of reviewing the shapes because I wanted them to correspond better to our Bible lesson. Circle on day one for the earth, square on day two to represent the house, triangle on day 3 to represent and help illustrate the Trinity, because we talked about the Holy Spirit on day 3, guess I forgot to mention that.

I am looking forward to working our way through the story of Creation, plus I believe Noah in these next 35 weeks.

Now, onto the C lessons.

Monday of course we had our C muffin tin:

And they also made their C collages. Our C words this week are:

caterpillar, castle, clock, clown, crab and cap.

I actually got our word cards made on Sunday so we could use them for the lesson. The girls read the word and find the picture to put on our poster. Then on the second day they pick them off the poster and we play a game where they have to pick one of the pictures and try to remember which is the right word. Tabitha can do it no problem now, Amelia likes to turn the cards over to check (cheat). On the third day I write the word on the easel chalk board, they take turns underlining and circling letters then bring me the picture. Next week I plan on describing how we do this.

Then the girls made C caterpillars later on in the week.

I brought out the C poem we had done waaaay back when we first did the letter C last year.

Caterpillar creeping

caterpillar crawl

caterpillar climbing

all along the wall

Caterpillar spinning

Caterpillar snug

Caterpillar changing

What have you become

by Beverly Qualheim

For the first verse we just creep our inching finger along the opposite forearm and then up to the shoulder. For the second verse we spin our hands around each other, hug ourselves and roll our hands around each other, ending up with the hands interlocked at the thumbs, palms facing in like a butterfly.

And our C Bible verse is

"Casting all your care upon him, for he careth for you." 1 Peter 5:7

Yes, we have two verses a week now, the girls are doing great. Plus Tabitha can say the verse we have hanging in our bathroom.

"My dear brothers, take note of this, everyone should be quick to listen and slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires." James 1: 19,20

The only Spanish we really did this week was the days of the week while we are doing calender.

The amazing thing is we got all this done and we were running almost every day. I have dropped the exercise routine from my morning for now. I know I need to exercise, but my exercise was taking over an hour and by the time I then got the girls ready for lessons it was past 10 o'clock. I was getting so frustrated. Now, we get up, get dressed, have breakfast (I even do their hair while they eat), clean up from breakfast and are ready for lessons. I was so excited to be starting the new curriculum so it really motivated me. We started by 8:30-9 at the latest and were able to have the lesson and get out of the house by 9:45 on Monday and Wednesday, and 10:30 on Tuesday. On Monday and Wednesday I took the girls over to the high school where their sister attends. Her teacher had arranged a child care experience for her classes. They actually created a day care environment and asked for parents to bring younger siblings in for 2 hours, from 10 to noon. The students watched the children, played with them, took them out to play and did a craft with them. The girls had a great time going to "school." Of course, Tuesday brought play group.

To wrap up our week we headed over to Grandma and Grandpa's. After some visiting and dinner we got to go check out their chickens and horses.

She really wasn't as scared as she looks here. I just missed the shot where she was actually petting the horse.

Tabitha on the other hand wouldn't go close enough to pet them. And she is the one who kept insisting we go out to see the horses! Obviously she hadn't realized how big they were up close.

Then on the way back to the house we found some snails.

It's been two years since we observed snails (and we never had any big ones). So we took them home in the jar and I plan to keep them for a few days and let them go. Last time we kept them too long and they ended up dying, I don't want that to happen this time.

Please take a moment and check out my giveaway for Chicken Soup for the Soul: Shaping the New You. I am keeping it open til June 1st.

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