Last Day of "Staycation"/ Homeschool Field Trip

So today we went to the National Zoo (The Smithsonian National Zoological Park in Washington DC). The weather was beautiful, I packed some PB&J and off we went. This zoo has FREE admission and it isn't really comparable to the Baltimore Zoo, it is pretty fantastic, not Disney quality, but very good indeed. However, to park for a day is $20 BUT we didn't have to pay!!! We left after closing time and there was no on there to take our money! We had lots of fun!!!

Our first stop was the "Kid's Farm." Of course this was Jamie's favorite. Jamie is investigating his favorite part of a cow (and me for that matter!)
Checking out the AlpacasInto the Amazon we go...

These rooms make me really excited for future home school field trips in late elementary and middle school. They are full of information on the Amazon!

Really neat hanging earth!!! Very cool for older kids hungry for learning!

My little scientist exploring Amazonian buggies!

Learning about frogs of the rain forest ... ok never mind, he's just pushing lots of buttons 'cause pushing buttons is fun!!!!

Playing in the "Pizza Garden"mmmmmm giant mushrooms!

Now these guys are just cute!!!

Jamie being a prairie dog! Unfortunately this was short lived because another dear child was being a dinosaur instead of a prairie dog and roared in Jamie's face at which point Jamie ran to me asking for nummy.

DunzoSo for some reason after he fell asleep I really really wanted to recline his stroller so he'd be laying down. Every time I tried to do this he woke up. After about the 4th time I did it, he was ticked and demanded to nummy. The weaning is really going super!

"Reading" about the elephants.The "Cayman Islands Iguana" posed for me!Fun in the misterOur last stop of the day, was the same as our first, "The Kid's Farm." All the animals had been put in the barn for night night.
After we left the zoo we headed over to Chevy Chase for a bite to eat. Then we checked out a toy store and got kicked out because they were closing so we headed to the Barnes and Noble to play for a while. Baby boy fell asleep in the car. God is good.

Our Pre-School Room!!!

Well I'm super excited about this home school deal, even though baby boy is only 2 and a 1/2. As his mommy I know he is more than ready for some clearly defined learning time each day, although he won't really know he's learning! We'll just be playing with friends. Right now it is looking like we'll have definitely 5 mommies and pre-schoolers with a possibility of 7. This is definitely a co-op situation. No money is being exchanged and I am definitely not totally in charge. All the mommies will be taking some responsibility for preparing and teaching. At the moment I'm not totally sure how all this will work. We are have a meeting this Wednesday to brainstorm. My personal ideas so far go something like this....

• 8:30 arrive.. be social, play (that means mommies too!)
  
• 9:00 praise/worship songs and movement
  some sort of very quick calendar activity
  
• I'm not really sure time wise what it will look like for the rest of the morning, but here are my ideas for daily activities...


• Memory Verse (most likely through song and I'd like to incorporate sign language too.)


• Bible Story... with visuals (puppets, pictures...)


• prayer at open and close... (I'd like to see the kids lead the prayer sometimes too)
  (Basically with everything we do I want to bring it back to the Lord somehow)
  
• outdoor play/learning
  
• cooking-I'd like to see the kids helping to make the snack we eat each morning, (mom's could pick days to provide snack)
  
• art
  
• storytelling and illustrating... Jamie loves to retell events in his life and its fun to have him illustrate the story and figure out the first sound in the letter in the word he is drawing a picture of. this is great for learning to read and write.
  
• Basic skills (colors, shapes, letters, numbers, sight words, name recognition/spelling)
  
• songs and finger plays to go with different lessons
  

When I taught in the classroom in the public school system I LOVED being with the children. I loved forming warm relationships with them. I loved reading to them and playing with them and talking to them about their thoughts and feelings. I remember when I taught Pre-K my assistant would be like "Hey Erin are you going to start the day or what?" because I would just sit with the kids when they came in and talk and play with them and not really care what time it was. What I didn't like was the threat of being judged for how I taught (although I always had great observations) I just wanted to do my thing and not be paranoid someone was going to walk in with a clipboard while I was teaching (althought I was very blessed to have one really excellent "boss" for many years of my teaching career...Dr. Carpenter). I DON'T like the clock and I didn't like living by it in the classroom, especially a 20 minute lunch! I didn't like being told what I had to teach and by far I really really really disliked the Godlessness of the public school system. My classroom, however, was never Godless. I never got "caught" but I always shared the true meaning of Christmas and Easter with my kids, put Christian books in the reading center and talked about Jesus openly whenever the subject arose (and I always made sure it did!). I guess I could have gotten in trouble for all that but lets just say "My boss is a Jewish carpenter," not the board of education.

So without further delay here's how our pre-school room is shaping up...

general overview of the room

my little window with a few gifts from my years of teaching

our art table... from craigs list, stay tuned for an entire post about craigs list and free cycle, I'm currently obsessed with both of them!

Our reading corner

Who is here today? The little people will find their names and put it in the pocket where their pictres are. I LOVE this kind of stuff, I mean really, I get SO much joy out of doing this! (PS, Facebook is creepy, I got all these pics off the kids' mommies' profiles)

Music, puzzles and other fun stuff.

Calendar and weather for circle time

Lots of fun learning game/puzzles...

ABC center

Stuff to build and imagine with!

A beautiful reminder for us all!

And last, but certainly not least, one happy "pre-schooler" (minus some pants) and his daddy.

Please note... I did NOT do this alone!!! My daddy and my husband did ALL the painting and construction for Jamie's 1st birthday, so up until now it has been use solely for a playroom, but Timmy and I have rearranged and reorganized the space into a fun learning environment!