Phonics, Bread, Knights and Slime!

This morning was our first with me and Theo at home to do some learning and have some quality time. Last week was Thanksgiving and it was fun, but hectic, with travel and so on. It is good to be home and to work on establishing a routine.

Theo played with Legos happily for quite a while, and then we worked on a workbook together: Star Wars phonics. A kind friend dropped off a bag full of K workbooks and other fun stuff (stencils, High Life magazines and Bible verse cards) last week and the Star Wars book was in it! I thought, this is a great place to start, as he of course loves Star Wars. We flew through half the book in about fifteen minutes, learning about short and long vowel sounds. He really gets it and seems to enjoy it, too.

Lately he is sounding out lots of words and starting to read on his own. I am not pushing him, especially as he is still getting used to being home with me and not in school, but it is fun to see him showing such an interest in words and I am confident he will be reading independently soon.

I have been wanting to make bread for ages, and Theo had expressed an interest. So this morning we did it! I found a recipe online and now the loaf we made is rising under the pilot light in the oven. I taught Theo how to knead and he did great with it and really seemed to enjoy (will post a very cute short video clip of him kneading sometime soon). He liked playing with the flour that we spread out on the island top, even though he also got a little overwhelmed by the messy, gloppy dough.

Last but not least, we read a bit of a knight story (The Prisoner Knight by Margaret Hodges) and then watched a short doc for kids about knights. It was really interesting, giving lots of history about how knights came to be, what purpose they served in society and of course lots of info about their armor (Theo's favorite part of course!). Right after the doc ended he jumped up and found all his knight gear and wore that around for a few hours.

We are planning to make slime this afternoon. Theo loves slime; it really helps to calm him during times of overstimulation and during tantrums. He is very tactile and can lose himself in playing with Play-Doh and slime for long periods of time. It is very simple to make - I plan to use a recipe that is pretty much just Elmer's and baking soda (of course there are many variants and it will be fun to try different ones as time goes on).

Slime time. Theo made yellow.

Willem made blue.