The Letter D

This week we are reinforcing the letter D. As some of you know, I chose to switch to the Sonlight Core B homeschool curriculum due to legal battles which are going on here. The Sonlight curriculum does include one letter per week, which is explored through stories which have to do with that sound, as well as some science (they gave us a Berenstain Bears book about this -- we are talking about the three states of matter this week) and logical thinking skills (workbook pages with things like mazes, which one comes first, etc). No writing or mathematics. It is advertised as a non-academic preschool curriculum but is still much more traditional than Waldorf. There are about six stories which we read per day from the booklist they supply us with -- although I do some substitutions -- and we also continue with our nature walks, field trips to museums, cooking, playtime, music, yoga, gardening and so on.

Anyway, if anyone else out there is doing the letter D this week (through Oak Meadow or what have you), we are doing dragon, duck, daddy, dog, the Big Dipper, and dolphin.

Branislav the Dragon by Mary Lou Masey

The Story About Ping by Marjorie Flack

What Mommies Do Best/What Daddies Do Best by Laura Numeroff

Harry the Dirty Dog by Gene Zion

We are stargazing one night this week (probably Thursday, if it is a clear night) and we are going to the National Aquarium in Baltimore for our field trip on Friday to see the dolphin show. I have already purchased the dolphin puppet which has been getting a lot of use!

This weekend I am giving a presentation on child development of the 2 year old at the local library and will be sure to post the websites, books, and notes which I think would be helpful. The Toddler program which I am working on is very Waldorf based. It makes me sad that we can't do full-bore Waldorf here at home but I know that a lot of people are in the same boat. So why worry -- we all do the best we can.