Weekly Wrap-up Z is for Zoo

My plan, at first, with this blog, was to write the big Z is for Zoo outline of what we were doing early in the week...like Sunday or Monday. And then later through-out the week do posts about individual activities.

Then I realized that I wanted links to how to do those activities, for people who are searching for lesson plans or want to follow along with out themes. So I was trying to put the entire week's stuff on the blog all at once.

This has been the most stressful part of preschooling at home so far, and its completely unnecessary.

So even though it would get easier with time, as more and more activities become repeats, from now on I'll post individual activities and projects when its most convenient for me, and then do the big Z is for Zoo outline at the end of the week. That way projects that we dont do until Friday dont just plain get left out, and everything has convenient links :)

As far as how this week went, I have to admit that Zeke was sad at first to lose his Dinosaur books. Its not that the books this week werent good, he especially enjoyed My Heart is Like a Zoo, but that Peter Sis book last week was a real winner.

I also think "zoo" is a little abstract for him, considering we dont have a local zoo. And while I thought about driving to Seattle (a good weekend trip, but too far for a day trip) this weekend to visit the zoo, we are going out of town in 2 weeks for a wedding so I didn't think I'd be able to talk my hubs into it. If I ever do a Zoo theme again, and I don't know why I wouldn't, I want to plan it for a week we can make it to the zoo.

As far as activities go, he adored the zoo matching game, which he quickly dubbed the "mommy game" because all those babies needed to find their mommy. He also really liked driving cars on the zig zag line and the zen garden a lot. I think I will keep the sand around for a few weeks. Probably until I get sick of the mess, because a little sand does always end up falling out. The ziplock sensory bags were a bit boring. He played with them for a few minutes the first day and then never again.

And the stickers he never touched! Weird. I really thought he would like that. I thought he would like that enough that I think I will put out stickers next week too. I wonder if this week there were just too many great choices? I did have 6 activities, and 4 of them big hits.

I was very impressed with how well gluing the zebra stripes went. I was nervous about giving Zeke a glue stick but he did great, and amazingly all the black strips even went in the same direction! I'm glad to know that he can glue, it will be nice to keep in mind as our art projects get bigger and better.

Our Zuchinni bread was, I will admit, a disaster. It didnt turn out at all, I'm not sure if my recipe was bad or if I just didnt follow it well. Zeke didnt seem to care, I suppose for him its way more about process then product.

Today was our first day of preschool co-op as well. We did the letter A, and it went really well. Next week Zeke and I will be doing A is for Apple, finishing off with a co-op field trip to the apple orchard.