My kids are in daycare, and the school has a good curriculum and great teachers. I feel like they are getting a good preschool education there. However, I’ve noticed that my four year old Madeleine knows all her letters and sounds and is blending some words, but has trouble counting pass 29 and recognizing numbers past 29. So one day a few weeks ago I asked Madeleine if she wanted to do some activities at home to practice. We started with some number flashcards and working with a hundreds chart. “School” has now evolved into 30-40 minutes of math and literacy activities. Madeleine is enjoying making words with Wiki Stiks and counting by 10s, 5s, etc. with unifix cubes. She still finds it work to sound out and blend words, so I’m trying to work on phonemic awareness activities like identifying similar beginning, middle, and ending sounds and rhyming.

In addition, I am about to start a unit called “Lent to Pentecost” from the Children’s Garden of the Theotokos curriculum. The curriculum follows the Sundays of Lent and up to Pentecost, as well as the days of Holy Week. I found out I am actually a few weeks behind already. This week I am working on making copywork/art pages for each weekly lesson. I also am going to order some Lent color-and-shrink ornaments/window clings to go along with our lessons.

Ephraim (age 2) likes to take part, too, and I’ve been working with him on counting unifix cubes and doing picture flashcards. Sometimes I just let him play with playdough. He doesn’t have a big attention span, but I want him to feel included. I am going to let him make a Lent to Pentecost book even though he his a little young. We made little Saint Ephraim books on his Saint Day, and he enjoyed cutting and gluing.

In addition, I hope to do another unit from this curriculum on Creation this summer and do some simple nature study/plant lessons outside to go along with it.

Now, I am notorious for saying, “I’m gonna . . . ” and NOT following through. My goal is not to get stressed if I don’t do lessons, but I really want to try to stick to the Lent lessons as part of my quest to help my kids recognize “kairos time” and Church Calendar time.