i have been a little unorganized around here lately. that’s how things usually get about a month into it. We started with the letter J a week and a half ago but since i was being a lazy bum we had to kind of extend it a few days. Here’s our learning as we go:
the week(s) included: books on jazz and josephine baker, cutting out jewelry from a lovely little junk mail magazine to create a jewelry box (momma liked helping with this one. shiny things!!!) we took in some jazz inspired art at CMA, broke out the trusty old solar system puzzle to learn about Jupiter. Darla is already familiar with Zeus so that was a big help in explaining the history behind Jupiter’s name. We colored some jelly beans and pasted them in a paper basket. We listened to Elton John a lot. She helped me draw pictures of J things, like Jack and the Beanstalk and our friend Jeff. Our french vocabulary word was jaune so we went through life pointing out yellow things. i’m just trying to keep it simple over here.
we had lots of jam & jelly and spent time with our favorite little J girl, Joni.
as you can tell, all of this kinda gets collected as we go along. I don’t really sit down and do lesson plans, per say. I just see what life provides us. I try not to be too formal. Sometimes I wonder if I should be buying work books or home school curricula but I think we’re doing ok. I like to be inventive and resourceful. I like to turn our junk mail into learning experiences. I can find more than enough materials at the local libraries, and my favorite, FAVORITE place for buying books is at the goodwill. So many barely read books are discarded and resold for less than a dollar. In my mind there is no need to spend a fortune on these materials at such a young stage.
This is just what works for me. creativity, flexibility and very loose boundaries are what i need to be a good teacher. I tried to have set lesson plans and it just made me frustrated and learning wasn’t fun for either of us. now we just learn as we go. isn’t that how it really is in life anyway? you learn as you go.
we will now pause for our “learn as you go, learn as you grow” commercial break.
momjeanz 
I need to start doing letters with Megan. Thanks so much for the ideas! And I didn’t know Goodwill sells books — I’m going there this week :)!
thanks! i hope some of these ideas work for you. oh my goodwill has so many good books. actually most of the books in our household (over hundreds) are from the goodwill. i’ve found lots of vintage kids books in great condition and even first edition books there too. Actually, the Goodwill in Falls Church has a separate store for books, i think called the book corner. i went there once. i’ll have to get back to you on the exact location but i think it was FC.