This week's mini social studies unit for letter M is all about Mexico. This is related to my family already, as I married into a 100% Mexican family, so my children are 1/2 Mexican. I try to teach them some Spanish words, they can listen and understand my in-law's when they speak to them in Spanish, and we introduce them to foods that my mother in-law cooks. My 20 month old particularly likes potato taquitos. My almost 4 year old can count to 10 in Spanish and knows some basic words such Read more [...] Mexico: The Cazuela that the Farm Maiden Stirred
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This week's mini social studies unit for letter M is all about Mexico. This is related to my family already, as I married into a 100% Mexican family, so my children are 1/2 Mexican. I try to teach them some Spanish words, they can listen and understand my in-law's when they speak to them in Spanish, and we introduce them to foods that my mother in-law cooks. My 20 month old particularly likes potato taquitos. My almost 4 year old can count to 10 in Spanish and knows some basic words such Read more [...] 
My 3.5 year old and I decided to spread candy cane cheer during the month of December when I came across the idea from a fellow blogger about December holiday service ideas.
First, Esmeralda and I decided to read The Legend of the Candy Cane, Newly Illustrated Edition: The Inspirational Story of Our Favorite Christmas Candy by Lori Walburg.
In this book, a stranger comes to town and starts building and opening up a shop. Everyone in the town wishes for the shop to turn into something 
This week, we have been reading the book Does a Kangaroo Have a Mother, Too? by Eric Carle so we decided to look at kangaroos for our nature alphabet book this week! Both my 3.5 year old and 1.5 year old enjoy this book, so Esmeralda loved learning about kangaroos. For information about kangaroos, we visited the encyclopedia website! Here are some things we learned:
Found in Australia, Tasmania, and New Guinea!
Gestation period of 40 days!
Baby kangaroo stay in the pouch for six months!
Male 
To finish up last week's Letter I, Esmeralda (3.5 years old) and I did a very tiny mini-unit on Italy for social studies. This mini-unit consists of a little geography, an Italian folklore, and a kitchen project making and baking bread! I have a list at the end of ways to expand this unit if you want to do more as well.
Geography: First we looked for a blank map of Italy to color. We found the blank map here. Esmeralda absolutely loved coloring Italy's map. Instead of just scribbling it 
Once a week, I like to do a very small, very basic mini social studies unit with Esmeralda (3.5 years old). For letter G, I thought we could take a small look at Greece. I checked a book out from the library called The Orphan: A Cinderella Story from Greece by Anthony Manna and Christodoula Mitakidou, illustrated by Giselle Potter. To be honest, I think I prefer this story over the traditional Cinderella story that is so popular.
In this story, the girl's mother would bathe her and brush 
For this week's social study unit, Esmeralda and I read The Emperor and the Kite for the letter E. This book takes place in China and while reading it, you certainly get the feel of the Chinese culture. We both loved this book, and I feel that the book sends a really great message to children.
Princess Djeow Seow is the smallest of all her siblings. She is one of four boys and four girls. Her name fits her physical build perfectly. Her name actually means "the smallest one" and compared 
This week for letter C we have been reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle.
I had originally planned on teaching my daughter what the primary colors were and how you can mix them together to create new colors for this week's art project. I figured paint would be the easiest (and messiest!) way to show her how it is done. However, as we continued reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar each day, I began to get the idea of making the caterpillar with the primary colors and the mixed 
We are one day away from finishing our first week of homeschool preschool!
For her first week, I wanted to do a very basic introduction of what a "school" setting would be like at home. Of course she is only 3 years old, so we allow for breaks and do not follow a set schedule of when things should be done and by when. We have our daily goals of what we would like to do for the day and do them as we can.
On a daily basis, we are reading the book called Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. I had not