* Pre-school 'A' week * (and a few other things...)

Last week, Maddie and I started some preschool. We're working our way through the alphabet focusing on one letter each week. Last week was of course 'A'. I'm keeping it simple, just about 20 minutes each day 4 days a week. Among other things, we learned about the letter 'A', practiced writing it, talked about the different sounds it can make, and read lots of books pertaining to the letter 'A': ancient Greece, animal babies, alphabet books, Johnny Appleseed, and some Amelia Bedelia--her favorites by far. Maddie is very happy we can read those again this week for 'B' week!

One of the things we did in our 'A' book was write down words with 'A' sounds

Here's a journal response to our trip to the farm to pick apples. Maddie dictated, I wrote, and we drew the apples together.

Now, a little bit about our apple-picking...or should I say blackberry picking? We went with the intent to pick apples for 'A' week. However, to get to the apple trees we had to walk right through the blackberries. The bushes were just covered in HUGE ripe blackberries! I couldn't resist (and actually the kids couldn't either). We picked blackberries for a long time before we popped over to the apple trees and picked about 10 apples really fast to finish off our 'A' week! As I told Maddie, we picked apples for 'A' week and blackberries for the next week, 'B' week. :)

Caleb had fun running up and down the rows, picking and eating lots of blackberries, and finding sticks to play with.

Maddie diligently picked berries, although after about 20 minutes there were still only 3 blackberries in her container.

Needless to say, upon returning home, our clothes went straight into the wash with lots of stain stick! We weren't dressed for berry picking. But it was so worth it--five pounds of fresh blackberries!

We stopped by the barn (the store) where I bought seconds of peaches and apples for baking and also a few other items.

That night we had blackberries and cream for dessert, complete with milky cream moustaches.

What a face!