Our Homeschooling Journey

My Blog Has Moved!!!

You can find my new blog at http://lllath.blogspot.com

A Bit of This and a Bit of That

Well, last week we did a Whole Lot of Nothing, and this week we did a bit of everything.  It was a very eclectic week, but we’re starting to get back on track around here after a week of sickness.  We had fun with the letter V along with other activities this week.  AND…we FINALLY have ink in our printer, which makes planning much easier! 

Reading

Since Lexy has learned to identify all the letters (upper and lowercase) and knows the sounds they make, I’ve decided to move forward with reading.  I’m taking this VERY slowly and only doing as much as Lexy seems interested in.  We found and printed some great site word activities here.  I was also given a bunch of used homeschool materials.  A Beka’s Handbook for Reading was included.  We started going through these lessons, and Lexy really enjoys it.  She wants to learn to read.  For now, I’m keeping these lessons very short.  I don’t want her to get bored or frustrated.  So, we stop before she’s ready to stop…an idea that I got from Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns. 

Letter V Activities

A few things we did for the letter v - read First Steps to Reading Little V, did a letter craft (made violets out of tissue paper), brainstormed words that start with v, and played with Josiah’s new Vet’s office!  They had TONS of fun painting with vehicles.  We used brown paint to look like mud, and I poorly drew some roads on poster board.  They painted with the vehicles.  Then, Lexy added stop sign.  Afterwards, Josiah was covered in paint and had to take a bath.  We put all the vehicles in the bathtub, and they gave them carwashes!  Fun!  We also did a spontaneous, mini science activity that Lexy came up with on her own.  She rolled vehicles on the tile floor in the kitchen and then on the carpet in the living room.  She said that it didn’t roll as far on the carpet because it is soft and the tile is hard.

Bible

This week’s Bible story was on the Prodigal son.  Alex planned several cute crafts and games to do with them.  We spent this week reviewing previous memory verses rather than adding a new one.

After our morning devotion and breakfast, I’ve started putting on the Singing Bible.  While I clean up the kitchen from breakfast and throw in a load of laundry, the kids listen to it as they play.  Lexy’s favorite part is about the birth of Jesus.  She and Josiah danced around and pretended to be Mary and Joseph, or maybe Josiah was a sheep…???  I really like the Singing Bible.  It covers the Bible from Genesis to Revelation through songs with a narrator in between.  Highly recommended! 

Writing

Lexy is coming along with her writing, but we still have grip issues.  We practiced writing the letter v.  She also wanted to write a lot of names of people she knows.  As I was washing dishes, she would ask  me how to spell the name of someone she knew.  I would tell her, and she would write it.  I was really able to see what letters she wrote well and which she struggled with.  She tends to write primarily in uppercase, except for her name which is a mixture of both. 

Science/Math

Fortunately, both of Lexy’s magazine subscribtions came this week which made planning easier on me.  We took one afternoon and did her “Big Backyard” magazine.  She wanted to do the whole thing and every activity in it. 

She counted out 25 steps to see how far a kangaroo jumps.  Then we took turns jumping to compare our jumps with the kangaroos.

We also played a game out of High Five.  We practiced ordinal numbers.

We played a game of Go Fish.  I’m needing to make my own version of this game so that we can practice higher numbers.

We made our own beaver snack and talked about shapes.  My own little eager beaver got ahead of me, so we didn’t cut the head into a circle or add triangle ears.

She made a triangle collage.  She drew her own triangles by connecting 3 dots.  Then she cut them out and created a collage.

We also played with popsicle sticks again, but she wasn’t as into it this time.

Life School

Besides helping in the kitchen, Lexy helped me match 3 loads worth of  socks.

Library Class

This week in Lexy’s preschool storytime, they read and did activities revolving around denistry.  She made a letter d necklace, picked cavaties out of playdough teeth with tweezers (cute idea, but realistically you can’t pick out cavaties).  They cut smiles out of magazines.  Then on the magnetic wall they sorted teeth by the number of cavities found.  She also sorted foods into 2 groups – good for your teeth or bad for your teeth.

Girls’ Night

Daddy went to a late IU game one night.  Since Lexy had taken a late nap, and I knew she’d have a hard time going to sleep anyways, we had a girls’ night.  After putting Josiah to bed, we made hot chocolate and popcorn and watched movies in Mommy’s bed.  Of course, she picked Madeline.  As the picture shows, she had her Madeline doll with her.  I couldn’t get her to take her eyes off of the movie to take a picture.  She LOVES Madeline.  She’s been picking up on lots of French words through  the movie, books, ballet,  and her Madeline doll that speaks French.

For some great ideas to do with your preschooler, be sure to check out the Preschool Corner!

Josiah’s 2nd Birthday

We celebrated Josiah’s 2nd birthday this weekend with a Sesame Street Party.  Everyone had lots of fun!  With the help of some friends/family, we made our own decorations and games.  My wonderful husband put together lots of Sesame Street songs for us to play during the party.  We had pizza – Elmo’s favorite food.  Here are some pictures…

Feeding Cookie Monster

Playing with rubber duckies

Giving out thank you hugs

Playing with his new tool bench

Eating cake

Yummy!

We had lots of fun.  Now, we have to prepare for big sister’s party in just a few short weeks!

A Whole Lot of Nothing

Well, there is not much to report on this week.  BOTH kids were sick ALL week!  This was letter U week.  On Monday, before things got too bad, we did talk about U is for Us (our family).  We sat down to draw family portraits; however, Lexy was way more into drawing pictures of her friends.  We looked through a book that had different pictures of families in it and talked about how each family is different (size, skin color, etc.).  We also did our First Steps to reading book for the letter U.  Afterwards, I showed Lexy how to draw an umbrella.  She drew her own and then decorated it. 

But, for the most part, this is what we did…

We did manage to do a lot of reading.  Lexy is really enjoying her “My First Little House” books.  I love reading these with her because they spark a lot of questions.  I was explaining that they didn’t have cars, tvs, electronics, etc. back then.  She was very concerned and asked, “How are they going to know if it is going to snow if they can’t turn on the weather channel.”  I highly recommend these books!

Another big highlight of this week…Josiah turned two!  This was at the end of the week, so we finally were at least well enough to go out to eat to celebrate.  He will be having a party on Sunday…check back for pictures in a few days!

She LOVES celebrating birthdays!

That pretty much covers it…hopefully, all will be well next week and we’ll have a more productive week.  I have to say, that Mommy did enjoy a little extra time to myself this week with all the naps happening!

Be sure to check out the Preschool Corner to see what other preschoolers were up to this week and for lots of fun ideas!

A Fun-Filled Week

We’ve had a busy and fun week.  Being eager to get through the alphabet, I went ahead with Letter T plans and squeezed in some Valentine fun too.   To see what others have been up to, be sure to check out the Preschool Corner!

BOB!!!

We started our week with another trip to the Children’s Museum.  It was opening day for the Bob the Builder exhibit.  With the major snow storm that had just come through, it ended up being a great day to be there.  Only TRUE Bob fans would sludge their way through that mess to be there!  We had one very happy little boy.  There were no crowds to deal with and he was able to get all the Bob he wanted. 

 Letter T

Eventhough Lexy already knows all of the letters and sounds, we’re continuing on with our journey through the alphabet.  She still enjoys the themed activities and is always asking to do them.  We primarily focused on teeth for letter t.

We talked about ways to take care of our teeth.  Maybe I’m a horrible mom, but I’ve never flossed my kids’ teeth.  She sometimes watches me floss and plays with it, but I’ve never taken the time to do it with her.  So, “teeth week” seemed like the perfect time.  We all brushed and flossed together.  Lexy really doesn’t like me to help her with anything.  Miss independent wants to do everything on her own, but flossing was pretty difficult for  her.  I finally convinced her to let me help her do it.  Then, they smiled to show off there beautiful teeth!

They painted teeth with toothbrushes.  This was a big hit.  Even Josiah sat for a while to paint.  Our printer ran out of ink, so I had to freehand the teeth.  I’m a horrible artist, but they didn’t seem to care.

Lexy also looked through the grocery ads to cut out things that were good for her teeth and bad for her teeth.  Then she made collages for the two groups.

Random…She made a turtle placemat using foam pieces.  This was actually a project from MOPS that we didn’t have time to do, so I let her do it at home as a T activity.

We had a teddy bear “T”ea party.  I had great plans of doing this with all T themed foods, but Josiah  vomited all over the place right beforehand (the reason for the no clothes) and through things a little off.  Therefore, I just put some stuff together quickly. 

Bible

Our story this week was the Good Samaritan.  Daddy had them act it out, color a picture, and do a craft.  We still have to see what else he has up his sleeve for the rest of the weekend.  We also talked about ways that we can take time to help others.

Phonics

Not much to writh about here, other than we worked with our Hot Dots Pen this week.  This is a great way for me to see what she knows without it feeling like a test to her.  I plan on getting some more packs to go with the pen.  We have reading comprehension and several phonics, but I’d like to get some Math.

Geography

I was very excited to find a US map at the dollar store.  We’ve continued working on identifying some States.  I decided to get out the US and World Map puzzles that we have.  I wasn’t sure how she would like them, because I expected them to be pretty difficult for her.  However, she REALLY liked them.  The US puzzle has pictures on each state.  For example, our state has a picture of a race car.  She would ask about different ones.  “Why does Wisconsin have cheese on it?”  It was a great geography lesson.  She also liked the world one and knew right where to put Europe, because she saw the picture of the Eiffle tower on it. 

Valentine Activities

I usually try to plan some cute, creative Valentine for us to do together, but this year I just really didn’t feel very inspired.  I just supplied the materials and let her do her own thing.  She wanted to make bead hearts for her friends.  She needed help forming them into hearts.  Then we attached a sucker to them.  She also cut out a few hearts and decorated them with stickers.  She painted some wooden hearts to give to family and teachers.  She also made a heart butterfly for Daddy. 

We hosted a Valentine’s playdate for our caregroup from MOPS, but I didn’t get any pictures. 

Lexy is eager to make our red velvet cake.  Each year since she’s been born, she has helped Daddy bake a cake on Valentine’s Day.  Only 2 days to go!

SuperBowl Party

Lexy had lots of fun in the kitchen with Grandma getting ready for the SuperBowl party.  She helped make the meal and then helped me to make some cookies. Here’s a family picture BEFORE the game.  It’s a good thing we took the picture beforehand, because our faces were much more downcast afterwards!

S is for Snow…Sorta

Well, we sorta-kinda had a snow-themed week.  There are some weeks that Alexis is really into planned activities, and other weeks that she is not.  This was an “other” week.  I’m okay with that.  Besides that, I’m SO over snow.  I would much rather S be for Spring, but apparently we still have 6 more weeks. 

Snow Crafts

We made a melted snowman and then watched Frosty the Snowman.  It turned out really cute, and Alexis really enjoyed being able to use so much glue.  Usually, I’m telling her to use it sparingly. 

We made a snowman out of cottonballs, construction paper and various other supplies at her art table.

Writing

We did some Snow-themed writing practice thanks to Confessions of a Homeschooler

Literature

We read lots of books each day.  However, we still plan to do a Snowy Day lapbook this weekend.  Homeschool Share has one already ready to print based on the book.

Math

Build a Snowman and a roll a snowman game that we did using a homemade felt snowman set.

We also played a game of War with cards.  This is the first time I attempted this game with Lexy. She really enjoyed it.  I took out all of the face cards and Aces.  This was great for practicing more than/less than.  I tried to use different terms (more, less, greater, fewer, etc.) as we were playing.  We finished one hand.  A whole game would be a little long for her attention span. 

Snow storm on the way!!!

The kids are anxiously awaiting the snow strom that is coming Friday and Saturday.  It will make a great end to our Snow Week.  I’m thankful that it will happen on the weekend and Daddy can go out and play with them!  He’s already promised to take them sledding and build a snowman with them…both great Daddy activities!  I like staying indoors and making the hot chocolate for them! 

Bible

The Parable of the Sower.  Again, Alex did a great job with the planning this week.  The kids planted their own popcorn seeds and are anxiously awaiting their popcorn plant to grow!  He also did severl craft type activities to go along with the story.  I’m looking forward to seeing what he has planned the rest of the week!

A fun idea that we didn’t get to…

I had planned on making a big block of ice with little things frozen in it ( I forget where I saw this idea).   The kids were going to chip away at it and use magnifying glasses to observe.

Geography

Lexy is still very interested in France.  She asks questions and uses a few French words.  She is still awaiting her trip to Paris to visit Madeline.  I would like a few preschool-friendly books on the Eiffle Tower and France but haven’t found any yet.

Physical Education

I’ve been feeling very confined indoors lately.  I can’t hardly wait until we can get out for walks and ride bikes again.  In need of some exercise, I found an old Elmocize video that we’d never tried.  After dinner one night, we all “Elmocized” together!  I wasn’t very impressed with the video, but we still had fun, and it inspired me to look into other kid-friendly exercise videos while we await warm weather. 

Lexy has also been enjoying her bouncy ball and trampoline!

Daily Binder

We started a new month (obviously) in our binder.  We looked at our January weather chart.  It was a little depressing to see that we only had 2 sunny days in January.  We’ve continued with our morning devotion along with our binder routine.  It was encouraging to have Lexy asking quesitons about the devotions this week. 

Other

We enjoyed a day at the Children’s Museum.  We renewed our membership, so hopefully we’ll be spending a lot more time here. 

Planting his garden

She got to design and create her own Barbie dress (with some help). She was proud of her creation.

Our library classes also started up again this week.  This week, they did stories and activities around Groundhog’s Day.  I was thankful for this since I didn’t plan or discuss it at all with them!  They always have a great time in their classes!

Lexy’s music class also started back up after a long break for Christmas/New Year’s.  It was fun to be back and to meet new kids in the class.

So, eventhough we didn’t get everthing done that I had hoped and planned, we still had a fun week!

For more ideas, check out The Preschool Corner!

R is for Rainbows!

We’ve had fun with rainbows this week.  I give a HUGE thank you to Confessions of a Homeschooler for all of her rainbow printables.   I also found many ideas at Homemade-Preschool.

In the Kitchen

Helping in the kitchen continues to be one of Lexy’s favorite activities.  I try to include her in all the meal preparations in some way.  She measures, mixes, pours, spreads, or whatever I can find that needs done.  She also enjoys setting the table, washing the dishes, sweeping the floor, and wiping up spots from the tile with a wet rag.  I hope her willingness continues for a long time!  A few special treats we made for rainbow week were rainbow pancakes (just added food coloring) and rainbow brownies (added sprinkles).

They really enjoyed making rainbow toast!  It wouldn’t work with wheat bread, so we had to use white. 

Letter R Activities

Drawing on the window is still a favorite.  Lexy drew Rs and rainbows as well as lots of other things.  My patio door will forever be colored! 

She made a wax paper rainbow for the window.  The idea came from Homemade Preschool.

She made a rainbow shape book and cut color pictures from Homeschool Creations to fill the pages.

Letter R paper (Homemade Preschool)

Wipe off Letter R (Confessions of a Homeschooler)

Painted pictures of rainbows

Rainbow Puzzle

We read “My First Steps to Reading” little r book.  Then the girls went on a Scavenger hunt for letter r things to fill their basket.  Although Lexy can easily tell me things that start with letter r, finding things was more difficut…we don’t have many rhinos or rabbits running around.  Once she thought of “red”, she went with things that were red.  She also found rattles, a rake, and a ring.

We used the pocket chart to sort pictures by beginning sounds. 

Raindrops – color, cut, sort, describe (Homemade Preschool)

Playdough!  Rs and rainbows…along with lots of other things!

We really enjoyed the Tell Your own story from Homemade Preschool. It worked similar to MadLibs, but without using parts of speech.    I hope to do more activities like this.  Here is Lexy’s story.

“There once was a raindrop named Little Teno.  he lived in a beautiful black cloud with all of his raindrop friends.  They loved to look at birds flying in the sky.  One day the black cloud got very heavy and started to fly very low.  all of a sudden Little teno fell out of teh cloud, down towards the ground, splahing into a lake.  Little teno felt very scared and alone.  then he heard a noise that sounded like this, ‘ROOOAAR.’ He looked around and saw a monkey.  they monkey said, ‘Don’t be scared, the sun will heat you up and you will float back up to your cloud.’ Little teno said, ‘Thank you very much,’ and hurried up to the surface to get nice and warm.  Soon he was floating back up to his black cloud with all of his raindrop friends.”

Math

From Confessions of a Homeschooler, she did the rainbow sequencing, rainbow graphing, rainbow number writing practice, and the rainbow lacing card.

We also used the number cards to play a simple game of running to the correct number.  This was review, but fun.

We have a Math area set up in our school room with various math toys, manipulatives, etc.  Lexy was very interested in playing here this week.  She spent a lot of time with the shape magnet game.  It gives a picture and she tries to make it using the magnets on the white board.  She also enjoyed the blocks, sorting toys, and a counting game.

Early in the week, we played a counting to 30+ game.  It has several ways of playing it, and we did them all.  I was most interested in seeing her put the cards in order from 1-30.  At this age, I never do any type of “formal” assessment.  I just do a lot of observing while she plays.  She did put all the cards in order from 1-30…yeah!

Geography

We’ve continued with our States in the daily binder, but haven’t added any new ones lately.  She was, however, interested in the globe this week.  She and Alex (dh), talked about it and played a game.  She would spin it, point to a country, and he would tell her the name of it.  She also wanted us to show her where France is.  She LOVES Madeline, and wanted to know all about where Madeline lives.  So, we’ve talked some about France.  Now, whenever we drive past a tall tower, she says it looks like the Eiffle Tower.  She is continually asking when we can go to France to visit Madeline.  Hopping on an airplane and going is nothing in the eyes of a 3yr old.

Bible

Alex took over the planning of our Bible time this week, and he is doing a great job. Our story was of the widow who gave all she had. The kids each created their own pocket purse and found two small things to put in it to give away.  They also acted out the story…cute! They decorated a pringles can to put their own offerings to Jesus in.  One night, they did a coin rubbing of two small coins.  We still have two nights left.  I’m excited to see what else he has planned!

Science

Rainbow Ice – After freezing ice cubes with food coloring, we put them into bags.  Blue with yellow, blue with red, and red with yellow.  We talked about ice and what causes it to melt.  Then, they tried different ways of melting their ice…rubbing the bag in their hands, sitting on it, a hot wash cloth, and keeping the bag under hot water.  When the ice was melted, they observed the color that was formed from the two previous colors.

Our Big Backyard magazine came in the mail, and we spent one afternoon with the magazine.  The majority of the magazine was dedicated to Elephant Seals.  I had never even heard of them before…the things you learn in preschool

During lunch one day, we did the Dancing Raisins experiment.  All three of the children watched for a long time and were excited about this.  It’s a little much to try to explain acids and bases to preschoolers, but it was fun to watch!

We read lots of books about rainbows.

More Fun

We made funny faces with felt. 

We continued working with grip issues with crayon rocks and Alex crayons.  But, she wanted to use stencils.  So, we got out the colored pencils.

We had a playdate with our Mops group.

Lots of open-ended art at her art table.

Lexy tried teaching Josiah his colors, but he wasn’t too interested.

Lots of reading time.

To see what other preschoolers are up to, check out the Preschool Corner at Homeschool Creations!.

Letter Q, Pencil Grip Frustrations, Etc.

I was lacking ideas for letter Q this week and getting a little tired of the alphabet theme.  The kids are enjoying it as much as ever, but I’m a little bored and wanting to move to something else.  Lexy already knows all the letters and sounds so it is really just for fun and for the sake of finishing what I started.  Maybe moving to letter R will be better.  Confessions of a Homeschooler has some great ideas for a Rainbow theme!

Bible

We are continuing to follow the curriculum on Hubbard’s Cupboard for Bible.  Our story this week was the feeding of the multitude.  Our verse for the week was “Honor the Lord with your wealth.”  For some reason whenever Lexy quotes the verse, she says “Honor the Lord with your toys.” 

Phonics

After reading so many positive reviews on Explode the Code, we decided to give it a try.  It came on Monday, and I was really excited to get started.  I didn’t think I would be doing workbooks with my 3 yr. old, but she ASKS to do workbooks.  She enjoys them and was constantly asking if we could start doing them again.  So far, we like it!  The first 3 books will basically be review of letter sounds that she knows, but I think it will be good for her to go through them. 

Daily Binder

We have added The One Year Devotions for Preschooler 2 reading to our Daily Binder routine that we do at breakfast each morning.  To do the devotion, calendar, weather graph, and map, it takes about 15 minutes.  We save the abc chart for lunch time. 

Alphabet Activities

The girls painted Qs using q-tips.  They enjoyed this and painted until their pages were full!  After we looked at some of Lexy’s quilts, they made their own quilt using construction paper and yarn.  We patterned the blocks but didn’t worry about pattering each individual square.  I knew they would enjoy it more if I just left them up to doing it how they wanted.  They have not completely finished “sewing” it together yet.  It was a big project for 3 year olds!

Social Studies

We talked about the role of a Queen, and they each made their own Queen crown.  Then, of course, we had to go to Dairy Queen!  I was shocked that Lexy had no idea what Dairy Queen was…what kind of mother am I! 

Paying with quarters for their cones!

Enjoying their cones!

The result!

Science

We read a book about Queen Bees.  They were pretty intrigued by all the pictures of the bees.  They were able to recall back to me the differences between the Queen Bee and drones and worker bees.  They also learned the two gifts that bees give to us 1.  Honey 2. Helping flowers to grow.

Math

The majority of our math comes from everyday life experiences.  Lexy helps me in the kitchen measuring, pouring, etc.  We count things, do simple addition and subtraction, and look for shapes around us.  I have to remind myself that we are doing much more in the area of Math than it feels.  We did do a few extra things this week.

I found this idea on Nothing2Prove.  I did this on the spur of the moment so I don’t have a nice chart made out like she did.  But, Lexy loves stickers and I knew she would enjoy this activity.  I started patterns with dot stickers and then she finished them.  The last pattern she made all on her own.  As you can tell, she missed one pink dot in the middle.  Each time she went to add a new dot, she would go back to the beginning and put her finger on each one and say the pattern.  She is able to hear the pattern easier than seeing it.

 
We examined quarters and talked about the value of a quarter.  They described the pictures that they saw on the back of them and I told them the state that each picture symbolized.  Then they made quarter rubbings.

 Fine Motor Skills

I have been researching the “pencil grip” for quite some time now and am still not quite sure where I stand on the issue.  Lexy writes many letters well and loves to draw and color; however, she still holds her pencil full-fisted.  Many relaxed homeschoolers say that this is no big deal, they will correct this on their own.  Their are many others (mainly those in the field of education) that say this should be dealt with from the start. 

Well, everytime I try to work with Lexy on it, she becomes very frustrated.  I don’t want to discourage her from wanting to write.  So, I’ve been trying to find ways to work on this in a fun way (without her knowing, if at all possible).

My first attempt was the triangular crayons.  This didn’t work, so I put stickers on them to show where to place her fingers.  This was kinda fun for her for a little while…and it only worked when she had those particular crayons.

My next attempt was cutting off and breaking as many pencils crayons as I could so that she would be forced to not hold it full-fisted.  Somehow, she still managed to.

So, I broke down and ordered Crayon Rocks that I’ve been reading about.  We finally got them last week and have been using them.  These are meant to strengthen the muscles used for the tripod grip.  She LIKES using them.  The only complaint that I have with them is that she can’t be as detailed as she likes to be with them.  They’re not pointed like crayons, pencils, markers, and pens that she is used to.  It is harder to stay in lines and color in smaller spaces.  She hasn’t complained yet though.

 
She also got these Alex crayons for Christmas.  She enjoys using these too.  They seem to be working as well.  The only complaint that I have with them is that they break WAY to easily.  One drop on our tile floor and they’re broken. 

So, as far as finding a way that won’t discourage her writing, yet will strengthen the muscles needed for tripod girp, I’ve succeeded. However, I just have to wait to see if it will actually work in correcting her grip when using other writing utensils.  As for now, I’m putting up all other writing utensils and hoping for “out of sight out of mind.”  If she asks for them, I will get them out.

In the Kitchen

We made Quesadillas for dinner one night and Quiche for breakfast one morning.  I had a little too much help with the Quiche, but it turned out suprisingly well.

Behavior Tickets

Lexy helped me color, cut and laminate these tickets.  We will use them to reward good behavior.  It is not meant to replace our methods of discipline that we already use (I guess to “supplement” it…can you supplement a behavior plan ).    Lexy gets very frustrated when she doesn’t think she can do something as well as someone else.  I wanted a way to reward her for trying her best.  So she will get tickets when I see her trying and not giving up, as well as getting them for various other things…picking up her toys without being asked, etc.  She helped me come up with a list of rewards that she could purchase with her tickets. It included things like a piece of candy (5 tickets) and a sleepover at Mama and Papa’s House (50 tickets).  This will also be a good way to work on Math skills (how many more, etc).

Just for Fun

Josiah went with his Daddy to get his haircut by his Grandpa.  Cute!

 
We had a playdate at Chuck E. Cheese

 
Reading time!

To see what other moms are doing with their preschoolers, check out the Preschool Corner at Homeschool Creations!

The Best Letter of the Alphabet!

We have had a blast this week with the letter P!!! The two princesses really enjoyed Princess Week!   I’m a little sad to see this week end and move onto letter Q.  It just doesn’t seem nearly as much fun. 

Princess Pancakes

To start off our week, the girls helped me bake some princess pancakes.  We put some red food coloring in the batter (this is one time that I was actually happy that red food coloring looks pink).  Then we poured the batter into heart-shaped cookie cutters to cook them.  After they were finished, we put a little powdered sugar on them (it was a special occassion).  They ate every bite of their breakfast!

Princess Dress-Up

Each day, the girls got to dress up as a different princess.  This was a huge hit.  They even called each other by their princess names for awhile.

Math

We made a store for snack time on a couple of different days.  They all received 10 pennies.  I labeled the choices with how many pennies each snack cost.  I put a few choices in their selection that I wouldn’t normally let them have for a snack (juice boxes, gummy snacks, etc).  These costs more.  As they counted out their pennies to pay me, they had to see how much they had left.  They realized that they couldn’t buy as much when they got the pricier items.  This was a fun activity for them!

They also sorted coins into piles.  We discussed how much each coin is worth and made piles of pennies to represent each coin.  I’m sure that this doesn’t make a whole lot of since right now.  I’m just happy for them to know the names of the coins and have been introduced to the concept.

Social Studies

We talked about Police officers.  We had a Puppet named Pat that is a Police officer.  She talked about her job and they got to ask her questions.  I realized that I’m a very poor ventriloquist, but they didn’t seem to care.  We also read two different books, one fact and one fiction, on Police officers.  Then they each got to dress up as a Police officer.  We discussed the different parts of the uniform and what they are used for.

Haven't you ever seen a Police Officer with a Paci?

Lexy has also been praying for the people in Haiti.  We found Haiti on the globe. We didn’t go into lots of detail because we didn’t want to scare her.  We let her know that there was an earthquake and lots of people lost their homes and were hurt.  She wanted to give them food and build them a house. So,  we contacted someone heading up a relief effort to find out ways that we can help. 

Computer

I got out Lexy’s Clickstart computer and let them play her new Princess games that she got for Christmas.  We hadn’t opened them yet, so it was new and exciting. 

Science

My science plans failed miserably this week.  I found a neat idea about polishing pennies.  My plans were to put 3 bowls on the table (a mixture of vinegar and salt, ketchup, and a bowl of soap and water).  They could experiment and see which bowl shines the pennies the best.  However, Lexy could not stand the smell of the vinegar, so the project didn’t get completed.  Better luck next week!

Art

The girls decorated Ps with polka dots.  They did their Letter P collages from Homeschool Creations.   I also gave them a box filled with polka-dots, pom poms, popsicle sticks, and various other supplies.  This is what they came up with. 

P Party

Lexy helped me Plan her P Party.  She wanted Pizza and Popcorn.  We also made Paper bag Puppets, Painted, and had a Puppet show.  She absolutely LOVES parties!  She is always pretending it is someones birthday and plannig parties.  So when I let her plan her own P Party, for real, she was thrilled.  She decorated with the polka dots that we had left from her 3rd birthday party.  She had a polka-dot party and we have so many polka dots that we’ll be using them for art projects forever!

Picnic

Letter P week wouldn’t have been complete without a picnic!

P Parade

We ended our week with a P Parade.  They filled the wagon with everything that they could find that starts with P.  Their patience ran out looking for things, because they were so anxious to get started with their parade.  But, they came up with Pizza (melissa and doug), potato, princess dolls, Pat the Police officer, puppy, pony, pan, and polka-dots.  They dressed as princesses and waved their letter p flags.  They also took turns wearing Lexy’s Polka-dot Princess crown from her 3rd birthday party. 

We started off the parade in the house, but they were not too impressed.  It wasn’t much fun taking the wagon down the hallway and the living room and kitchen.  So, we piled on blankets and went outside.  They waved their flags to any that passed by and proudly sang their P song.  It was cute!

Bible

Our Bible story this week was the Wise and Foolish Builders…Pound, Pound, Build it well.   We used some ideas from Hubbard’s Cupboard. They also built their own buildings using the cardboard building blocks that they got for Christmas.  These are so much fun.  I think we’re going to have to get more. 

Daily Binder

The daily binder routine is working wonderfully!  We’ve continued working on writing the date.  Lexy is able to tell me what tomorrow is each day; however, she struggles with what yesterday was.  She has to sing her days of the week song to figure it out.   

With the weather graph, we’ve talked about how we need to look at the sky to determine the weather.  Everyday they were wanting to say that it was snowy.  The snow was on the ground from over a week ago.  So, now they look at the sky to see if it is snowing, cloudy, sunny, raining, etc.

We’ve continued reviewing the letter sounds with the letter chart. 

I’m very excited to add our new devotional to this routine next week.  I won the One Year Preschool Devotions 2 from the giveaway at GranolaMom4God!

Other

We read the Letter P First Steps to Reading.

We used the Pocket Chart to sort objects by their letter sounds.

Lexy started ballet!

She made a Prayer Booklet of people/things she wanted to remember to pray for.

We played Puzzles.

We read Gigi God’s Little Princess books and watched a Gigi movie (of course, while holding her Gigi doll).  Lexy really likes these books.

She listened to her Princess stories on cd as she went to sleep.

We made bracelets, necklaces, rings, and toe rings out of these beads….lots of fun!

We had a fun week.  To see what others are doing with their preschoolers, check out the Preschool Corner!

Letter O and More

We jumped back into our normal routine this week, except that we added a member to our preschool!  I am watching a friend’s little girl for the month of January.  It ahs been fun for Lexy to have someone to play with and “do school” with.

Daily Binder

I have been wanting to do this for quite awhile, because Lexy has become bored of our big calendar routine.  I just wasn’t sure how I wanted to put it together until I saw this on Refined Metals Academy.  We tweaked it a little to fit our needs.  Currently, we have the following sections:

1.  Calendar – Here, Lexy writes in the dates.  This is helping her with learning to write her numbers.

2.  Weather Graph – She places stickers to graph the weather each day.

3.  Geography – We have 3 maps – US, continents, and World.  We’re currently working on the US.  as we visit another state or mention someone that lives in another state, we locate it on the map. 

4.  Alphabet Chart and Assessment – Each day, we review our letter songs with our chart.  I like these because the sound songs also are a short review of the Bible stories that we’ve covered. We use the chart from Hubbard’s Cupboard.  Although Lexy knows the songs and can sing them, she usually listens as I sing.  I’m fine with that because I can see her little wheels in her head hurning as she is thinking about them.  She usually stops me several times and asks questions about the bible stories.  Many times she is concerned why Joseph’s brothers threw him in a pit.  Also, in this section, I’ve included an assessment for me to mark off the letter sounds that she knows.  I haven’t done a formal assessment, but just mark them off as she’s shown she knows them.

I plan to add a Memory Verse section soon with the charts to each of the verses she has memories.  this way we have an easier way to reivew them.

Alhabet Activities

We covered letter O this week and focused primarily on Owls. 

1.  The girls drew letter Os on the window with window crayons (my best stocking stuffer purchase).  They quickly turned their Os into people, faces, and lamps.

2.  They decorated Os with Cheerios.  You can see their different personalities.

3.  We read Owl books that we picked up at the library.

4.  We read our First Steps to Reading letter O book and found things for the pocket chart that start with O.

Math

I have been searching for new ideas for Math and Science.  I tend to focus heavily on literature and phonics.  I’ve found a few possiblities on Amazon, but haven’t purchases any yet.  So, this week is another week of random Math activities.

1.  We played an owl counting game for review of number recognition.

2.  Measuring – We discussed the ruler and different ways of measuring things.  We traced Lexy’s hand and then cut it out.  Then she took a basket around and found things that were either “longer” or “shorter” than her hand.  Next, she wanted to measeure LOTS of things to find out how many “Lexy hands” tall they were.  I was ready to be done with this activity before she was…I guess that’s a good thing.

3.  We counted jumps on the trampoline each day and tried to get more jumps than the day before.  Her highest was 101.

4.  We read Monster Math books.

5.  We played with popsicle sticks and made shapes, letters, buildings, and animals, etc. Lexy enjoyed trying to teach Josiah his colors.  He helped us seperate them in color piles. 

Science

I got Mudpies to Magnets from the library and am attempting to be more puposeful with Science activities.  Our focus for Science this week, other than Owls, was snow.  We had our first good snow accumulation. 

1.  We caught snowflakes.  I got this idea from here.  It took us several attempts due to errors on my part.  Luckily, I had my 3 yo daughter there to correct my mistakes… “Mommy the paper is going to fly away.”  Silly me, I just set it outside with nothing to hold it down. As she says that, I turn around and it begins flying away.  I have to step outside in my slippers to get it.  Several other silly things like that later and we finally got our snowflake…It was actually two snowflakes side by side touching.  Lexy’s observation was “It looks like a star, Mommy!”  Too bad it didn’t really show up in the picture.

2.  We talked about what causes snow to melt.  We melted snow in our hands.

3.  All of the kids played with snow INSIDE (they outgrew their boots from last year and I haven’t replaced them yet).  I enjoyed it much more inside  They noticed that the snow became harder after playing with it for awhile.  I had to keep bringing in fresh, fluffy snow. 

ART

Lexy spends lots of her time at her art table.   She received a lot of new supplies for Christmas.  She enjoys cutting scrap paper, using glitter glue, stickers, feathers, ribbons, and stamping.  She also spent some time making her own thank you cards for Christmas gifts. 

Bible

Our Bible story this week was from Matthew 5, being salt and light.  “Turn On the light and shine.” Our memory verse that we are working on is Proverbs 30:5.

Other

1.  Fine motor skills – The girls made braceletsand necklaces with beads, pipe cleaners, strings, pom poms, etc.

2.  Lots of building – We played with blocks and magneatos.  Josiah is really enjoying building towers as tall as he can make them now.  He still likes destroying his sister’s towers too.

3.  Imaginary play – A big portion of our day is spent pretending.  Lexy loves to play baby dolls.  Sometimes I have a hard time entering the fantasy world, but I’m trying.  Somehow everything we end up doing turns into fantasy…even popsicle sticks become mommies and babies!

4.  Playdough and painting

I am really looking forward to Letter P week.  We have a lot of fun things planned!

To find out what other moms are doing with their preschoolers check out the Preschool Corner at Homeschool Creations.