A Halloween wrap-up

Homemade pumpkin pie scented play dough!  I set it out with fall themed cookie cutters (leaves, acorns, pumpkins).  C loved rolling the dough out and cutting all the shapes.  It smells good too!

Thankful, Thanksgiving

Today when N went down for a nap, I said, "ok, C, let's sit at the kitchen and do some school activities together!" and he grumped big time about it- "But wait!  I'm hungry!  I want a snack!  I want to play!".  But, we sat down and started on our new program "All About Learning".  It's awesome!  We are doing the pre-reading program.  It has lesson plans all laid out for you, which makes it so easy for me (then I supplement on my own with things I find and make from the internet).  Everyday we point to the letter we are focusing on for the day on a big poster.  Then we read a poem from a book that has a lot of words with our letter.  Today it was about bears and bumble bees wearing bibs and eating berries.  We point to all the B's that we find.  Then we color our letter sheet for the day and practice writing the letter.  We also choose from a list of ways to creatively work with the letter- tactile things like making the letter shape out of play dough or popsicle sticks or pipe cleaners, and also tracing it in a salt box.  Then we do a learning activity from the book.  The first two days were rhyming.  Rhyming helps him to learn to listen for all the sounds in words.  C rocked it out!

We did some do-a-dot marker sheets for fall.

We also did some Thanksgiving patterns.

C loves to cut and paste, so he cut and pasted a Bible verse about being thankful.  Then he signed his name!  We talked about what it means to be thankful for everything we have, and how we are to always thank God for everything.

Then, when we were all done, "Mr. Grump About School" said "Mommy, can I please play that story game!"  (the Lauri Toys Sequencing Kit- in which he lays out picture tiles in order, for example- 4 tiles of a boy making lemonade from start to finish).  Ha ha!  He asked to play a learning game, after school was over!

So, sometimes they grump, but as long as you get them going and moving through it, they usually have fun, and they learn!  I love to see him progressing.

It's a fun week of singing Thanksgiving songs and talking about the Thanksgiving story.  Now we're ready to eat some yummy food!!

Wooden pattern blocks

A cool educational toy!  Wooden pattern blocks (mine is from Learning Resources).  I printed off free shapes and patterns for my son to use.  It's a play manipulative that can teach patterns, but it also is just a cool toy for them to sit down and use some focus, concentration and attention to detail.

Halloween theme and the letter E!

We read the book Pumpkin Cat, which talks about a cat who wants to grow a pumpkin but doesn't know how, and his friend the mouse teaches him, but it requires a lot of patience.  It grows from a seed to a sprout, plant, yellow flower, green pumpkin, then orange pumpkin.  It's fun to learn these simple things in life, how fruits and vegetables grow.  I found pumpkin life cycle sequence cards, and C cut all of them out and pasted them onto a paper in an effort to learn to re-tell the story we read and the sequence of what we learned.

 I also made a Halloween sensory bin!  Dried beans this time with halloween things added to it.  Let the scooping and pouring begin!

Here are a few other fall themed learning things I printed off the internet to do.  I like to put these things on trays I bought from Oriental Trading Co.  Putting the activities on trays helps give it an organizational feeling for both of us.  C knows that what is on the tray are activities for him to do that day.  It kind of sets expectations, like to say, here's your trays of things to do today!  I got the tray idea from:  http://www.1plus1plus1equals1.net/

This is a scarecrow picture with numbers 1-10 on the side, I cut them into strips and C put the "puzzle" back together.

Pumpkin pattern cards:

And here's an example of our week of "the letter E".  He can obviously recognize all the letters of the ABC's, but using each letter as the center of a theme each week is fun, then we go more in depth with things using that letter.  I blotted out their names next to the airplane and apple on our board, but C practices spelling their names everyday.  I like putting up positive affirmations (example: "I can do good deeds, I can be nice to people, I can help others, I can use good manners, I can try to be more like Jesus").  I change this board weekly.  I get most of my printables from :
http://www.1plus1plus1equals1.net/
http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/

These are neat worksheets from the websites I just addressed above.  On the left is a "letter hunt" in which C circles all the E's that he finds in the sentences.  Also a "sight word search" in which he circled all the words "is" placed among other words (a good skill for pre-reading).  We also print out pictures of things that start with the letter E and talk about the phonics, sound it makes.  And finally a print out of simple sentences that use the site word of the week (this on was "is") and he reads it by himself (mostly because he can understand by the pictures, but I point to each word to let him know that what he is saying, based on the picture, is actually printed words on the paper).

And an easy one, he lined up these elephants from small to large!

Fall theme learning

 C cut out shapes (he loves to cut, and even funnier, he loves to have a paper brown bag next to him to throw all his little scraps in, that's part of his fun).  Then he used his glue stick and glued the shapes onto it's respective matching shape on another paper.  The shapes had scarecrows in them to make it fun for fall!

Then we had a print out of a pumpkin.  I had printed off "letter tiles", laminated them and cut them (oh the work to save money!).  First I had him use all upper case letters to spell pumpkin, then all lower case letters.  We talked about the "P" sound and what spelling means.

Fun fall pattern cards!  Again, I printed them off a website, laminated and cut them.  I began a pattern and had him finish it.... pumpkin, leaf, scarecrow, pumpkin, leaf, scarecrow, pumpkin... This actually took a bit more teaching on my part to encourage him to think about what was going on here... but as soon as he got the hang of it, he did awesome!!

This is a fall numbers wheel.  Again, a printable I found, laminated and cut!  Then I wrote numbers on clothespins and had him count the pictures (pumpkins, squirels, apples, leaves, scarecrows...) and he had to find the correct number on the clothespin and clip it to the picture!  He did this fast, and liked it!  The other day he found this own his own and did it without me even asking.

These four papers are fall songs that I found and printed off.  We sang them and threw fake silk leaves around the house!  Example: Autumn leaves are falling down, falling down, falling down, autumn leaves are falling down, red, yellow, green and brown!  To the tune of London Bridge is falling down.  My little tot N really liked this one too!

Letter I

Here are some things we did with the letter "I".  

This is the board in our room.  I change it weekly.  We have letters, numbers, sight words, Bible verse and positive affirmations.

Here is C doing a "letter hunt": recognizing and circling the letter "i" within a sentence.

Here he cut out pictures of iguanas and he glued them onto the letter I.  Cutting and gluing is fun busy work, and good fine motor skills.  Then he drew his very first picture of a person!!

He colored this picture, and I had to help cut out this one (the tiny, curvy legs and arms) then he glued it onto the paper and we talked about our Bible verse of the week: "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" (Phil 4:13)

Tracing shapes!  With an iguana on the paper (I is for iguana)!

I love these dot-a-dot markers and free printables I found online!  I is for ice cream!

Most of these printables are found on:
www.1+1+1=1.com
www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com

Numbers fun!

Here are some fun ways to practice numbers with your tots and preschoolers:

Counting Bears!  A toy I bought on Amazon.  I put a number in front of each bucket and had him put the correct number of bears in each bucket.

And putting the correct number of cheerios on foam numbers

Have fun!

Fall sensory bin!

I did it!  I made my first "sensory bin" and in celebration of the first day of fall, I made it fall themed.  The theme reiterates what fall means to me (think: leaves, acorns, pine cones, pumpkins, corn, oranges and browns...)  Kids like to touch and feel different textures and things.  I have seen sensory bins on other websites and they say "my kids played with it for hours" and I have to admit, I thought- really?  Did they really play with it that long?  And my answer is- yes!  Yes, they do!  It's so much fun for them!  The main component of mine was rice.  C *loved* to pour it in and out of bottles and funnels, run his hands through it making train tracks, and sorting and moving around the little pumpkin jewels and glitter and silk leaves.  I added some dry beans and C was pretending to build a pumpkin patch and he would bury and plant the seeds, then they would "pop open into a pumpkin"!  I really had to watch N though because some of the things were too little and he puts things in his mouth still.  But overall, it was a big hit!

When it gets closer to Halloween, I'm going to add a few things related to that. I'm looking forward to making a Christmas one.  I think the secret will be to not let it sit out for too long to become just another toy.  Take it out, put it away, make it special.  Rice... who knew?

Water Bin Play

An hour of fun on a rainy day!  It started off as a way to keep my 1 year old happily and *quietly* playing while my 4 year old had his afternoon nap.

A bin from the Dollar tree with kitchen items like: funnels, spatulas, measuring cups, a few beach toys, and an empty vitamin bottle.  I spread towels out on the kitchen floor.

Then my 4 year old woke up and joined in on the fun.  It got bigger.  We added more things like ice cube trays and some of our plastic "counting bears".  C transferred the bears with some kitchen tongs from the water bin to the ice cube trays.  I noticed he was sorting them by color.  We poured water back and forth from measuring cups and even added a few ice cubes and bubbles from Johnson's baby bubble bath.

I encouraged them to keep it contained (no splashing or pouring water outside of the towel area).  It was a fun and different way for them to play.  It was so easy to clean up too, it's just water!  Pick it up and throw the towels in the wash and change their clothes.  Worth it!

Counting games

A great way to practice counting!

I grabbed kitchen bowls and put numbers 1-10 written on a piece of paper in the bowl then I had C drop the correct number of pom pom balls in each bowl.

Then I printed off a numbers game from:

http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/blog/2011/04/preschool-letter-t-for-turtle.html

C had to count the number of turtles and place the correct number in the box next to the turtles (I had cut out and laminated the numbers).

A great way to practice learning to pay attention to not counting the same one twice, and to not skip over and miss counting one.  A great lesson on concentration and attention to detail.  And he had fun!