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!